Van, at the time of our visit, was the proud possessor of no less a dignitary than a Director of Public Instruction. Whatever may have been his full Turkish title, he was always addressed by the less ornate style of Mudir. By origin he was an Albanian, by religion a Mussulman; he spoke French well, and impressed me strongly as a zealous and capable man. It is a pity, and indeed a shame, that such material is not employed to fill the higher administrative posts. Although the Turkish schools fell more particularly within his province, to him was assigned the regulation of the Armenian private schools. They were constrained to submit their syllabus for his approval, and also their text-books. Changes or additions to their teaching staff were subject to the same sanction. I am not quite sure that these rules did not equally apply to the Church schools; but, however that may have been, they were in practice mildly enforced. The Turkish scholastic system, as it is operative in Van, comprises three grades. There is first the primary; then the secondary, which is termed Rushdiyeh; and last the college or lycée, called Idadiyeh. Of official primary schools not one existed prior to the arrival of the Mudir, only a few months before ourselves. The Mussulmans were in the habit of sending their children to small schools attached to the mosques. This practice had only partially been discontinued since the institution by the new functionary of six primary schools, numbering altogether some 240 boys. Of these fresh foundations I was only invited to visit one. Secondary education was dispensed in three institutions of the Rushdiyeh class to about 350 students in all. The Mudir was in hopes of opening an Idadiyeh during the following summer; and it was also his ambition that Christians as well as Mussulmans should attend the course. The bringing together of the two elements would certainly work to their mutual advantage; and the experiment might succeed if it were tried on social and educational grounds, and not as a political thrust against the Armenian schools.