the miserable condition to which the people — and woman in particular — had sunk. She said: "I could no longer bear, on top of all I had borne, what I saw in Aleppo, and I became certain that the best means of charity, and of preserving dignity, was to find honorable work for these wretched women, by which they might earn their food and clothing and the clothing of their children. Many family obstacles rose up in the face of my project, but my perseverance removed them all. At last I was able to win my brother over to my side, so I gathered a fair number of girls and brought them to Aleppo, having rented a spacious house, and in a short time I obtained a license to open a crafts school.

The work they were set to was: sewing, embroidery, needlework of every kind, artificial flowers, and carpet-weaving, at the hands of specialists whom I employed for

the purpose. No sooner had news of this institution spread than I saw a new kind of unfortunate being dropped at the door of the house under cover of darkness. Their mothers — on whom life had borne down hard, dragging them into the inferno for the sake of a loaf of bread — had left them there, and I was obliged to take in ten of them. I took out a license to open an orphanage. And I used to prevent the mothers from visiting their children, lest they be affected by their morals. Orphan girls came flocking to the institution, but I could accept only a limited number, in view of the enormous expenses the institution required."

I said: And until when did you

keep these refugee girls?

She answered: I did not allow a girl to leave the institution until she had reached the age of thirteen and had mastered a craft by which to secure her living, and I would find her work in a wholesome moral atmosphere.

I said: And what is the place of learning in this crafts institution?

She said: Though I never studied at a high school — I learned the elements of Arabic reading and writing at home — I realized that learning is the foundation of everything. So at the start I set about teaching reading and writing myself, together with some women teachers. When the mothers learned of this they protested strongly against it, for learning in those days was in their eyes unnecessary for girls... if it was not indeed a corrupter of their morals...