What can you expect of her? She is literally uneducated, untrained in every respect. She knows no more of domestic economy than she does of books, and she is no more fitted to make a house attractive or a room tidy than she is to hold an intelligent conversation. Married when she is yet a child, to person she may have never seen, and a mother at an age when she should be in school, there is no opportunity for her to become anything better than she is.
A primary intention in this school is to fit the girls to become good wives, who can set an example of tidy homes economically managed, in which there shall be something of social life and intelligent companionship between husband and wife. The girls are taught the common branches, sewing, cooking, and housekeeping—as there is opportunity for learning it in the family of the missionaries. This house of Dr. Hogg's, with its books, music, civilized menage, is a school in itself, and the girl who has access to it for three or four years will not be content with the inconvenience, the barren squalor of her parental hovel; for it is quite as much ignorance as poverty that produces miserable homes. Some of the girls now here expect to become teachers; some will marry young men who are also at this school. Such an institution would be of incalculable service if it did nothing else than postpone the marriage of women a few years. This school is a small seed in Egypt, but it is, I believe, the germ of a social revolution. It is, I think, the only one in Upper Egypt. There is a mission school of similar character in Cairo, and the Khedive also has undertaken schools for the education of girls.
In the last room we came to the highest class, a dozen girls, some of them mere children in appearence, but all of marriageable age. I asked the age of one pretty child, who showed uncommon brightness in her exercises.
“She is twelve,” said the superintendent, “and no doubt would be married, if she were not here. The girls become marriageable from eleven years, and occasionally they marry younger; if one is not married at fifteen she is in danger of remaining single.”
“Do the Moslems oppose your school?”
“The heads of the religion endeavor to prevent Moslem children coming to it; we have had considerable trouble; but generally the mothers would like to have their girls taught here, they become better daughters and more useful at home.”
“Can you see that you gain here?”
“Little by little. The mission has been a wonderful success. I have been in Egypt eighteen years; since the ten years that we have been at Assiout, we have planted, in various towns in Upper Egypt, ten churches.”
“What do do you think is your greatest difficulty?”
“Well, perhaps the Arabic language.”