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parent or guardian is required to sign a bond, agreeing to leave the child for that period, or if the child is withdrawn before that time, to pay to the Deaconesses all that has been expended upon her.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 everywhere, unscrupulous and intriguing, counting all means as right, which promote their own end.

THE BRITISH SYRIAN SCHOOLS.

These Schools, so numerous and widely extended, have grown up since the massacre year 1860.  I remember well the first arrival of Mrs. Bowen Thompson in Beirut, and her persevering energy in forming her little school for the widows and orphans of Hasbeiya, Deir el Komr and Damascus.

From that little beginning in 1860, the school increased the following year, until finally other branch schools were organized in Beirut and Lebanon, and then in Damascus and Tyre, until now, the following schedule, furnished to me by the officers of the Institution, will show to what proportions the enterprise has grown.  The Memoir of Mrs. Thompson, entitled “The Daughters of Syria,” gives so full a history of these schools, that I need only refer the reader to that volume for all the information desired.  Since the lamented death of Mrs. Thompson, the direction of the schools has been entrusted to her sister, Mrs. Mentor Mott.  The Central Training School in Beirut was under the care of Mrs. Shrimpton, who labored with great earnestness and wisdom in that important institution until the spring of 1873, when she resigned her position and became connected with the work of Female education under the American mission in Syria.  She was aided by English and native teachers.  The schools in Zahleh, Damascus, Hasbeiya and Tyre are under the care of English and Scotch ladies, who have certainly evinced the most admirable courage