Education in the first half of the twentieth century is characteristically described by Mrs. Maroudio, in a text by Maria Hatziandreou (under the title "Mrs. Maroudio" in Apoplous magazine, issue 35-36, Feb. 2006): The school had up to the eighth grade. When we say school, don't imagine anything big. Only two rooms existed in the (wine) cooperative. In one room the lower grade students were taught and in the other the higher grade. We went morning and afternoon and half a day on Saturday. The bell rang, we heard it and ran. We had to buy our notebooks and books. In the upper classes we had a big book that had (material for) all the courses in it: Greek language, history, physics and religion.
Mrs. Maroudio did not have a high opinion of one of her teachers, Manolis Chatzikonstantis: Chatzikonstantis would give us a writing exercise and say: "I'm going out to drink some ouzo." He was drunk all the time and sleeping on the chair. Manolis Chatzikonstantis was born in 1864. He married Angelina Stamatiou (1864-1930), daughter of Anagnostis (= church reader) Stamatiou, with whom he lived in Valeontades. Other known teachers of this period are Dimitrios N. Papageorgiou and Dimitrios A. Antoniadou, because they are mentioned as witnesses in deeds of the registry book of 1911.
In schools with one or two seats, i.e. with many classes, but few teachers, certain classes were necessarily understaffed during part of the hours the students were in school. A solution given to this problem was to have students from the upper grades teach the lower grades.
It should be taken into account that around 1910, Samos was still in the status of a semi-autonomous principality ("hegemony"), which still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Greek communities had to finance education themselves, i.e. hire and pay teachers, often on competitive market terms. Teachers who had served in Samos schools could seek their fortune in other islands and in schools in Asia Minor and vice versa. Remuneration could be regular, i.e. a basic salary, and extraordinary, e.g. money collected in the church on particular events and celebrations. Consequently a teacher depended on the favors of the local community.
Some names of teachers in Agios Konstantinos towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth emerge from official documents of the principality and further from documents of the Greek administration and are as follows:
- 1898 Miltiadis Papa Dimitriou
- 1899 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
- 1902 Manuel Papa Daniel
- 1907 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
- 1911 Manolis Hatzikonstantis, Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
- 1912 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou, Pelopidas Vasiliadis
- 1914 Christodoulos Maragos and Dimitrios Papageorgiou
Note that the prefix "Papa" in a surname denotes a priest, which means that their fathers or grandfathers were likely priests, while the teachers themselves were often (Greek orthodox) priests. In earlier documents the word "papa" remains separated from the rest of the surname, i.e. Papa Georgiou (son of priest Georgios), while in later documents the surname is a single unified word, i.e. Papageorgiou. Also, "chatzi", as in Chatzikonstantis, denotes a person that had taken a trip to the Holy Land.
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| D. N. Papageorgiou in Nenedes primary school before 1900 |
The teacher Dimitris N. Papageorgiou (1870-1959) was son of Nikolaos Papageorgiou and Vasiliki (1837-1907). He was appointed in 1890 (at the age of twenty) initially to the school of Nenedes (today's Ambelos), in 1891 to Manolates, then again to Nenedes and later (1898) to Agios Konstantinos. Between 1901 and 1905 he served as a teacher in the Greek community of Vagarasi (Asia Minor), appointed by the Diocese of Anea (a city opposite Samos). In 1906 he returned to Agios. In the first photo he is shown at the Nenedes school (courtesy of his grandson D. Z. Papageorgiou), probably in the 1890s. Later, in 1920, he is mentioned as a priest and in 1925 he is already vicar of the church of St. John, i.e. the main church of Agios (now heavily damaged by recent earthquakes). He was a man of great learning even by today's standards and possessed an impressive collection of books. At the same time he continued to work as a farmer. He died in 1959.
He was famous for strictness. Mrs. Maroudio says about him: In the upper grades our teacher was Papa-Dimitris. He was very strict, but also a good teacher. All the children who passed through his hands, all learned letters. As a punishment, he would have us kneel on sand and gravel. I got slapped by him once and it felt like my cheek came off.
The second photo shows the teacher Dimitris Papageorgiou with his students in Agios Konstantinos before 1920, i.e. before he became priest (courtesy of D. Z. Papageorgiou).
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| D. Papageorgiou in the school of Agios before 1920 |
The third photo shows the school of Agios around 1926, with teachers Kostis Chatzikonstantis (see below) and the (most elegant) Kalliopi Kalafata. Kostis Chatzikonstantis was born in 1892 and was the son of Pafsanias Chatzikonstantis and Grammati Dioletou. He was a dedicated and capable teacher. During the Italian and German occupation (in WW2) teachers continued teaching without ever revealing that they were not receiving a salary.
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| The school of Agios around 1926-27. |
An extraordinary subject was added to the curriculum of the schools of Samos for some years before 1910, namely the teaching of
Esperanto as a foreign language. The new course did not last more than 2-3 years, because the Esperantists were considered subversives by the principality administration.
After elementary school followed high school or the "scholarcheio". The "scholarcheio" was a three-year pre-secondary school that operated from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the twentieth and usually corresponded to grades 5 to 7, i.e. it came after a four-grade elementary school. Attending scholarcheio or high school was a difficult task, because students had to travel to the city, usually Vathi. In other words, a student was met with financial requirements equivalent to attending a remote university today. However, the student was still very young and indeed in a less tolerant society than today's. These facts made high school attendance practically impossible for girls. Boys' attendance in high school was also rare.
That is why it was not surprising that Evangelos Trovas from Valeontados (born in 1890, son of captain Hippocrates Trovas and Grammatiki Marathokambitou) was particularly proud of begin able to finish not only high school, but also get a university degree in philosophy. It is said that when he arrived at his grandmother's house, now a graduate, she called him by his name and he replied: From now on, you will not call me Vangelis, but professor. Later he became a professor and principal at the Pythagorean high school in Vathi (Samos). Today there is a street named after him in Vathi.
