Our schools are of two classes, the High schools or Seminaries for young men and young women, and the common schools for children of both sexes.  In the former, Biblical instruction is the great thing, the chief design of the High schools being to train the young to a correct and thorough acquaintance with Divine truth.  The course of Bible instruction conducted by Mr. Calhoun in Abeih Seminary, is, I doubt not, more thorough and constant, than in any College or High School in the United States.  While the sciences are taught systematically, the Bible is made the principal text-book, and several hours each day are given to its study.  In our common schools, likewise, Bible reading and instruction hold a prominent place.  Owing to the paucity of books in the Arabic language proper to be used as reading books, a reading book was prepared by the Mission, consisting almost exclusively of extracts from the Scriptures.  In addition to this book, the Psalms of David and the New Testament are used as regular reading books in all the schools.  There are daily exercises in reading the Bible and reciting the Catechism.  It will be observed from what I have stated, that the amount of spiritual knowledge acquired by the children, in the very process of learning to read, is not small.  Being obliged to commit to memory texts, paragraphs, and whole chapters, from year to year, their minds become stored with the precious words of the Sacred Book.  Very much depends upon the teacher.  When we can obtain pious, praying teachers, the Scripture lessons can be given with much more profit and success, and it is our aim to employ only pious teachers where we can get them.  And the example of the teacher receives a new auxiliary, as it were, in impressing these lessons on the mind, where the pupils can attend a preaching service on the Sabbath.  Sometimes a pressing call comes from a village, where it seems important for strategic reasons, to respond at once.  A pious teacher cannot be found, and we send a young man of well-known moral character.  But only necessity would oblige us to do this, and a change for the better is always made as soon as practicable.

Bible schools are a mighty means of usefulness.  I think nothing strikes a new missionary with more grateful surprise on entering the Syrian Mission-field, than to witness the great prominence given to Biblical instruction, from the humblest village school of little Arab boys and girls, to the highest Seminaries.  The examinations in the Scriptures passed by the young men in Abeih, and the girls in the Beirut and Sidon Seminaries, would do credit to the young people in any American community.  Bible schools are not merely useful as an entering wedge to give the missionary a position and an influence among the people; they are intrinsically useful in introducing a vast amount of useful Bible knowledge into the minds of the children, and through them to their parents.  In countries where the people as a mass are ignorant of reading, they are an absolute necessity, and in any community they are a blessing.  Had all Mission Schools been conducted on the same thorough Biblical basis as those in Syria, there would have been less objection to schools as a part of the missionary work.