Historically, studies of the history of modern education in Iran have tended to focus on topics such as the modernization of its educational system and its social and political consequences, the role of modern education in the emergence of the nation–state, important teachers and teaching, and, in a few cases, the history of specific institutions. Additionally, some studies have examined the role that foreign missionaries or key administrators and educationists have played in the last century. In such studies, scholars have explored historical documents such as textbooks, administrative documents, and governmental policies as key archival materials.
However, student culture and student learning have remained notably understudied. There is now growing interest in exploring the student-centered aspects of the history of modern education. To provide a more extensive and multilayered exploration, it is essential to make student journals and publications accessible, to historicize them, and to analyze their contents. Ali Gheissari's newly edited volume is a valuable attempt to recover a rare window into student life at the American College of Tehran in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This publication is a welcome contribution to the field; it brings student writings and publications into the broader field of education research. Other works in a similar vein include Tavakoli-Targhi's edition of Āyin Dāneshjuyān,Footnote 1 the first student journal of the University of Tehran, and Ganjavi and Mojab's exploration of Gāhnāmeh: Ān Zamān In Zamān,Footnote 2 a 1971 independent student publication from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Mashhad. More specifically, Gheissari's edited volume is a notable addition to our understanding of early modernization in Pahlavi education. This volume is an annotated transcription of a historical memorial collection, accompanied by a reproduction of the original.
The principally bilingual volume (in Persian and English, with one brochure in French) begins with the editor's descriptive and historical overview of the American College of Tehran (in Persian), including its administrators, and a list of teachers. This context sheds light on the significance of a distinctive memorial collection that had remained among the editor's family papers for nearly ninety years. The collection offers a unique view of the cultural and intellectual life of the American College of Tehran, inviting us to see the institution through a student lens. It also provides a vivid pictorial documentation of the life and culture of the institution at the time, capturing the inner atmosphere of the institution, its teachers and students, and key events in its early history. The editor has taken a painstaking and careful approach to transcribing all content and footnoting specific names in the collection. The volume also provides a colorful and high-resolution reproduction of the original album, and concludes with an addendum by the editor in English.
The student album is entitled Nāmeh-ye Nāmi-ye Nik-khāh (The Exalted and Benevolent Letter) and is a collaborative scrapbook compiled by Morteza Gheissari (1911–76), the president of the Anjoman-e Nik-khāh (Benevolent Society), a student club at the American College. Morteza Gheissari, the father of the editor, was a student at the American College from 1929 to 1932. Unfortunately, Morteza Gheissari did not include more detail on the history of this student club in his documents. Nevertheless, in one of the essays, S. Mohammad-Ali Modarresi Tabari narrates a conversation he had with a member of this club, in which the member shared some insights about the club's ethical manifesto: “The ultimate objective of this club is to add to the literary legacy of Iran through publication of works by contemporary poets, and writers” (p. 36). Further inquiries into this society and other early Pahlavi student clubs and student organizations would contribute to the long overdue task of historical inquiry into the formation of student organizations in modern Iran and their literary, political, and social legacies.
The essays and articles were compiled between 1929 and 1932 and were written by fellow students, occasional senior figures who visited the school, and several teachers. The list of luminaries who contributed (often in their own handwriting) to the album is extensive. Because some authors were not teachers or students at the college, the complier must have approached each of them, probably during their visit to the college, with an already printed, decorated folio, requesting original contributions. The written materials are in many formats, from careful handwriting to various type fonts, which might be of interest to historians of handwriting and typography. Some of the original photos included in the album are unique, and a few have only poor replicas elsewhere. All the folios were bound in 1932. Among Iranians, in the album the reader will find historian Sadeq Rezazadeh Shafaq (1895–1971) and Persian literati and poets such as Gholam-Ali Raʿdi Azarakhshi (1909–99), Fayz-Allah Sobhi Mohtadi (1897–1962), and Massoud Farzad (1906–1981). Non-Iranian contributors, aside from a few teachers at the college, include the educational leader Ralph Cooper Hutchison (1898–1966), art historian Arthur Upham Pope (1881–1969), and the great Bengali writer-philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941).
The album covers a variety of topics, including literature, arts, sports, Greek philosophy, ethics, architecture, compulsory military service, and women's rights. In defining its genre, it can be argued that the album is an attempt at a creative dialogue between the tradition of scrapbooks already in practice in American schools (but new to Iranian schooling) with the centuries-long tradition of Arabic or Persian commonplace books, such as kashkuls and jongs. The album includes original attachments in the form of clippings and images, but expands beyond personal narratives to include the multifunctional reservoir of texts suitable for the multifaceted readings that characterize jongs.
Some articles, as well as shorter entries, help us understand the discourse among students and teachers at the time, such as one article about the equal rights for women and men (by Taliʿeh Saleh), which argues against gender equality by emphasizing physical and mental differences. The author argues for the role of women administering the household and caring for children, also suggesting that women need not remain limited to these roles and should attempt to be active in society. This article and another on compulsory military training, written in English by Y. Simon, help us trace discourses regarding gender roles in the early Pahlavi learning environment.
One of the most compelling pieces is written by Hossein Hashemiyan in defense of the need for a “literary revolution” (enqelāb-e adabi) in Iran. The author argues that literary revolutions should precede political revolutions, and that it has been the inadequacy of a literary revolution in Iran that has resulted in the incompleteness of its political development. He states that because a literary revolution had not yet adequately developed, and consequently lost its path during a political revolution, literature had failed to achieve its goals, and furthermore was unable to change its course to influence the new political system (p. 57A). Given its publication date, such a critical approach to the dynamic relationship between political and literary revolutions, published in a student compilation, further historicizes the emergence of a sociological understanding of literature in the modern history of Iran.
There are questions that remain unanswered and require further investigation. For example, did the college advise or assist in any way with the compilation of this collection? Were such contributions considered in the overall assessment of a student's development and academic performance? Such questions might be answered if other studies of student life and culture at the American College of Tehran appear. Morteza Gheissari's final sentences in the introduction to his album imply that this was a pioneering attempt at the American College to create a new way for future students to compile and possibly publish works of a similar vein. Still, it is not clear to what extent this call was answered by later students, given the institutional changes that soon altered the course of the college's history. In 1940, this Presbyterian missionary institution (originally established in 1872) was taken over by the government and integrated into the Iranian educational system.
After the college was nationalized, its lively student life, consisting of student clubs, play rehearsals, and publishing the school's bilingual paper, Javānān Irān, underwent a gradual transformation in a school that, while preserving some of its historical legacy in humanities and journalism, prioritized assisting students to learn and excel in the exact and natural sciences.
