schools are chiefly for boys, though in all the village schools it
is usual for a few of the smaller girls to attend the boys' school. In
Suk el Ghurb, however, they have a boarding school containing some
twenty-five girls.

THE PRUSSIAN DEACONESSES INSTITUTE IN BEIRUT

The Orphan House, Boarding School and Hospital with which the Prussian
Deaconesses are connected, were established in 1860. The two former are
supported by the Kaiserswerth Institution in Germany, and the latter by
the Knights of St. John.

In the Orphan House are one hundred and thirty orphan girls, all native
Syrians, who are clothed, fed and instructed for four or five years, and
often transformed from wild, untutored semi-barbarians to tidy, well
behaved and useful young women. They have ordinarily about fifty
applicants waiting for a vacancy in order to enter.

The Boarding School is for the education of the children of European
residents, Germans, French, Italians, Greeks, Maltese, English, Scotch,
Irish, Hungarians, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Americans and others. The
medium of instruction is the French language.

Since the Orphan School began, many of the girls have married, thirty
have become teachers, and about twenty of them are living as servants in
families.

In August of the year 1861, the Deaconesses had received about 110
orphans. The children entering are received for three years, and the
surviving parent or guardian is required to sign a bond, agreeing to
leave the child for that period, or if the child is withdrawn before
that time, to pay to the Deaconesses all that has been expended upon
her.

In the summer of 1861, several of the parents came and tried to remove
their children, though they had no means of supporting them, but the
contract stood in the way, and they had no money to pay. The Jesuits
then came forward and furnished the parents with French gold in
Napoleons, and withdrew in one day fifty orphan girls from the
institution, sending them, not to an institution of their own, but
turning them back upon their wretched parents and friends to be trained
in poverty and ignorance. A few days later, thirty more of the girls
were removed in the same way, leaving only thirty. The parents had a
legal right to remove the children on the payment of the money, but what
shall be said of the cruelty of the Jesuits who turned back these
wretched children to the destitution and misery of a Syrian orphan? The
Jesuits are the same ever