Writing is taught on a wooden slate or in copy-books made by the teachers. Slates and slate pencils are practically unknown, and the youngest child begins with a reed pen and ink. Caligraphy is not only a science, but the chief fine art in that part of the world which abhors painting, statuary and music. To write a beautiful Arabic hand is the height of youthful scholarly ambition. A country that has only such schools cannot progress; and so the missionaries open schools with a broader course of study and with better training for the mind and heart. The first Christian school in East Arabia was opened in 1899 on the veranda of the old mission house overlooking the sea. The little children of Ameen who was in prison for his faith were living with their mother in our house, and they needed to be taught; two of the rescued slave boys from Muscat, who had come to help in the housework, had some spare hours in the morning, and it was better for them to study than to sit around doing nothing, for Satan finds an awful amount of mischief for idle hands to do in Bahrein, and so the little school was started for the children in the house. We gave it the name of the “Acorn School” in faith that as “tall oaks from little acorns grow,” so some day education in Arabia would be what it is now in America. We had lessons for two hours each morning, marching, singing, etc., for the little ones, baby Bessie lying on the couch nearby while the children were being taught; others wished to join, but neither accommodations nor strength would allow us to enlarge our borders at that time. After some months an Arabic teacher was assigned to the station to teach a new missionary the language, and about that time we moved into a larger house. Then our numbers increased, and one of those early pupils was a young Jewish girl; another was a Jewish boy, who remained about three years, and was always a docile and clever pupil in English and Arabic; he has a complete Bible in Arabic, which they read in his home. The girl was a great help to us in every way—first in school, and later in the hospital; she is quite a changed girl and a superior one, and we trust the day will come when she will openly confess Christ and follow Him. Some grown-up lads were among those first scholars, and they came to learn English. One of the older boys was such an apt pupil that he was taken on the staff of the English Political Agent as interpreter for the Persians; another advanced so far that he is able to buy and sell for the wholesale business, and for this reason is a great help to his father, a merchant in Bahrein. These boys have learned much of the truth along with their English, and neither of them now believe that the sun sets in a pool of black mud!