Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

This big American college is doing so much good for Egypt that it is commended by the government and by every tourist who learns anything of Egyptian affairs. It was founded in 1865 and its first work was done in a donkey stable with five students. Dr. Hogg, a Scotch missionary, then constituted the entire faculty. It has now seven large buildings, which cover two acres, built around a campus shaded by date palms, and among its professors are graduates from the best of our colleges, including men from Princeton and Yale. It has not far from one thousand students, who come from all parts of Egypt and even from the Sudan and the other countries of northern Africa. These youths represent more than one hundred towns throughout the Nile valley and the graduates are scattered all over Egypt. Many of them are influential business men; some are lawyers, doctors, and teachers, and others are government officials. The graduates of the school are anxiously sought by the government as clerks. Their training is considered better than that of the Mohammedan colleges, where little except the Koranic law is taught, and they are found to be trustworthy and of high moral character.

From Asyut come the famous metal shawls of silver or gold on black or white. The bazaar is over a mile long, and before the days of railroads was the trading place of caravan merchants from the south and buyers from the north.

The Egyptian complained that under British rule not enough of his tax money was spent on native schools. Only twelve per cent of the men and less than two per cent of the women can read and write.

CHAPTER XIV
THE CHRISTIAN COPTS

Many of the students of the Asyut Training College are Copts. They belong to that class of natives who are said to be the only direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The Copts are more intelligent than the Mohammedans. They take naturally to education, and about four Copts go to school to every one Moslem. They are also shrewd clerks and, many of them being educated men, they have a large number of the minor government appointments. The British, however, tried to be partial to the Mohammedans because they form the great majority of the population, and to give them offices in preference to the Copts. During Lord Cromer’s administration, a committee of Copts objected to his crowding out these native Christians and giving their places to the followers of the Prophet. Applicants for any government posts or for training schools have to give their names, and the Copts can thus be easily distinguished from the Mohammedans. The Christian boys get their names from the characters of the Bible, while the names of the Mohammedan boys come from the Koran. When the examination papers were turned in, the judges were said to have been instructed to mark down all those bearing such names as Moses and Jacob, Peter and Paul, and to recommend for appointment the Mohammeds, the Alis, and the Hassans. The British governing class considered that the Copt and the Mussulman, being alike natives, were generally not capable of holding any responsible position. And now it is said also that it would be bad policy to put the Christian Egyptian over the Moslem.

The Copts are the sharpest business men of Egypt. It is a common saying here that no Jew can compete with them and they have driven the Jews out of the upper part of the Nile valley. In Asyut there are a number of rich Copts who have become Protestant Christians, and some of these men are very charitable. One, for instance, built a Protestant native church, after a visit to England, where he was much impressed by Westminster Abbey. Upon his return he said he was going to build a church for Asyut on the plan of Westminster. The missionaries advised him to make his building rectangular instead. But no! it must be Westminster Abbey or nothing; and the result is a great T-shaped structure of wood with a long hall in the centre and wings at the end. The church cost about twenty thousand dollars and will seat one thousand five hundred people. I attended it last Sunday and found the main hall filled with dark-faced men in gowns and fezzes. The wings were shut off by curtains, but I was seated in front and so near one side that I could look through the cracks. Each wing was filled with women clad in black balloon-like garments and veiled so as to conceal all but their eyes. Yet a few women wore European clothes and French hats, showing how the new civilization is coming in.

Another rich Copt established two large primary schools at Asyut, one for boys and the other for girls. In the boys’ school there are five hundred and fifty pupils, and in that for the girls more than two hundred. These schools are taught by native Protestants, and not one cent of American money is spent upon them.