APPENDIX C
American Consulate,
Aleppo, Syria, December 15, 1913.
Subject: TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
(Consul, Jesse B. Jackson, Aleppo, Syria.)
The Honourable,
The Secretary of State,
Washington.
Sir:
I have the honour to report as follows concerning the treatment of children by the various races and sects in Aleppo Consular District, viz.:
In many ways the treatment of children by the various races and sects inhabiting Northern Syria differs vastly from that practised in other countries. Strangely similar in one particular to the custom of the American Indian, immediately after birth the child is wrapped in cloths until it resembles the form of a mummy of ancient Egyptian times, in which state it is kept and carried about by nurses and small children until it is considered old enough to learn to walk, when it is given the freedom of its limbs. Very young babies must suffer considerably by this treatment, evidenced by their constant restlessness and crying, no doubt preventing the baby from attaining to its natural strength and activity until after it has been free for some months. During cold weather a ball of a certain kind of clay about the capacity of a quart is heated and kept wrapped at the feet of the infant to prevent it catching cold. Among certain of the lower classes the illness of a girl baby does not cause the anxiety that it does in the case of a boy, consequently causing a much higher rate of mortality among the female than the male children.
Among the Arabs, as soon as the children of the tribesmen are six or seven years old they are put to herding sheep and goats, which vocation they generally follow during their lives, never going to school or having any kind of instruction. The sons of the sheiks (chiefs) of the tribes are either sent to school in the cities, or a private tutor, usually a “hodja” (Mohammedan teacher or priest), is engaged, while the girls are given no education whatever.