"We next asked what was taught in the schools for girls.

"More than half the time,' said the Doctor, is devoted to instruction in household duties, embroidery, and plain sewing, so that the girls

can become intelligent servants or wives. Then they are taught to read and sometimes to write, and if they show any marked aptitude for music, there are music-teachers for their special benefit. It was the idea of Ismail Pacha that the best way to improve the condition of his people was to make them intelligent, and to begin the work with the girls who are to be the mothers of the next generation of Egyptians.

"It was also his idea that the abolition of slavery would be hastened by training a class of household servants to take the places of the slaves. The indications thus far are that his idea was an excellent one, and the education of the girls of the working-classes of the people will go far in the right direction.

"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 con

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struction, 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 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.

"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.'

"Ten thousand students in one school?

"Yes, ten thousand students; the last year for which I have seen the figures there were ten thousand seven hundred and eighty students, and three hundred and twenty-one professors. The students are from all parts of the world where the religion of Mohammed prevails; but naturally the great majority of them are from Egypt. They remain from three to six years at the university, and pay no fees for instruction. The professors have no salaries, but depend upon presents from the pupils who can afford to make them, and upon what they can earn by private teaching, writing letters, and similar work. The poor pupils support themselves in the same way. Many of them sleep in the mosque, and the building has an apartment set aside for students from each country or province of Egypt. There is a library for the use of students in each of these apartments, and the university formerly had a large revenue, but it was taken away by Mohammed Ali, and has never been restored.

"The instruction in the university is mostly religious. When his religious course is ended the student is instructed in law, which is always

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based on the Koran; after that he devotes some attention to poetry, and, if any time remains, he may learn something of geometry, arithmetic, and other miscellaneous knowledge. Many of the students stay in Cairo, to become professors in the El-Azhar or other schools; but those from foreign lands generally return home when their course of study is over, in order to give their own people the advantages of the superior wisdom they have acquired.""

CHAPTER VII.

THE CITADEL.-THE TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS.-THE NILOMETER.-THE ROSETTA

DOCTO

STONE.

OCTOR BRONSON told his young friends that the finest general view of Cairo, and the surrounding region, was from the Citadel, at the southern end of the city. They went there several times, generally a little while before sunset, and the impression they received is well described in the following letter from Frank to his mother:

THE CITADEL, CAIRO, WITH MOSQUE OF MOHAMMED ALI.

"... The view from the hill where the Citadel stands has been called the finest in the world, or certainly one of the finest, and in all our travels we do not remember anything that can surpass it. We stood on the platform of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, and had the great city of Cairo spread at our feet. Immediately below us was an open square, with groups of people and camels moving slowly about. Just beyond was the beautiful Mosque of Sultan Hassan, and beyond the mosque was the plain covered with cupolas and flat roofs, seamed with streets and avenues, dotted with waving palm-trees, and revealing open spaces here and there,