The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

"Let us put off the robes of sloth and inertness, and put on the dress of zeal and earnestness. We belong to the nineteenth century, which exceeds all the ages of mankind in light and knowledge. Why shall we not show to men the need of giving us the highest education, that we may at the least contribute to their happiness and advantage, and rightly train our children and babes, not to say that we may pluck the fruits of science, and the best knowledge for ourselves? Let them say to us, you are weak and lacking in knowledge. I reply, by perseverance and patience, we shall attain our object.

"Inasmuch as every one who reaches mature years, must pass by the road of childhood and youth, everything pertaining to the period of childhood becomes interesting and important, and I beg permission to say a word on the training of children.

"When it pleased God to give us our first child, I determined to train it according to the old approved modes which I had learned from my family relatives and fellow-countrywomen. So I took the baby boy soon after his birth, and put him in a narrow cradle provided with a tin tube running down through a perforation in the little bed, binding and tying him down, and wrapping and girding him about from his shoulders to his heels, so that he was stiff and unmovable, excepting his head, which rolled and wriggled about from right to left, with the rocking of the cradle, this rocking being deemed necessary for the purpose of inducing sleep and silence in the child. My lord and husband protested against this treatment, proving to me the evil effects of this wrapping and rocking, by many and weighty reasons, and even said that it would injure the little ones for life, even if they survived the outrageous abuse they were subjected to. I was astonished, and said, how can this be? We were all trained and treated in this manner, and yet lived and grew up in the best possible style. All our countrymen have been brought up in this way, and none of them that I know of have ever been injured in the way you suggest. He gave it up, and allowed me to go on in the old way, until something happened which suddenly checked the babe in his progress in health and happiness. He began to throw up his milk after nursing, and to grow ill, giving signs of brain disease, and then my lord said, you must now give up these customs and take my counsel. So, on the spur of the moment, I accepted his advice and gave up the cradle. I unrolled the bindings and wrappings and gave up myself to putting things in due order. I clothed my child with garments adapted to his age and circumstances, and to the time and place, and regulated the times of his eating and play by day, and kept him awake as much as might be, so that he and his parents could sleep at night. I soon saw a wonderful change in his health and vigor, though I experienced no little trouble from my efforts to wean him from the rocking of the cradle to which he was accustomed. My favorable experience in this matter, led me to use my influence to induce the daughters of my race, and my own family relatives, to give up practices which are alike profitless, laborious and injurious to health. My husband also aided me in getting books on the training of children, and I studied the true system of training, learning much of what is profitable to the mothers and fathers of my country in preserving the health of their children in mind and body. The binding and wrapping of babes in the cradle prevents their free and natural movements, and the natural growth of the body, and injures their health."

The next paper is from the pen of Khalil Effendi, editor of the Turkish official journal of Beirût. It appeared in the columns of the "Hadikat el Akhbar" of January, 1867. It represents the leading views of a large class of the more enlightened Syrians with regard to education, and by way of preface to the Effendi's remarks, I will make a brief historical statement.

The Arab race were in ancient times celebrated for their schools of learning, and although the arts and sciences taught in the great University under the Khalifs of Baghdad, were chiefly drawn from Greece, yet in poetry, logic and law the old Arab writers long held a proud preëminence. But since the foundation of the present Ottoman Empire, the Arabs have been under a foreign yoke, subject to every form of oppression and wrong, and for generations hardly a poet worth the name has appeared excepting Sheikh Nasif el Yazijy. Schools have been discouraged, and learning, which migrated with the Arabs into Spain, has never returned to its Eastern home. There are in every Moslem town and city common schools, for every Moslem boy must be taught to read the Koran; but with the exception of the Egyptian school of the Jamea el Azhar in Cairo, there had not been up to 1867 for years even a high school under native auspices, in the Arabic-speaking world. But what the Turks have discouraged and the Arab Moslems have failed to do, is now being done among the nominal Christian sects, and chiefly by foreign educators. During the past thirty years a great work in educating the Arab race in Syria has been done by the American Missionaries. Their Seminary in Abeih, on Mount Lebanon, has trained multitudes of young men, who are now scattered all over Syria and the East, and are making their influence felt. Other schools have sprung up, and the result is, that the young men and women of Syria are now talking about the "Asur el Jedid," or "New Age of Syria," by which they mean an age of education and light and advancement. The Arabic journal, above referred to, is owned by the Turkish government, or rather subsidized by it, and its editor is a talented young Greek of considerable poetic ability. It is not often that he ventures to speak out boldly on such a theme as education, but the pressure from the people upon the Governor-General was so great at the time, that he gave permission to the editor to utter his mind. I translate what he wrote, quite literally.

