UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1926-10-29_Page-013

President's Report. _ _ J 3. Curriculum: A most important decision by the College Faculty during the past year was that the time had come for the addition of another year to the existing College curse, namely Junior Year. The amount of time required in committee and faculty meetings to work out the implications of this decision may well be imagined, for it is not a mere problem of taking over Western curricula but of building up a curriculum adapted to the needs of Egypt. This Junior Year is to be operated in 1926-27. I would call attention to the significance of this decision. It is really the first venture of the College in respect to higher education. Previous work was fully matched by Assiut College. It was merely preparatory to the profession-al schools of Egypt, Beirut, Europe and America. While our previous Arts standards were reckoned as going one year beyond the Government Secondary course and gave us, et Beirut at least, a preferred stnding which put our students one year ahead of the Government student, still our work was generally regarded as only prepar-atory to professional schools -- a Junior College. The addition of Junior Year now lifts our institution to a markedly higher level. Much of interest could be said of this venture, such as the effort to preserve in the new Junior Year some-thing of the professional motive, so that one group of electives will lead to Medicine, another to Engineering, another to Public Service. Of course, the logic of the situation is that Senior Year must be added in order to justify the giving of degrees. We await with much interest the operation of this course during 1926-27. 4. Scholarship: The effort to lift the standards of scholarship continues and the results are gr?tifying. In the Government section where our record had been most discouraging and where we had made heroic efforts to remedy the situation by securing the services of instructors particularly acquainted with the technique of Government examinations, we have had most gratifying results. Eleven out of seventeen passed the Baccalauria examinations of the Government and Dr. McClenahan reports that he does not know of any school save one in Cairo which had better results. Thus we are Able to hold up high our standard and I hope this good record will yield a larger and a worthier enrolment of students on the Government side. 5. Character Training: While I have alre.,dy referred to this subject when speaking of Mr. Erdman Harris's coming to us, I would also call attention to the hopeful work spoken on this subject by Dr. McClenahan in his report. My own observation is that each year we are penetrating more deeply into the lives of the boys. We are discovering their moral and spiritual needs and ere ministering to those needs in a vital way. to have no doubt that the Moslem boy as well as the Moslem world needs Christ. The more to penetrate into Moslem life the more we realize its spiritual barrenness and its moral impotence and the more per-suaded we are that we have an indispensable mission to the Moslem student world in bearing to it the Gospel of Christ. 6. Impending Needs and Problems: (a) If the College should add, as we expect it to do, a Senior Year, there will need to be a slight enlrrgement of its operat-ing budget, for while the present permanent staff will carry most of this advanced instruction, relief will need to be given to them in the work they are now carry-ing in the lower grades. There is strong hope however that an enlarged enrolment will suffice to cover this increased cost. (b) Dr. McClenahan has called attention to the need of a qualified registrar. It is at this point that the greatest relief and assistance could be given Dr. McClenahan and this need should be care-fully considered in relation to Dr. McClenahan's future limitations of eyesight. (e) Next among the men required both for the College and for the Extension activitie