great scampering, for everybody and everything must be in readiness for the half-past twelve dinner, as we make a point of absolute punctuality in this country where "to-morrow" is the habit. You may look in and see them-three long tables in one dining room, presided over by Spanish teachers, and two English tables in the other, with one of our own number at each, directing the conversation, and incidentally suggesting certain improvements in table manners. At one the bell is rung for our own dinner, but as those who have been at the girls' tables come in late, and one or two invariably leave at half-past one for extra classes or other appointments with the girls, I am afraid you will think our dinner a very informal one.

You will have very little leisure time after dinner if you wish to keep on with the daily program, for at two the girls are again at work, this time in the sewing classes, so important a part of every Spanish girl's education, and without which no girl can find a position as teacher. For these classes all sorts of nooks and corners are utilized, and our crowded quarters make hygienic conditions of light and space an utter impossibility. The girls' bedrooms and both dining rooms are called into use as well as the regular sewing room, and when the weather is warm enough the little garden is greatly in demand. We have a graduate course in sewing, and I am sure you will be interested in the evident pleasure of the girls in their work as well as the really beautiful results obtained in the advanced classes. They have an hour daily, a small proportion of time compared to the convent schools, but quite as much as can be spared from our very full program.

At three come gymnastics for some, and walks for others, and you will want to step out into the front hall where the roll is called for walks, and you will see the girls in their street uniform. In winter they wear dark blue three-piece suits, a dark blue hat trimmed with dark blue ribbon, piped with white, and black gloves. In summer the same skirt is worn with white piqué waists, white hats trimmed with white tulle, and white gloves. They look very pretty as they start out, and the long lines walking down the avenue attract very favorable attention.

Until a quarter to five there are no regular duties, although extra classes and special recitations are very often tucked into that little breathing space, and practicing and music lessons take advantage of all free time. From quarter to five till six there is study hour, and at this time the older girls are allowed to be in their own rooms, while the younger ones and day pupils assemble in the dining rooms, which, as you see, are seldom unoccupied. At half-past six the supper bell rings, and after supper follows an evening of study, whose length varies with the different ages. The first "Good nights" are said at quarter past eight, still more at a quarter to

1909]

The Pestilence that Walketh in Darkness

15

nine, and finally study hour ends for all at nine fifteen, leaving another half hour before lights must be out. Then, and not till then, is the house really quiet even as to pianos and organs.

And so your day in the school will have passed. Were you here over Sunday you would naturally see quite a different order of things, for in the morning all attend services in the different churches here in Madrid, and in the afternoon and evening there are Sunday school and song services and Christian Endeavor meetings. During the week the order is changed somewhat to make place for the Thursday evening section meetings, which we each have with our own little family group of girls, and Saturday evening is frequently given up to lectures or entertainments.

Now preparations are in progress for the new year, which promises to be a very busy one. Lack of both space and means requires us almost daily to refuse applications for the coming term.

This is a source of continual grief and infinite regret to us all, for every sign of awakening interest in the Spanish parents in the education of their daughters should be stimulated, and we feel it is checked by each refusal on our part.

Instead of this very unsatisfactory pen picture of our life here I would like to extend through you a most cordial invitation to each one of the ladies to come and visit this work, for which they are giving so liberally, and to see what their generosity has done for the homes and villages in which these girls' after lives are passed.

THE PESTILENCE THAT WALKETH IN DARKNESS

(We are allowed to print the following excerpts from a recent letter from Mrs. H. C. Hazen, of Tirumangalam, Madura Mission.)

A HINDU boy in our boarding school was dangerously ill with what the dresser called a very bad case of indigestion, but which we know now must have been the genuine cholera. Twice he seemed to be breathing his last, but the Lord mercifully spared him. He is a village munsiff's son, of the Nyak caste, and from a village where we have no Christians, and I worked very hard over him for six days until I knew I had reached the limit of my strength. My task was not made easier by the presence of six of his relatives, who were eager to show their love to the boy by giving him all sorts of food that would mean sure death to him in his feeble condition. Moreover they wanted all sorts of things for themselves, rice, wood, bottles, medicine, etc. On the sixth day that boy was so much better that I breathed three or four sighs of relief. But alas! another boy was stricken

down that Sabbath morning, and I ran back and forth in the sun caring for him until I had a genuine touch of the sun.

The boy seemed to be decidedly better at five P. M., and talked with his parents and brother who had come. I left him for a little rest, only to be

It was a His mother set up

summoned in less than ten minutes to see him breathe his last. shock to us all, for we had thought the worst was over.

the genuine Hindu shrieking, which curdled the blood of all the people on the compound, and especially of the boys in whose quarters the mother was. Instantly another very small boy began to show symptoms of the dread disease. We all thought it was fright, and that he would be all right once he were in mother's arms. Moreover I was too ill myself to care for him. So we sent him as quickly and tenderly as possible to his village which was near. The school children were all sent home either that night or the next morning. Five on the compound had slight attacks that week, two of them rather serious. I, too, was ill. I called it congestion of the liver from overwork and exposure to the sun. Friday and Saturday everyone seemed to be well, and I sat up a few hours in the afternoon. On Sunday morning one of our best teachers, a man whom we all loved and respected, and who had a most remarkable influence over the boys in the Hindu boys' school, died with the dread disease.

