rm quite a minority in numbers and wealth
among the foreign communities in Egypt. Since 1882, the year of
occupation, Great Britain has been careful to avoid interference with
the privileges and rights of all foreigners. In what community
controlled by France through sixteen years would it have been allowed
that an alien language should be maintained in use in public places.
No official step has been taken to diminish the use of French in
street nomenclature, or public conveyances, or public departments in
Egypt until last year. Arabic is the language of the people, and
English is the language of commerce in the country. A sensible change
in the direction indicated is at last evident, even in Cairo and
Alexandria. Shops and warehouses are displaying Anglo-Saxon signs, and
the natives are discarding French and are speaking English as the one
foreign language necessary to acquire.

There has been talk among our neighbours of emulating the Sirdar's
enterprise and founding French colleges at Khartoum and Fashoda. But
urged by less disinterested motives they may find it necessary instead
to devote their funds to the cultivation of the Gallic tongue in Lower
and Upper Egypt, rather than in the Soudan. In the year 1897, in
Tantah, the third largest town in the Delta, there were 130 scholars
learning French and but 40 studying English. In 1898 there were 98 at
the English classes and but a moiety at the French. The scholastic
year 1899, according to the officials of the Public Instruction
Department, will see a farther and even more serious decline in the
study of the French language. The French officials themselves are
painfully aware that the Gallic speech, for colloquial intercourse
between educated natives and Europeans, is doomed if matters continue
as at present. In Assouan, where during 1897 much the same state of
things prevailed as at Tantah; in 1898 there were 118 scholars
learning English and but three at the French classes.

Until quite recently, it was wont to be the case in Lower Egypt that
there were always two pupils learning French to one devoting attention
to acquiring English. In Upper Egypt of late years the difference had
not been so marked, the proportion of French and English students
being about equal. These figures refer to primary classes in Upper
Egypt, and to secondary, as well as primary, classes in Cairo and
Alexandria. As a matter of fact, the results of the examinations did
not follow in quite