in Persian, but in some foreign language, usually French,
which intensified their difficulty of apprehending.

Other private schools have also been started on similar principles in
various parts of the Empire. Even in Yezd a most excellent school on
similar lines is to be found and will be described later on.

Naturally the Mullahs look askance upon these Government schools, in
which foreign methods are adopted. The Alliance Francaise of Paris, which
has a committee in Teheran, has opened a French school under the
direction of Mr. Virioz, a certificated professor. The school has nearly
100 pupils, all natives. This is a primary school, of which the studies
are in French, but a Mullah has been added to the staff to teach the
Koran and religious subjects. In Hamadan, a large Jewish centre, the
Alliance Israelite has opened important schools which have largely
drained the American Presbyterian schools of their Jewish pupils. Other
secular schools, it appears, are to be opened in which foreign education
is to be imparted, and no doubt this is a first and most excellent step
of Persia towards the improvement, if not the actual reform, of the old
country.

Not that the religious education received from the priests was without
its good points. The love for literature and poetry, which it principally
expounded, developed in the people the more agreeable qualities which
have made the Persian probably the most polite man on this earth. The
clerical education, indeed, worked first upon the heart, then upon the
brain; it taught reverence for one's parents, love for one's neighbours,
and obedience to one's superiors; it expounded soft, charitable ways in
preference to aggression or selfishness--not the right instead of the
duty--as is frequently the case in secular schools.

But softness, consideration, poetry, and charity are things of the past;
they can only be indulged in by barbarians; in civilisation, unluckily,
there is very little use for them except for advertisement sake. So the
Persians were wise to resort to our style of education, which may yet be
the means of saving their country. They will lose their
courteousness--they are fast beginning to do that already--their filial
love, their charity, and all the other good qualities they may possess;
only when these are gone will they rank in civilisation quite as high as
any European nation!

The wealthier people send their sons to be educated abroad in European
capitals,