SYRIA AND THE BEDUIN
Soo—In your issue of July 6th an article, over the name of Brian Stuart, entitled " Syria and the Beduin," made the following extraordinary state- ment: "Thanks entirely to American effort and money, Syria, as a whole, is feeling the benefit of real education." The truth is, of course, that among foreign powers, it has been the French who have made the outstanding contribution to education in Syria and the Lebanon. The following figures speak for themselves. As early as 1912 there were some five hundred French schools with.over fifty thousand pupils (at the same period about seven thousand pupils were attending American and English schools). When the French took over in 1919, there were, as result of the war, only two private schools and a handful of government schools open. Before a year had expired, owing to the intensive educa- tional campaign undertaken by the Mandatory Power, and backed by liberal subvention, 668 private schools were operating, a large majority of which were French. The level of education in many of these French schools is certainly higher than that to be found elsewhere in the Levant.
Further, it gives a very unfair picture of university education in Syria and the Lebanon to refer, as does the author of your article, to the American University at Beyrouth and to ignore the University of St. Joseph, with its outstanding Institut de Letrres Orientales, whose record and reputation are no less excellent.—Yours truly,
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