to buy school supplies for a little girl, begging and pleading that she be accepted at the government school; and drives that same class to cut yet another morsel from their children's mouths to pay the fee of the private school. And when you consider that a city like Acre, whose population does not exceed 16,000 souls, contains one government school packed with 800 girl students and five private schools packed with as many again, you will grasp the measure of this thirst for learning and the rush toward it.

And now, here are some pictures from the very heart of reality on this educational front; I do not believe any nation on earth could offer their like. Study them, and judge for yourself.

Five or six little girls from a certain village, none of them past her tenth year, carry their food and their books and walk on foot to the neighboring village to receive their lessons at the school there, which is larger than their own village school... They set out in the morning and return in the evening, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

A room in the city, lodging four or five girls: they were the top class in the village school, and they left it for the city to complete their education... They prepare their food with their own hands by night and study by day. Does this not give you a picture of the Arab girl, her energy and her self-reliance??

A few small villages — such as "al-Shajara," "Sutam," and others — have no schools for girls. The people petition, and press their petition, that the girls be admitted to the boys' school... and when they obtain it, they break with traditions and customs and seat the girl beside the boy to receive her lessons...

A village called "Ayn Ghazal," in the district of Haifa, with a thou-sand and some hundreds of inhab-itants, had a dilapidated school for boys. The people collected a sum of money to repair it, then decided to build with it a new school of three rooms; and when the walls rose, enthusiasm stirred in every breast, and they swore it should

be nothing less than five rooms... They collected money afresh from the village itself and completed the school... Then they repaired the old one and turned it into a school for girls... A girls' school in a village of no more than 150 houses...

As for the last picture, it is perhaps the humblest of them all. We were on our way to Haifa... and we passed by the "Arab al-Ghawarina," a few Bedouin families who pitch their tents beside the palm grove and shelter there summer and winter... On the motor road stood a few children of these Bedouin, raising their hands to signal us to stop, and we stopped. The little ones came forward, imploring us to take them along to Haifa, to school, because they had missed the train. We did — and how delighted they were!... We reached the city and they got down, and the eldest of them stood undoing a knot in a rag he drew

from his breast, then held out his hand to us with three piasters, the fare for the car... We laughed until we could laugh no more, and gave the little coins back to the children. And how wondrous was the faith of an Eastern child, lifting his hands to heaven and calling out as we drove away: "Go, and may God prosper you!"

O nation whose awakening is such that the ruler beholds it and marvels, and the invader beholds it and his heart quakes as he says: We are stronger than you in money and in everything, but we fear nothing so much as this rush toward learning! O nation in which the renaissance of woman rests upon strong foundations of learning... go forward with God's blessing — and tomorrow is yours, God willing.

Orosdi

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Orosdi

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