UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1941-11-14_Page-031

1 year separate sections were planned - in the Arabic speaking section more French and less Arabic; in the French speaking section more Arabic and less French. The conviction was expressed that the Arabic for the French-speaking group should be taught by a teacher practiced in presenting Arabic to foreigners. The two sections were opened - the non-Arabic section had capacity enrollment; the Arabic-speaking section had about one-half of capacity. That the new section was as large as it was, gave a degree of satisfaction; the quality was not of the best. Special attention must be given to the development of this section as I have indicated in another section of this report and as Mr. Nichols points out. The teaching of Arabic to II F proved very satisfactory; Sheikh Ahmed was secured from the S.G.S. to do the job of getting Greeks, Armenians, Jews to learn Arabic and like it. Although he encountered some difficulty with discipline, he did remarkably well in teaching the fundamentals of Arabic language. In other years we have had no approach to the degree of success attained in Arabic language by this group. In the secondary section Islamic religion paralleled by Christian religion was introduced as a subject in the first and second years. The scheme had been worked out carefully by Dean Badeau in conjunction with the Ministry. One hour a week was given to religious instruction to each group in each class. (No provision has been made for the Jew. The inauguration of this program - which to some must seem almost heretical - was accomplished with no difficulty. To the teachers of Islam the teaching appears to be a perfunctory matter and to the students it seemed no more important. With time we may be able to persuade the teachers to inject more of the spirit of enthusiasm for displaying the positive values of the development of the religion. Rizk Eff. gave the instruction in the Christianity; it appears that he gave thoughtful consideration to his problem and made a successful beginning. Next year religion will be taught in the third and fourth years, whereas for the fifth year we shall continue giving our program in ethics. With the growth in size of the classes of Senior College the need arises of teaching classes separately. Ever since the B.A. program was introduced, we have been able to maintain it by giving courses of many departments in alternate years for students of the Junior and Senior classes together. In this manner teaching costs have been kept at a minimum; at the same time the combined classes have not been unduly large. The disadvantage of this scheme has been that, in different departments, a proper sequence of courses has not been possible. For example, a student as a Junior might get a course which he might more properly take as a Senior, but could not because the scheme did not permit the course to be taught in his Senior year. This past year has marked some separation of the classes and the coming year will give almost complete division except for the courses in which a relatively small number of students are enrolled as in the Journalism sequence. Besides permitting students to follow departmental sequences more logically, this will tend to make the class for each course more homogeneous; this past year, for example, Economics was taught to the Juniors and Seniors. Not only was the class large, but the teacher complained of the disparity between the two groups. The Seniors had a greater reading ability and an understanding of terms which would have allowed a more thorough study. We have reason to feel that we can better work with our students by this step. As we faced the new year, we wondered what the prospects were for enroll-ment in the secondary section with the application of the new regulations abou