though events have left her desolate today; she reclines upon her bay like a peninsula, or like a lioness that seems heavy with young while in truth she is poised to spring, or like — with her lofty minarets and shattered walls — a prisoner who has broken his chains and stood erect to reclaim his freedom anew.

The car went on threading its way through the Plain of Sharon, fragrant with the scent of its flowers — narcissus and lily, anemone and iris — those flowers than which Solomon found nothing lovelier to liken to his beloved, whispering from the depths of a heart crowded with fair women: "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters."

I turned to my companions in the car around me, and there they were: an old lady whom white hair had cloaked, laying beauty upon a beauty she had kept despite the turning of the years, and young men in the ages of the full moon, of whom the poet said, "Tomorrow is ours."

There was no avoiding conversation — the road was long, and the companion beside me was genial and cheerful, a young woman in an old woman's clothes, a girl in an aging body. She told me of her happy past, which she had defied the days to make happy, conquering the pain that must needs mingle with life. She told me of her fortunate family, husband and children — and no wonder, for she had breathed her lofty spirit into their spirits and made of them individuals who know how to meet the days' adversities with the smile of resolve. Then, when she went on to tell me of her English education and the valuable books she had read, I saw one of the young men turn toward us with a mocking smile on his lips. The quick-witted old lady caught it and hastened to say: "Do you wonder, my son, at my English learning? I was speaking the language before you were born..." The youth laughed and said: "Really, grandmother?" "Without a doubt," she said. "Come, let us do the reckoning: how old are you?" The youth said, "Twenty." She said, "And I am sixty, and I have spoken English since I was twenty. Do you not see, then, that I was speaking it twenty years before you were born??" The youth laughed, and we laughed, and the car went on bearing us along, leaving behind it Haifa, neighbor of Carmel since ancient times, city of clamor and movement, and — as they expect it to become — the port of the Mediterranean in the near tomorrow.

That is a story from the very heart of life, and it set me thinking of the women's renaissance in Palestine. So when I heard people speak of the daughter of my coun

try as they speak of an illiterate marching at the rear of life's procession, I set out to search and to inquire, and then to present them to the people, to truth, and to history as they are — not as they were portrayed by pens that passed through the country in fleeting passage and formed an opinion resting on no research or scrutiny.

Palestine has been, ever since it existed, the focus of the Western world's gaze — that world which for a century kept watching for opportunities to pounce upon the sick man, as Turkey used to be called. Educational colonialism is the prelude to political colonialism: it is the preparing of the rising generation, men and women, to love the colonizer. That was a doctrine which held that whoever is schooled in a people's culture must come to adore them — and the days have shown the error of that doctrine. Thus the West raced to found schools in the Arab lands generally and in Palestine especially. In every city, and in most of the villages, you would see English, French, American, German, and Russian schools; even the Swedes founded themselves a school in the Holy Capital. Did all of these think of colonizing us, or did some of them do good simply for the sake of good? Did the Swedes, too, think of colonizing us, or are they among the good small peoples who draw near to God simply for nearness' sake, by dwelling beside the cradle of Jesus alone? God knows. In any case, and whatever the intention, justice and fairness require us to record an established fact: these schools were among the greatest factors in spreading learning and in drawing woman eagerly toward it.

The oldest founders of girls' schools in Palestine were the Sisters of St. Joseph, who in 1848 founded a number of schools in various cities; the largest of these schools is in Jerusalem, and it has today become a complete elementary and secondary school. A year after its founding, the "Talitha Kumi" boarding school for girls was founded, but it is still elementary.

In 1867 the English arrived with their society known as the CMS and founded a girls' school in nearly every city and village — so much so that small villages like al-Rayna and Kafr Kanna, or Cana of Galilee, near Nazareth, whose population did not then exceed a thousand souls, each had in 1885 an elementary school containing 70 pupils. In the same year they also founded the girls' boarding school in Nazareth, whose enrollment averages 120 pupils; it is thriving with them to this day.

In 1869 the American Friends founded eleven schools in the towns and villages, and then in 1882 founded two boarding schools in Ramallah near Jerusalem, one of them for girls, ending at the third secondary class; the number of pupils in it and in the day school beside it is 260.

In 1880 the Society of the Sisters of Zion founded a school which in 1933 became a complete secondary school and is still working actively in Jerusalem; likewise the Franciscan Sisters and the Sisters of Charity each founded a school for their order in 1885.