CHAPTER XIII.

MODERN SYRIAN VIEWS WITH REGARD TO FEMALE EDUCATION.

In the year 1847, a Literary Society was formed in Beirut, through the influence of Drs. Thomson, Eli Smith, Van Dyck, De Forest and Mr. Whiting, which continued in operation for about six years, and numbered among its members the leading men of all the various native communities.  Important papers were read on various scientific and social subjects.  The missionaries had been laboring for years to create an enlightened public sentiment on the subject of female education, contending against social prejudices, profound ignorance, ecclesiastical tyranny and selfish opposition, and at length the fruit of their labors began to appear.  In the following articles may be seen something of the views of the better class of Syrians.  The first was read before the Beirut Literary Society, Dec. 14, 1849, by Mr. Butrus Bistany, who, as stated above, married Raheel, and is now the head of a flourishing Academy in Beirut, and editor of three Arabic journals.  I have translated only the salient points of this long and able paper:—­

We have already spoken of woman in barbarous lands.  The Syrian women, although better off in some respects than the women of barbarous nations, are still in the deepest need of education and elevation, since they stand in a position midway between the barbarous and the civilized.  How few of the hundreds of thousands of women in Syria know how to read!  How few are the schools ever established here for teaching women!  Any one who denies the degradation and ignorance of Syrian women, would deny the existence of the noonday sun.  Do not men shun even an allusion to women, and if obliged to speak of them, do they not accompany the remark with “a jellak Allah,” as if they were speaking of a brute beast, or some filthy object?  Are they not treated among us very much as among the barbarians?  To what do they pay the most attention?  Is it not to ornament and dress, and refining about styles of tatooing with the “henna” and “kohl?” What do they know about the training of children, domestic economy and neatness of person, and the care of the sick?  How many abominable superstitions do they follow, although forbidden by their own religions?  Are not the journals and diaries of travellers full of descriptions of the state of our women?  Does not every one, familiar with the state of society and the family among us, know all these things, and mourn over them, and demand a reform?  Would that I might awaken among the women the desire to learn, that thus they might be worthy of higher honor and esteem!

“Woman should be instructed in religion.  This is one of her highest rights and privileges and her bounden duty.

“She should be taught in her own vernacular tongue, so as to be able to express herself correctly, and use pure language.  Woman should learn to write.