The girls are not taught anything by the _taleb_, as, though the Koran implies that all children should attend the school, the Arabs consider that if their daughters were thus educated they might get to know too much, and as an old _kadi_ once said to me, “A woman who could read and write would find it too easy to communicate with her lovers.” At home a few have to say the various prayers, but usually their only instruction consists in weaving burnouses and carpets. They also are instructed in the art of cooking; their apprenticeship on these lines is very thorough, and they would beat any professional in a carpet-making competition. Their cooking is, of course, entirely Arab, and is often excellent, especially the pastry and the cakes. The rolling of the _kous-kous_ is their speciality, and though in European households only men act as cooks, they have to hand over the preparation of the _kous-kous_ to women. It will be seen, therefore, that as far as the Arab teaching goes, little boys and girls of an Arab family are practically ignorant of anything except the Koran by heart and household duties. There is, however, a French law which orders all parents to send their male children to the local school. This law is enforced more or less according to its locality. Generally speaking, in the north the children are sent to school as the parents realize the benefit gained by a knowledge of the Roumis’ affairs; the Kabyles are an exception, and they do all they can to escape from this foreign imposition. In the south, too, education is avoided by the nomads, for no natural dislike, but merely because the parents of the children consider that they are more useful at home helping them with their work than in learning to read and write. As, however, there is a law about school-attending, it would seem difficult to evade it, and whereas in the case of the nomads it is quite an easy matter, the people of the oases have to try to get round the schoolmaster. This seems incredible at first unless one knows the mentality of the French _fonctionnaire_ far away in the desert. Isolated from his kith and kin and living on small pay, he does not feel really bound to educate all the little wanderers who, he knows, will not profit by his labor. Those who do attend school are taught to read and write, geography, French history, and a little arithmetic. They usually leave their studies at fourteen and remember nothing a few years after, except the reading and writing. Those who stay on can develop their studies until they reach a standard which permits them to go up for the local examination enabling them to get small scholarships in secondary schools or at Lycées. Those who do very well are educated free at the École Normale, and on leaving are posted as teachers in the French schools. For others there is the Medersa and all the legal situations mentioned in a previous chapter.