“In our labors for the reconstruction of society here, we feel more and more the absolute need of a sanctified and enlightened female influence; such an influence as is felt so extensively in America, and whose beneficent action is seen in the proper training of children, and in the expulsion of a thousand superstitions from the land.  Christian schools seem the most evident means of securing such an end.  Commerce and intercourse with foreigners, and many other causes are co-operating with missionary effort to enlighten the men of Beirut and its vicinity, but the women, far more isolated than in America, are scarcely affected by any of these causes, and they hinder materially the moral elevation of the other sex.  Often the man who seems full of intelligence and enterprise and mental enlargement when abroad, is found when at home to be a mere superstitious child; the prophecy that his mother taught him being still the religion of his home, and the heathenish maxims and narrow prejudices into which he was early indoctrinated still ruling the house.  The inquirer after truth is seduced back to error by the many snares of unsanctified and ignorant companionship, and the convert who did run well is hindered by the benighted stubbornness to which he is unequally yoked.

“While exerting this deleterious influence over their husbands and children, the females of the land have but little opportunity for personal improvement, and are not very promising subjects of missionary labor.  His faith must be strong who can labor with hope for the conversion of women, with whom the customs of society prohibit freedom of intercourse, and who have not learning enough to read a book, or vocabulary enough to understand a sermon, or mental discipline enough to follow continuous discourse.”

In the Report for 1852, Dr. De Forest writes:  “At the date of our last Annual Report, Miss Whittlesey was in good health, was rapidly acquiring the Arabic, and was zealously pressing on in her chosen work, with well-trained intellect, steady purpose and lively hope.  But God soon called her away, and she departed in “hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.”  The Female Boarding School has suffered much from the loss of its Principal, but the same course of study has been pursued as before, though necessarily with less efficiency.  One of the assistant pupils, (Lulu,) who has been relied upon for much of the teaching, and superintendence of the scholars, was married last autumn to the senior tutor of the Abeih Seminary.  The number of pupils now in the school is fifteen.  The communication of Biblical and religious knowledge has been a main object of this school.  All the pupils, as a daily lesson, study the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, first in Arabic with proof-texts, and afterwards in English with Baker’s Explanatory Questions and Scripture proofs, and they are taught a brief Historical Catechism of the Old and New Testaments.