The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Fourth. Thomas Wallace Knox

SCENE IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL.

      "'The Khedive also did much toward giving Egypt a system of public schools like those of Europe and America. He appointed two Europeans to superintend the matter, and gave large sums of money for establishing schools that could be free to all, in addition to the primary schools already described. Foreign teachers were employed, together with the most intelligent native ones that could be found, and the system has already made great progress. The course in the lower schools covers four years of study, and after that the pupils may enter one of the higher schools and study medicine, engineering, surveying, law, mechanical construction, and the like. Those who can pay for their instruction may do so, but any pupil can enter whether he has money or not. Those who do not pay are liable to be called into the government service, and many of them are assigned to teach in the lower schools.

      "'The American and English missionaries have schools in various parts of Egypt, and have done a great deal toward the cause of education. For a long time they labored under many disadvantages; but of late years the government has recognized the importance of their services, and made large donations in lands and money for their schools. Miss Whately, the daughter of Archbishop Whately, has a school here in Cairo, which she has established by her own exertions, for the purpose of educating the girls of the lower classes; she devotes her entire time to this work of charity, and I am happy to say that she is fully appreciated by the native as well as the foreign population. It is quite possible that the example of this self-sacrificing woman led the wife of the Khedive to establish the schools already mentioned.

INSTRUCTION AT HOME.

      "'Probably the largest school in Egypt,' the Doctor continued, 'is the religious one attached to the Mosque El-Azhar. The building is of no great consequence as a work of architecture, as it consists of a series of porticos of different periods of construction; but it has long been celebrated as a university for Moslem instruction, and has had an uninterrupted career of more than eight hundred years.

      "'It is not only the largest school in Egypt, but probably the largest in the world, as it has more than ten thousand students.'