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110 2. The School of Oriental Studies During the past year, with Professor Jeffery absent on furlough and studying in Edinburgh, and with Canon Gairdner ill, the entire burden of super-vision rested on the Rev. E. E. Elder. The total enrolment of the School was reduced to 66 from the high level reached during the previous year. This was chiefly due to the financial stringency in the United Presbyterian Board's budget compelling them to abandon the sending out of new recruits. Two other missions, whose new missionaries have been coming to the S.U.S. for training, contributed no students for similar reasons. From outside Egypt two missionaries from Kasbgar in Chinese Turkestan, connected with the Swedish Foreign Mission Society, were in attendance. To meet, in so far as possible, the shrinkage in income because of a lover enrolment, certain part time teachers were released. During the year a number of interesting lectures were given Under the auspices of the School. The Committee on Islamics and Missions arranged for seven important lectures. Dr. Robert E. Speer, visiting Egypt in connect-ion with his attendance upon the Jerusalem Conference, gave an address to missionaries and other Christian workers both under the auspices of the School of Oriental Studies and as a part of the program for the dedication of the new auditorium. The Jerusalem Conference brought to Cairo a large number of Christian workers from Moslem and other mission fields. These were naturally very specially interested in the plan and facilities of this the first central training school for missionaries among Moslems. No new publications were issued this year by the School's publication Fund, but the Library was enriched by the purchase of books as annually in the past. For next year there is a bright outlook for renewed activity as both Prof. Jeffery and Rev. C. C. Adams will have returned for their furloughs during which most important studies and research work were undertaken by them. The outstanding event of the year was our tragic loss of that brilliant mind and devoted missionary leader Canon W. H. T. Gairdner. To quote from an article in the Bulletin of the S.O.S.: "In the death of Canon V.H.T. Gairdner, the adviser in Arabic studies, the School of Oriental Studies has suffered the greatest loss of its history. He entered into rest and the glorious freedom of the triumphant faithful on May 22nd, 1928, after almost five months of suffering. Always most active both in mind and body he showed wonderful patience during the last days. "It was to Canon Gairdner more than arty one else that the need of a school for the study of Arabic and Islamic literature and history was realized. At the Edinburgh Conference in 1910 he urged the great advantage of making Cairo a centre of Arabic studies for all missionaries working in this area. When the r ed was reemphasized at the Lucknow Conference in 1911 a special committee of missionaries in Egypt, with Canon Gairdner as Chairman, was appointed to develop a study centre to provide facilities for special training in the hist-ory , literature and doctrinal development of Islam. Under the direction of Canon Gairdner and Dr. Zwemer, the Cairo Study Centre was launched in 1912." It will be remembered that after nine years of the development of this training school by the Missions, during which time the brunt of the burden fel