"There can be no doubt that the strength of every people and the source of their happiness, rest upon the diffusion of knowledge among them. Science has been in every age the foundation of wealth and national progress, and since science and the arts are the forerunners of popular civilization, and the good of the masses and their elevation in the scale of intellectual and physical growth, therefore primary education is the necessary preparation for all scientific progress. And in view of this, the providence of our most exalted government has been turned to the accomplishment of what has been done successfully in other lands, in the multiplication of schools and colleges. And none can be ignorant of the great progress of science and education, under His August Imperial Excellency the Sultan, in Syria, where schools and printing presses have multiplied, especially in the city of Beirût and its vicinity. For in Beirût and Mount Lebanon, there are nearly two thousand male pupils, large and small, in Boarding Schools, learning the Arabic branches and foreign languages, and especially the French language, which is more widely spread than any other. The most noted of these schools are the French Lazarist School at Ain Tura in Lebanon, the American Seminary in Abeih, the Jesuit School at Ghuzir, and the Greek School at Suk el Ghurb, the most of the pupils being from the cities of Syria. Then there are in Beirût the Greek School, the school of the Greek Catholic Patriarch, the Native National College of Mr. Betrus el Bistany, and there are also nearly a thousand girls in the French Lazarist School, the Prussian Protestant Deaconesses, the American Female Seminary and Mrs. Thompson's British Syrian School, and other female schools. And here we must mention that all of these schools, (excepting the Druze Seminary,) are in the hands of Christians, and the Mohammedans of Beirût have not a single school other than a common school, although in Damascus and Tripoli they have High Schools which are most successful, and many of their children in Beirût, are learning in Christian schools, a fact which we take as a proof of their anxiety to attain useful knowledge, although they have not as yet done aught to found schools of their own. And though the placing of their children in Christian schools is a proof of the love and fellowship between these two sects in this glorious Imperial Age, we cannot but say that it would be far more befitting to the honor and dignity of the Mussulmen to open schools for their own children as the other sects are doing. And lately the Imperial Governor of Syria has been urging them to this step, and they are now planning the opening of such a school, which will be a means of great benefit and glory to Islam."

The editor then states that the great want of Syria is a school where a high practical education can be given, and says:—

"We now publish the glad tidings to the sons of Syria that such a College has just been opened in Syria, in the city of Beirût, by the liberality of good men in America and England, and called the "Syria Protestant College." It is to accommodate eventually one thousand pupils, will have a large library and scientific apparatus, including a telescope for viewing the stars, besides cabinets of Natural History, Botany, Geology and Mineralogy. It will teach all Science and Art, Law and Medicine, and we doubt not will meet the great want of our native land."

Five years have passed since the above was written. Since that time the number of pupils in the various schools in Beirût has trebled, and new educational edifices of stately proportions are being built or are already finished, in every part of the city. It may be safely said that the finest structures in Beirût are those built for educational purposes. The Latins have the Sisters of Charity building of immense proportions, the Jesuit establishment, the Maronite schools, and the French Sisters of Nazareth Seminary, which is to be one of the most commanding edifices of the East. The Greeks have their large High School, and the Papal-Greeks, or Greek-Catholics their lofty College. The Moslems have built with funds drawn from the treasury of the municipality, a magnificent building for their Reshidiyeh, while the Protestants have the imposing edifices occupied by the American Female Seminary, the British Syrian Schools, the Prussian Deaconesses Institute, and most extensive and impressive of all, the new edifices of the Syrian Protestant College at Ras Beirût.