UniCouncil_append_1922-24_034

THE COURSE OF THE DISCUSSIOH of the Conference of April 3rd,1923 The Conference was was held on topic Ho* 1 opened with prayer by Dr* Fat son after which discussion as follows: I* Languages To what extent relatively should Arabic,English and French be used as media of instruction? Are impending political or commercial developments and changes likely to modify the present situation in this respect? The discussion of thi3 topic was opened with a statement by Dr* Watson in which he said that originally the University had contemplated using one language only and that the Arabic, but when it came time to open the College of Arts and Sciences it had been strongly felt that at least two languages, Arabic and English,would be required* Dr* Hill* Asked what number of students were now in the College who did not know Arabic. Dr* McClenahan replied: That there were about twenty Armenians who knew something of the spoken Arabic but who were not expected to know anything of the written, classical Arabic. He further said that Greeks and Levantines had been refused admittance to the College and this kept down tho number of such students* Dr* Hill afcked: How many of our students knew something of French* Dr* &cClenahan replied: rtI can give a more guess only and X think it is about 25 percent* Dr* Nimrithen spoke of a former conversation which he had had with Dr. Watson concerning this matter in respect to Beirut, and he made the point that one of the things that required two languages was the difficulty of securing the text books in Arabic at that institution* They had discovered there that the text books came about every ten years and the expense of translating these new texts from a foreign language into the Arabic every ten years would be enormous* It was therefore found absolutely necessary to use two languages. He said, "I think you could not get along with the Arabic language alone.'* Dr* Himr then went on to say that in the present situation the English could not seriously contemplate withdrawal from Egypt at the present time so he thought that the English language would be good for mmy years to come here in Egypt* He also made the point that the French language was certainly needed? for those who were living in the big cities of Egypt fboth commercially and socially* Dr* McClenahan referred to the homogeneous character of our student body as compared to that of Beirut showing how difficult it would have been for them at Beirut to have used only one language* &t Dr* Watson then pointed out that/the present time our output does not know French very thoroughly because it is only an elective in our College course. He then asked Dr. Henry what he could say on this subject* Dr. Henry said that in the Vacuum Oil Company French was made a requirement of all the staff in addition to their knowledge of English