How did the little girls amuse themselves in those far-off Egyptian days? The girl nature is the same the world over, and has not undergone any radical change since the very dawn of history. The girls, of course, played with dolls. These were made from cloth and were usually stuffed. Some of them had long hair. Figures resembling jumping-jacks, loosely jointed and manipulated with a string, were a means of merriment for the little ones. The nursery was also frequently brightened by the presence of flowers; and birds, some free and some caged, were common pets; cats, too, were everywhere, and the small donkey furnished much sport. It may seem somewhat strange that in a land to which has often been attributed the invention of the art of writing, there should have come down to us no literature from the hand and brain of a woman. The secret of this is probably found in the fact that while women were respected and even esteemed as the equals of men, yet it was not considered worth while to educate them in a literary way. In some of the arts, however, such as music, women were skilled. In modern Egypt the education of the women is sadly neglected. It does not compare with that given them in ancient times. Indeed, in Mohammedan countries, generally, woman is sternly thrust into a position of inferiority, even of degradation. The school provided for the instruction of the children in Egypt, as in all Mohammedan countries, is the _kattub_, which is to be found in most towns and even in some of the small villages. These schools are attached, when possible, to a mosque, and the instruction is religious rather than literary, for the teaching is limited to the Koran, and all instruction is in the Arabic language. The schoolmaster, who usually has an assistant, is himself very ignorant of all that the modern Western world would term "learning." Even the elements of a modern education are strangers to him. There are said to be about nine thousand five hundred of these kattubs in Egypt, and in them are enrolled one hundred and eighty thousand pupils. But the kattub is dark and unattractive. There are no seats or furniture of any kind. To an Occidental eye, the schoolroom is inconvenient in every respect, and withal quite unsanitary and forbidding. The teacher sits on a mat, cross-legged. In front of him are ranged two rows of children, both boys and girls, sitting sideways to the teacher. One would suppose, seated as the children are, that the dreary humdrum of the daily instruction was surely meant to go in at one ear and out at the other. But the pupils learn to repeat passage after passage from the sacred book of Mohammed. For the time is largely taken up reciting _sura_ after _sura_ from the Koran, and the most lengthy passages are well memorized, the master correcting the boy or girl whose tongue has slipped, or prompting one whose memory has failed him. As the singsong of recitation is rolled out