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In 1844 French colonialists invaded Dellys, the Algerian port town and its shores with the pretext of using it as an outpost to fight the Kabyle (Berber) resistance. The invading French Army settled and reshaped the town, dismantling the community’s institutions. In this paper, voices and discourses of Dellysians help the reader explore the initial damage to native institutions of learning, particularly Arabic language education and Quran studies as well as the consequences of colonial control of land and estates. The oral history and tradition embody the local dismay over the secular French school policy that developed exclusively for the colonial settlers and a minority of Dellysian collaborators. While the French celebrated the centenary of the empire one hundred years after the invasion of Algeria, an emergent nationalist consciousness guided mindful members of their community, a remembrance that is still penetrating. I argue that conscientious Dellysians not only reshaped Quran and Arabic schools, but also took French colonial schooling seriously as a pragmatic and instrumental bridge to their emancipation from colonial control.