I

The next day Dr. Parker came in and took me to Madura. Mrs. Jones also came, intending to take me to Pasumalai, but I had already gone. had a good rest in Madura, spending most of my time in bed until Saturday when I returned home. In the meantime the boy who had helped most in caring for the first sick boy had been very ill in his village with cholera. He has quite recovered.

On August 3d in the evening the catechists came for their monthly meeting, and the children returned to the school. Just as I was concluding prayers the next morning a teacher called me saying a boy was very ill. Before I had left the veranda word came that the boy had died. I was ready to throw up my arms in despair, but for the children's sake I must be calm. The boy was not a boarding school pupil, but the brother of a new teacher and his wife who had come only four days before to take up work left by the teacher who had been called up higher. It took some time to ascertain and circulate this fact, and in the meantime three little boys were frightened into thinking they had cholera, although by that time we were happily able to tell them truthfully that the boy had not died with cholera but with heart failure. All that day I doctored and strove to amuse those boys, and at even time I managed to arrange for a little prize giving so as to cheer all the children.

1909]

El Azhar

EL AZHAR

BY E. B. S.

17

VISITORS to Cairo, Egypt, find Shepherd's Hotel conveniently located for their sight-seeing, since they have only to cross the park, El Ezbekiyeh, to reach the busy street of bazaars, where Oriental life surrounds them. Should they continue their explorations by following the street eastward for something less than a mile, they would come to an ancient mosque and celebrated school of learning, the Moslem University of El Azhar.

Imagine a stone building surrounded by narrow streets and close-crowding native dwellings, a building erected in the year 973 A. D., and devoted to religion and mediæval scholarship. As we enter through the gateway, our guidebook tells us that this is the most ancient university in the world, with the exception of that at Bologna. Here instruction of Moslem youth has gone on continuously since the tenth century, and to-day the same methods are pursued, the same subjects discussed as in early times. Its name El Azhar, signifies The Blossoming, but to a modern traveler its onetime flowers of intellectual activity seem to have shriveled into dry husks of sterile pretense, and to hang upon the tree of knowledge like last season's leaves upon an American oak.

Under one roof are gathered some ten thousand young Moslems, with two hundred and fifty or more professors. When pupils matriculate here, they step back into the manner of thought of ages long past. The terms of admission are ability to read and write, and a memory knowledge of at least half the Koran. If a student is blind he must, in place of the first requirement, have committed to memory the whole of the Koran.

Although the modern calendar has been adopted by the government of Egypt, in the university the year's length is still governed by the moon, and is of three hundred and fifty-four or three hundred and fifty-five days. No clock reminds one of the passing hours. The day is divided with reference to the five hours of prayer, and appointments are made "after morning prayer," or at certain times before sunset; these times are recognized by the length of the shadows in that cloudless land.

To an Oriental, noise is an essential condition of all work, mental as well as manual. No quiet lecture rooms are set apart for the professors, but in a large central hall, two hundred and forty feet by fifty, the classes gather every day with the exception of Friday, which is the Moslem Sabbath. The hall is divided by eight rows of marble columns, and at the base of one of these columns a professor seats himself upon a low stool, facing toward Mecca. Around him gather twenty-five or thirty young men, who dili

gently take notes of his explanation of the language and teaching of the Koran or of some of its commentaries. A visitor has described the appearance of this great court of the mosque as "like a field of red and white poppies swaying in the wind, the hundreds of turbaned heads bending backward and forward in a kind of studious ecstasy."

The aim of the teaching is not to awaken thought or develop the reasoning powers. All doubt is rigidly proscribed. All doubt is rigidly proscribed. "Believe and question not

is the rebuke administered to a too-alert mind.

The curriculum includes Arabic philology, Moslem theology and jurisprudence; in mathematics, algebra and geometry; in science, they name logic, ethics, rhetoric, prosody and verse. The beauties of the Arabic language (the language of the angels) are considered worthy of careful and long study. The most advanced pupils delight to find choice forms of expression for their appreciation of popular teachers. One professor is spoken of as "a lighthouse in the billowy sea of ignorance"; another as "a nightingale in the wood of knowledge."

The courses at the university are absolutely free. The parent receives no tuition bills, and no charge is made for board. But dormitories are unnecessary, for to the youths, according to their nationality, are assigned riwaks or corridor alcoves, whose walls are lined with long wooden boxes in which they may keep any changes of apparel. The students stretch themselves upon the floor of the great hall at night and slumber peacefully, wrapped in the thin cotton garment which they have worn by day. A small weekly allowance of money from home serves for the purchase of cooked food from a neighboring shop. From an ancient fund in the possession of the university a dole of bread is given to each student, 13,510 loaves being distributed daily, according to one account. The open corridor serves as dining room, where the sparrows will pick up any crumbs that fall.

Until recently the professors have had no salary, but have earned money by copying manuscripts or giving private tutoring. Now each receives a small monthly stipend.

The students are from widely distant places, and chiefly from the peasant class, although there are many from families of wealth and social position. All mingle freely, and a richly dressed youth of good family may be seen reclining by the side of a dark-skinned, and not too cleanly, Nubian, engaged in friendly discussion of the lecture which both have attended.

Islam is divided into many sects, and a professor may be found presenting his interpretation of a doctrine of the Koran to an earnest group of listeners, while his neighbor at the base of the next pillar is teaching a contrary doctrine.