In one school only English is taught, in another advanced Persian and Arabic are added. In yet another, everything is taught from the Persian alphabet onwards. One missionary works alone in his own house, another has a full staff of Armenian and Persian teachers and monitors, and a well-built convenient school. But whatever the race of the boys, whatever the subjects taught, whatever the organisation, there are difficulties to be faced. It is difficult to get teachers; sometimes none can be got on the spot, and they have to be fetched from some other town, perhaps several weeks’ journey away. Sometimes the missionary has to be the only teacher till he can train some of his own boys to be first monitors and then masters in the school. Then there is the school itself. Sometimes the small beginnings of a school are started in the missionary’s own dining-room; sometimes he is able to spare a room entirely for school purposes. In one case this was supplemented by a rough tent or shed made of matting in the compound. But as the school grows, separate buildings have to be found or built. Books are another difficulty. All books for teaching English have to be got from abroad, and many are not suitable. Readers which are very suitable for the size of boy who reads them in England or India, are not suitable for the young men who often use them in Persia. If you give an educated young man, well read in the finest Persian poetry, the childish stories and rhymes in many of the readers, he thinks English books are very, very foolish, and his opinion of English intelligence in both literary and religious matters falls very low. All these things need money. The boys generally pay a very small fee and buy their own books, but the fees do not go far towards paying for the schools and the teachers’ salaries, and the getting together of the necessary money is another difficulty. The pupils themselves present three great difficulties. In our country boys under fourteen generally go to different schools from boys over fourteen, and those who wish to continue their education after seventeen or eighteen leave school and go to college, or attend special lectures. But in Persia the missionary is asked to take them all together in one school, even middle-aged men wishing to become pupils. But it is quite impossible to make a satisfactory school of boys and men together. It is sometimes possible, especially in the larger schools, to arrange separately for the men, but generally an age limit has to be set.