Herald of Steel

Chapter 682 Public School (Part-2)

If a modern person were to judge Pasha Farzah's reaction regarding the idea of general free education, he would almost certainly judge the old man quite harshly, branding him as stupid and short sighted.

But in reality, the old man was anything but those.

In fact, he was undoubtedly one of the smartest people Alexander had met, both in this and his other life.

And perhaps the biggest example of his brilliance would be when he had laughed out so loudly upon Alexander's plans.

This might sound a bit strange, but remember, the fact that he had laughed out so loud meant that he was instantly able to foresee all the problems with implementing it.

That was also why he thought Alexander had more money than sense.

But if Alexander was in his shoes, with the same experiences as the pasha, he most likely would have had the same reaction.

Because even for brilliant people it was very hard to see ten or even twenty years into the future.

Especially when there was no precedent to base one's assumptions upon.

Just try and find how many people could recognize companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, and Azamon as giant tech companies during their initial years.

And it would indeed take at least that long for the effects of mass education to show themselves.

Alexander was only able to confidently go ahead with this mind- numbingly huge expense without any worry because he knew his investment would definitely pay off, and pay off in dividends, for unlike Pasha Farzah, he stood on the shoulder of giants.

And being a modern he really could see the difference between a society widely educated and one not.

In fact here are some of the examples of conversations he had with random people during some of his city tours that went to illustrate his point.

"Zanzan is in Adhania. And Adhania is in Zanzan. But I don't know…. which is which." Said by a confused farmer.

"Don't know much about God Ramuh. He's no customer of mine." Carelessly said by a working girl while glancing at her nails.

"The first human must have been ….a hundred years ago."- Claimed by a traveling merchant, proud of his answer.

"The Grand Temple of Ramuh? That must be in…..Wari? Kuleef? Harim?"

Pronounced by an embarrassed farmer who did not even know the name of the capital of the country he lived in.

In fact, most people though knew they lived in a country called Adhania, really had no idea what that actually meant.

To them, the only man of authority that mattered was their local lord.

Alexander hearing those answers even felt ashamed of them.

And these were some of the good ones.

Alexander did not even want to remember the things people said about the sun, moon, the weather.

Hearing those answers Alexander felt he could empathize with the nobles who held a general disdain for the regular populace, looking down on them pretty openly.

Alexander would also look down on them given these stupid answers.

It had to be be noted that, it was not only the people of Zanzan that were stupid.

When Alexander was in Thesos, he noticed the general IQ there to be similar.

All of this went to show in bright contrast the difference between a society that underwent one to two centuries of compulsory education and one that did not.

And the reason why the people Alexander hung with were not like that was because being mercenaries, they had come across a lot of various types of people and seen and dealt with a lot of unique challenges, which helped them grow out of that type of thinking.

But not completely, as even Cambyses gave Alexander strange looks at the time he revealed his plans about the compulsory education, as she asked herself why her husband was wasting his time in such expensive but pointless endeavors.

"Will it be like a military training thing? Are these our new officers?" She asked, thinking that made the most sense.

The nobles also had a very rough equivalent of that, designed to teach their butlers' and stewards' children as well as some well off children of the general populace with the intention of training them to be low level officers

But Alexander would be a gross idiot if he spent so much to do that.

One did not need how to read and write to swing a sword after all.

And this was not the modern times where soldiers needed to handle complex machinery.

So if Alexander were to turn these people soldiers, he would be needlessly putting the people he invested so much in unnecessarily at risk.

But Alexander felt he lacked the capacity to properly explain to Cambyses how compulsory education could benefit them in the long run, except for only saying, 'Trust me, bro!'

And Cambyses for her part, after seeing Alexander was adamant did not bother him anymore, letting him do his thing.

She knew Alexander rarely ever did things out of reason and so patiently waited for the results to show themselves.

And thus the first free public school fully funded by a lord was established, a feat that was possibly the very first one in the whole world.

The L shaped one story wooden building was situated in the western residential district, and Alexander started initially with only a thousand (1,000) students aged between eight to ten.

The 1,000 number might seem like a lot, but remember, this was a city of above 200,000, with tens of thousands of children, whereas Alexander was only offering free education to just the lucky 1,000.

This was mostly because Alexander did not think he had the teachers or the infrastructural capacity to handle any more at the moment.

He would expand later.

So for now, he chose most of the boys from the families who worked at Alexander's various workshops, while a few others came from backgrounds such as traders and farmers.

And yes there were only boys for now as having girls attend a schoolroom and get an education was too scandalous of a thought, at least for now, though Alexander had plans to slowly try and change that.

But for now, these 1,000 boys were divided into two groups, morning and day shift, and made to attend school four days a week.

One group would start at 6 am and end at 10, while the other would start at noon and end at 4.

Both of them would have the same routine which was starting the class with half an hour of intense physical exercise, followed by a sumptuous meal, and then be taught for three hours, the time equally divided between three subjects: maths, language, and history.

Additionally, there would be one hour per week of the study of the Gaia faith, for obvious reasons, conducted by a priest from the Temple.

And yes, that meal, be it breakfast or lunch depending on the shift they were attending, would of course be provided by Alexander.

Meaning on top of everything, the young lord even had to bribe the children with food to attract them to come to school.

He even made the items on the menu appetizing, making sure there was some type of meat, egg, or fish every day, accompanied by seasonal fruits, and lastly followed by a glass of sweet juice, which was especially popular with the kids.

The five hundred students in each shift were divided into twenty groups of twenty-five each and the school employed a total of thirty teachers along with ten staff as guards, assistants, and maintainers, to teach them,

Each of these teachers taught only one subject, which was much different from the usual practice of one person teaching everything, but Alexander was a true believer in division of labor and wanted a master to teach the students, not a jack of all trades.

He did not think a person who teaches everything could effectively teach a student anything.

Thus each teacher was allotted four hours a day of teaching time, with two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon.

The layout of the classrooms was kind of the standard kind, with large windows on all four sides to illuminate the insides, and the teacher's bench at the front, but without the rows of benches for the students to sit.

Alexander at first had contemplated using benches and even making them tiered to make it easier for those sitting at the back to see in front.

But then he found a better way.

Instead of benches, the students sat on carpets laid across the ground, with a strip of sand in front of them separating them from their classmates.

This sand was there to be used as their scrapbook, something to practice their works in.

Alexander thought of this when he was trying to find a cheap alternative to giving each of the thousand kids expensive notebooks just for them to practice their work on.

Paper was still quite expensive, as were quills and inks, and Alexander would be truly a great wastrel if he gave out such free goods when such a cheap, free substitute existed.

But though Alexander saved a lot of money using these alternatives, he did not skimp when it came to facilities for the teachers.

He could have made the teachers also use the sand to teach the students, something that was the norm at the time, even among noble tutors.

Because remember, parchment and papyrus were expensive things.

So just for his school, Alexander invented the blackboard, which was just a large wooden board simply painted matt black, where they could write with chalk.