"While exerting this deleterious influence over their husbands and
children, the females of the land have but little opportunity for
personal improvement, and are not very promising subjects of missionary
labor. His faith must be strong who can labor with hope for the
conversion of women, with whom the customs of society prohibit freedom
of intercourse, and who have not learning enough to read a book, or
vocabulary enough to understand a sermon, or mental discipline enough to
follow continuous discourse."
In the Report for 1852, Dr. De Forest writes: "At the date of our last
Annual Report, Miss Whittlesey was in good health, was rapidly acquiring
the Arabic, and was zealously pressing on in her chosen work, with
well-trained intellect, steady purpose and lively hope. But God soon
called her away, and she departed in "hope of eternal life which God
that cannot lie promised before the world began." The Female Boarding
School has suffered much from the loss of its Principal, but the same
course of study has been pursued as before, though necessarily with less
efficiency. One of the assistant pupils, (Lulu,) who has been relied
upon for much of the teaching, and superintendence of the scholars, was
married last autumn to the senior tutor of the Abeih Seminary. The
number of pupils now in the school is fifteen. The communication of
Biblical and religious knowledge has been a main object of this school.
All the pupils, as a daily lesson, study the Assembly's Shorter
Catechism, first in Arabic with proof-texts, and afterwards in English
with Baker's Explanatory Questions and Scripture proofs, and they are
taught a brief Historical Catechism of the Old and New Testaments. The
first of proper school hours every day is occupied with the Scriptures
by all the school. The Epistles to the Hebrews and the Romans formed
the subject of these lessons until the autumn, when Mr. Calhoun's
revised edition of the "Companion to the Bible" was adopted as a
text-book, and the Old Testament has been studied in connection with
that work. The pupils all attend the service at the Mission Chapel, and
have lessons appropriate to the Sabbath in the intervals of worship.
"The evening family worship is in Arabic, and is a familiar Bible Class.
All the pupils are present, and not unfrequently some of their relatives
and other strangers. In addition to this religious instruction, the
several classes have studied the Arabic and English languages, some of
them writing in both, geography and history, arithmetic mental and
higher, astronomy, and some of the simple works on natural philosophy
and physiology. Compositions have been required in Arabic and English.
The lessons in drawing, commenced by Miss Whittlesey, have been
continued under the instruction of Mrs. Smith, and plain and fancy
needle-work have been taught as heretofore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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