Introduction
Arc's wealth is partly the product of centuries of skillful control over flows of trade and finance across the Arclands and the rest of Aestis, but it is also predicated on the existence of a large and relatively educated workforce within the city and its sattelites. Arc relies on an overlapping system of educational institutions to provide for different tiers of its society, the wealthy of the city are, of course, given opportunities that the poorer citizens can only dream of. The ruling classes of Arc have a close relationship with the elite scholastic houses of Harenis and send their offspring there to be educated (though this is sometimes merely a formality).
This is the first of two articles on education in Arc, the second will feature education for the poor
Education for the wealthy
Across the Arclands, there is mounting suspicion that the current generation Arc's mercantile and banking classes are not as well educated as their forebears, despite the money that is devoted to teaching them. Part of the reason for the generation of 'Golden Knuckles' as they are mockingly described as, is the fact that wealth is increasingly accrued in Arc through the extraction of debt from the citizenry. Young scions of banking clans do not have to be knowledgeable or trained in focused critical thought in order for the family enterprise to continue accruing huge profits. Instead, the Golden Knuckle generation have impressive educational credentials which are largely unearned and undeserved. Typically, a family like the Korda banking dynasty would call upon the services of one of the Poruthin, a small group of educators with close links to the Protectorate. They Poruthin teachers educate the children of the wealthy from the age of five upwards in the Vannic language and script, protocol, Protectorate law, manners and deportment, courtly manners, falconry, swordsmanship and music. A Poruthinic education is immensely valuable and opens doors to its recipients in the wealthiest circles of Arc's society, it virtually ensures a place at an elite Harenian school or access into a cavalry regiment as a squire in one of
The Armies of Arc. For centuries Poruthunic learning was regarded as being an essential body of learning for the next generation of the Arc Empire and later Protectorate's elites. Those that had been educated by the Poruthin within Arc and beyond felt deep bonds of affinity to one another and the children on monarchs and rulers from across Aestis would be sent to Arc to acquire Poruthinic learning in order to give them the education and deportment that it was imagined rulers would have. For at least a thousand years, elites from as far away as Ghotharand and Oloris have been able to speak to one another in High Vannic, to greet one another in the manner of an Arcish courtier, and have written to one another using Poruthinic protocols. Across the Arclands, only
Skaris deliberately sits outside this system of elite pedagogy, and beyond the Arclands, the rulers of the Outer Kingdoms all spend considerable sums of money to have their children educated in Poruthinic learning in Arc. This has bred resentment among rival nobles and gentry classes, especially in Ghotharand, that the heirs of King Roharradh now speak like Arclanders, not Ghothars. Poruthinic scholars were once motivated by a sense of civic duty and responsibility, the idea that by educating the next generation of Arc's rulers that the empire and everything it stood for would be safeguarded. The role that greed had played in the corruption of the Protectorate had changed how the Poruthinic scholars themselves, they now sell their skills to the wealthy and powerful, and as a result the value of the Poruthinic education has been downgraded and is viewed with growing indifference by those who once reverred it. Poruthinic scholars have acquired many immitators and there are countless frauds claiming to offer Poruthinic learning but who have no understanding of the dedication and knowledge required.
Harenis - The City of Spares
No Arcish banker or merchant really expects their children to learn anything in
Harenis , but it is where approximately one third of all of Arc's wealthy youth are sent once their Poruthinic education comes to an end. Whilst older siblings inherit family businesses or find roles in the service of the Protector, younger siblings for whom there is no immediate role are sent to the great scholastic city ostensibly to continue their learning. In reality, the purpose of sending a young person to Harenis is to get them out of the way for several years until the succession of family wealth from parent to eldest sibling is complete. It it hoped that younger siblings might carve out some useful niche for themselves with the time and guidance from the scholars of the great houses of the city, but this rarely happens. Instead, bored, rich and frustrated Arcite dilletantes give scholastic work token attention, whilst drinking, gambling and duelling in a city they have no real understanding of. The threat that hangs over many of them is to be consigned to the Aruhvian priesthood, where the practices of piety, poverty, purity and purge would be imposed. This forces many Arcite 'spares' to keep up the charade of scholastic endeavour for years whilst spending their family's wealth. The masters of the scholarly houses have little problem with this arrangement, as it sees huge flows of Arcish Levats into the city, and they are all willing to compromise the integrity of their houses in order to maintain this. Those Arcite Spares who choose to engage in learning and study are hard to teach, as money has brought with it a degree of arrogance and ill-discipline. Harenian masters have found that they bore easily, are inattentive and mentally flit from one topic to another, learning in the most superficial of ways.
Education for the gentry class
The Gentry class of Arc, known as the Dureans (named after the Dures Road, where so many of their businesses and enterprises are located), who make up the middle and lower tiers in the
The Azure Chamber, have a more complex set of arrangements for their children's education. This is a class of well to do merchants, land owners and guild masters but they do not have the vast wealth of the elite classes in the city and Poruthinic education is normally out of their reach financially. Those seeking to hire a Poruthinic scholar without being able to demonstrate their family's lineage back to the birth of the Protectorate are normally politely declined (Poruthinic scholars have a vested interest in only serving the wealthiest and most genealogically superior clients). Those Dureans who try to acquire a Poruthinic education are usually seen by their peers as having ideas above their station or social pretensions that border on the ridiculous. The needs of gentry children are quite different from those of the scions of the great banks; younger sons and daughters of the gentry class, often far brighter and more industrious than their elite peers make up the bulk of Arc's administrators, army officers, lawyers and judges, meaning that there is a clear and identifiable role for many of them in ways that elude the children of the elite. Because most of the elite class are the scions of banking dynasties which, owing to the peculiarities of Arc's debt peonage have virtually guaranteed incomes, there is little incentive for them to act or think in any entrepreneurial ways. The Durean class's offspring grow up in a spirit of business dynamism and many of them in their late teenage years look either within Arc or beyond the city for the new opportunities. In the latter case, as a preparation for life as merchant traders their education is as crew on a three mast ship sailing from Arc across the Greater Arc Sea. Many new ships captains and merchant adventurers are educated in this way.
For other children of the gentry, tuition by a 'Boot Scholar' is available. Boot scholars are poorer than the Poruthins and barely acknowledged by their more prestigious peers. Boot scholars have earned their name because unlike the Poruthin, who arrive by sedan chair (or who live in the palaces of the rich), Boot scholars arrive at the homes of their students on foot, often clutching armfuls of books and scrolls. They have little knowledge of protocol and deportment, but are able to teach Vannic, history, cartography and some even teach the apothecaric arts. Well regarded Boot Scholars can live very comfortable lives with multiple students, but a majority live in small garretts in the north of the city, often drink too much and struggle to make a living.
Some of the children of the gentry class go to Harenis, some to learn law, others to find a scholastic master who can teach a particular kind of knowledge that aids the family business (teaching the language and customs of Oloris to Arcites families who trade with the Olorians, for example). Some gentry siblings, in a similar way to the Spares, are released from family obligation and allowed to live in Harenis, where after their initial stipend is spent, they are permitted to live and work as scholars in a field of their own interest. In this way, they are given their freedom in return for having no future claim on the family's wealth. Other smaller scholastic houses that dot the Arclands also become home to the liberated children of the gentry, and these can be found mainly along the great coastal road from Arc to Mirrorvale, many of which opened close to the southern keeps and fortresses of the
The Hipostic Knights.
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