Page:Englishwomaninan00elli.pdf/233

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that we may easily soon hear that the department has been placed in her able hands.

At Beyrout she converted the big building of the Dames de Nazareth into a fine school, where, faithful to her Western training, she gave special prominence to Swedish drill, and where, as in the American colleges, Moslem and Christian sit side by side. When the English advanced in Syria she handed over her schools, and her Armenian and Turkish orphans, to the Americans, with the womanly entreaty that they would "care for them and, above all, make them good boys and girls."

The Turkey of her dreams and ambitions stands for peace and territorial integrity, for progress in education and equal rights to Moslems and Christians. She knows when peace comes that England, with no thoughts of intrusion, will yet be only too glad to help. England is generous and hospitable. Turkish students, in medicine and other faculties, have long been with us (at Bedford College and elsewhere), conquering all difficulties of language, climate, and social customs, taking their degrees, etc, beside British women. Our schools, our hospitals and clubs will always welcome all who wish to come to us: as Halidé Hanoum knew well, before I reminded her.

Despite their limited heritage, often from mothers who cannot read or write, Turkish women are brilliant students. I well remember trying to interest the public in a friend of mine who, after specialising in Gynæcology at Dublin, secured a London M.D. But the paper which could not find space for this interesting achievement gaily printed long columns of "Arabian Nights" nonsense about the strange ways of Turkey which belonged, in fact, to the period of the woad-stained ancient Britons. If the public really must have cheap romance, they would not complain of an approximately correct date!

It is fortunate, indeed, for Turkey that their leading feminist will work for progress on sound lines, and is far too wise to see no farther for women than a junior partnership with men.