In a letter addressed to the young women in the “Female Academy at Norwich,” February, 1836, Mrs. Smith gives a vivid description of the “average woman” of Syria in her time, and the description holds true of nine-tenths of the women at the present day.  There are now native Christian homes, not the least attractive of which is the home of her own little protege Raheel, but the great mass continue as they were forty years ago.  She says, “My dear friends, will you send your thoughts to this, which is not a heathen, but an unevangelized country.  I will not invite you to look at our little female school of twenty or thirty, because these form but a drop among the thousands and thousands of youth throughout Syria; although I might draw a contrast even from this not a little in your favor.  But we will speak of the young Syrian females at large, moving in one unbroken line to the land of darkness and sorrow.  Among them you will find many a fine form and beautiful face; but alas! the perfect workmanship of their Creator is rendered tame and insipid, for want of that mental and moral culture which gives a peculiar charm to the human countenance.  It is impossible for me to bring the females of this country before you in so vivid a manner that you can form a correct idea of them.  But select from among your acquaintances a lady who is excessively weak, vain and trifling; who has no relish for any intellectual or moral improvement; whose conversation is altogether confined to dress, parties, balls, admiration, marriage; whose temper and faults have never been corrected by her parents, but who is following, unchecked, all the propensities of a fallen, corrupt nature.  Perhaps you will not be able to find any such, though I have occasionally met with them in America.  If you succeed, however, in bringing a person of this character to your mind, then place the thousands of girls, and the women, too, of this land, once the land of patriarchs, prophets and apostles, in her class.”  “These weak-minded Syrian females are not attentive to personal cleanliness; neither have they a neat and tasteful style of dress.  Their apparel is precisely such as the Apostle recommended that Christian females should avoid; while the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is thrown wholly out of the account.  They have no books, and no means of moral or intellectual improvement.  It is considered a disgrace for a female to know how to read and write, and a serious obstacle to her marriage, which is the principal object of the parent’s heart.  This abhorrence of learning in females, exists most strongly in the higher classes.  Nearly every pupil in our school is very indigent.  Of God’s word they understand nothing, for a girl is taken to church perhaps but once a year, where nothing is seen among the women but talking and trifling; of course she attaches no solemnity to the worship of God.  No sweet domestic circle of father, brother, mother and sister, all capable of promoting mutual cheerfulness and improvement,