UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1932-10-06_Page-100

1 REPORT OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL STUDIES The year has been more or less of a nightmare. The old S.Q.S. Build-ing was pulled down during the summer, and rebuilding has been going on all year. Before last summer vacation we moved our S.O.S. properties over into that section of the building neighboring on the upper and lower foyers of the Ewart Hall. The Reception room has been the Administration office, and has also housed those poor fragments of our Library which were not transferred to the College. The ticket office has been a Class room, as were also the upper boxes of the Auditorium and the Retiring Room, to the western box. Classes given by members of the Faculty were held in the Prayer Room, a corner of the Extension Department's Exhibition Room was borrowed to form a recitation room, and other classes have been held in holes and corners all over the building, some in the winter even went out on the grass. Added to the inconvenience of these temporary quarters we have continually had to face the further difficulty of having for one reason or another to vacate for odd days here and there even those corners in which we had ensconced ourselves. It will be an enormous relief to get into our new quarters at the beginning of the next school year. On the other hand it has been amazing how cheerful and good tempered the native staff has been .under tue strain of teaching in these temporary quarters and under such unideal conditions. During the early months of the School year when the piles were being driven for the new building, the noise was almost unbearable, but vti°e had hardly a complaint from the Sheikhs. In these latter months it has not been so much noise as dirt, and they have borne that with equal patience and long-suffering. The student body also has nobly cooperated in making the best of a bad situation and naturally this has eased matters for the administration considerably. The total number of students enrolled in the School during the academic year is 84, of whom 48 are women and 36 men. Divided according to nationality and Missions they are as follows: Americans 24 American 'Mission 5 Salaam Mission 4 Armenians 3 Am. Mission Sudan 2 Holiness Miss. 2 Australians 2 Plymouth Breth. 4 Gospel Mission 1 Bulgarian 1 C. M. S. 17 N.V.E.C. 2 Canadians 3 E. G. M. 1 Church of God 1 Dutch 3 Bible Society 4 Apostolic Ass. 3 English 43 M. M. P. 1 Chaplains 1 Germans 3 Holland Miss. 2 Soldiers Home 1 Italian 1 A. U. C. 9 American Legation 1 Swiss 1 London Jews Soc. 4 Unattached 19 The Church of God, Plymouth Brethren, and London Jews Society repre-sent new Missions that have adopted the School as a center of training for workers. Early in the First Term, Mr. Hare of the American .Legation, who had been studying in Paris for two years, carne to the School for three months to study and report on the facilities of the School for training in the languages of the Near East. We have recently heard that Washington has officially adopted this School in place of Paris as the training center for probationers in the Diplomatic Service in the Near East, and vie may expect our first students from that source at the beginning of next tern. Inquiries have also been made by a member of the British Diplomatic Service with the saine object in view