It is a long way to travel from such stimulating forecasts to the actual state of learning and education in the Soudan to-day. There was not much learning under the Egyptians, but at least a certain amount of theological study went on. Under the Khalifa even that was sedulously discouraged, and the books were ordered to be destroyed because he feared that they might tend to discredit the unorthodox doctrine of Mahdism. Reading and writing were not likely to flourish under a ruler who, possessing neither of these arts himself, and entertaining strong suspicions of those who did, was wont to give drastic expression to his views. As a consequence, there never was a country more absolutely and wholly illiterate. Writing is practically an unknown art, and reading hardly less so. It is perfectly useless to post a Government Proclamation unless a competent person is stationed by it to read it out to any passer-by. At the same time, there flourishes the most exaggerated respect for a written document, which is regarded as a kind of magic book, and cases have been known in which swindlers have extorted large sums of money by going round exhibiting a paper professing to be an order to pay issued by the Government. Obviously, education has had to be on very humble lines at first, and must continue so for some time. Was, then, the Gordon College a too ambitious attempt to anticipate the future? Is it a mere white elephant, doomed to be a vain monument of an ill-directed wave of enthusiasm? Such a view is far from the truth. It would be strange indeed if a project so dear to the heart of Lord Kitchener was of such a nature. Certainly, it is impossible to start a complete University right away with a building and an endowment of some £4,000 a year. Time is of the essence of the question. It is possible to argue that the money used in the building might have been more advantageously expended in other ways. But, apart from the fact that the subscribers doubtless wished to see some immediate result for their munificence, I am sure that it was the right policy to build at once.