Egypt’s 1830s military reform subjected schoolboys to continuous surveillance and graded punishments

Evidence

In the middle of the 1830s these men were responsible for drawing up a more comprehensive military training policy. The new plans called for the improved drill and training of the troops (February 1835), and a year later for the reorganisation of the military training schools. The latter plan called for a system of fifty primary schools for military recruitment, four in Cairo and the rest in the provincial towns. It laid down uniform rules governing discipline, physical fitness, curriculum, exams, clothing, rations, teaching staff, administration, and inspection. Students were to be under continuous supervision, not only in class but during their walks outside the school, during recreation, and in the dormitories. ‘Discipline was to be strictly military and punishments were to be graded according to the misdemeanour; a student could be reprimanded in the presence of the whole school, confined to school, imprisoned and given bread and water, beaten with the kurbaj, or dismissed from school.’ — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 143

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s disciplinary-institutions analysis in Discipline and Punish; also to your earlier material on trust constraints and monitoring (Opting out of the Legal System).