UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1940-11-15_Page-040

Besides the lecturers, twenty persons presided in our meetings, other than A.U.C. staff members. We changed our policy this past year with regard to chairmanship at meetings, by inviting a person whom the lecturer himself wanted to preside. Among the chairmen of meetings were Hafez Afifi Pasha, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayyed Pasha, Abdel Salam el-Shazli Pasha, Mohamed Taher Pasha, Hussein Haikal Pasha and Saleh Enan Pasha. Audience. We are only able to analyze and study that part of our audience which subscribes for the lectures or cinemas for the whole term and is registered and followed up. The single invitations for lectures and the single tickets for cinemas bring us the largest part of our cinema audiences but only a small portion for the lectures. Since the registration fee for lectures is only two piasters for the whole term, I wish we might make it a rule that each person must subscribe. Also, it was observed that the more we issue single free invitations, the less we can hold the interest of the audience for the whole series. The total number of subscribers in one or more of the three Extension features is 966 (Appendix VI). From classification it is evident that 69% of these are Moslems, 29% Christian, 2% Jews. Of the total subscribers, 51% are of the professional class, 33% male students, and 16,E women. Publicity. The influence of lectures and forums is not limited to the audiences which attend them. The press and radio carry their message to a much wider circle. Because the daily newspapers reduced their size owing to the rise in the price of paper, and also the war news took up the largest space, our lectures and forums were not given as wide space as in previous years. However, the summaries of our lectures occupied 2513 lines in the daily press. The monthly magazines published S lectures and forums in full. Two forums, three lectures and one debate were broadcast by the Q.S.B. There has been no propaganda against us at all this year. Criticism against the Ministry of Social Welfare for its cooperation with us was expected, but nothing of the sort appeared in the papers. On the contrary, several papers praised our work and some of them even exaggerated its value. This kind of propaganda may stir jealousy in government institutions, especially when our work is used as a propaganda against the Egyptian University. The following quotation from Al-Wadi of September 30, 1939, is an example of what may arouse jealousy and injure our cause: The Services of the American University at Cairo. "The Egyptian University, in spite of its freque}it propaganda about its principles and aims, was not able to influence our mental life and our social environment as much as the American University. "In its public lecture programs, the Division of Extension makes a careful choice of both the lecturers and the subjects of lectures which have an ideal aim. "The value of these lectures is indicated by the big crowds which fill Ewart Memorial Hall to listen to these lectures; by the confidence of the public in whatever is said from the Extension platform; and the interest of the Arabic daily press -Is well as the magazines in publishing summaries or the whole text of the lectures