A Newer Egypt.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10018, 8 December 1908, Page 4

A Newer Egypt.

AX AMERICAX VIEW. Xcv that, since the war between Japan and Russia, we hear so much of China for tiie Chinese.. India for the Indians, and, indeed. -Asia for the Asiatics, we must not be surprised that "Egypt for the Egyptians'" is a cry that more and more resounds. It is curious that while all Turkey is rejoicing in the victory of the party of Young Turkey over the Sultan, the native sentiment in Egypt has been in favor of the .Sultan, yet not out of love fcr him. but out of resentment at the rule of tiie Christian Power of Great Hritain. But the role of Egypt- by the Egyptians would require the full acceptance of Western education. This the more intelligent Egyptians understand. Islam is awaKening' to this fact, in Turkey, in Persia and in Egypt. The old Moslem university of the Mosque of El-A/.har at Cairo, with its nine thousand students and it 6 240 teachers of the Koran and Mohammedan law, can no longer satisfy the new need. Even the sixteen so-called higher or professional and normal schools, in which law and medicine and pharmacy and agriculture are taught and teachers are trained, are not enough. .Still less are the progressive Moslems satistied to see the best" teaching in the hands of American and English missionaries. Accordingly, there will he opened in October the first university in Egypt to be conducted on Western 'models. ' The sum of £10,003 has been subscribed by natives of the country. Teachers will be called from France, England. Switzerland and Germany. Hut it is expected that ultimately the teachers will be Egyptians, and already students are preparing in Paris, Oxford. Cambridge and Leeds for such positions. It is planned to have free lectures on French. English and Arabic literature, as well as on Arabic- and general history. For all this the preparation lias been made in good part by the education which American institutions in Syria and Egypt have given to students who have made their home in that country, just as similar preparation was made in Japan. The graduates of the Syrian Protestant College in Iteirut are numerous in Egypt, and thev occupy high positions. They are Moslems as well as Christians. They are editors of the most influential native journals, and are employed in government positions of prominence. The Beirut college is controlled entirely by Ameiicans, and its board of trustees meets in Xew York, and its president and teachers have always been Americans, except as Arabic, French or other languages are taught. Robert- College in Constantinople has. to a less degree., sent its graduates to Egypt. Then the admirable school conducted by the United Presbyterian Mission in Asiut, in Upper Egypt, "has educated many Coptic Christians and many Moslems. The only way to keep a population in subjection' to a* foreign nation is to keep it ignorant. If England is educating India ami Egypt—and it is doing so to some extent—it is educating them for ultimate self-government. Whether that shall be under absolute independence or within the bonds of the English Empire, like Canada and Australia, we cannot foretell. It- depends greatly on the willingness of the British" Government to allow successive steps in self-government a* the people demand it. But that problem touches the United States more immediately and exigently than it does Great Britain, because we have with much more purpose entered on the policy ot giving education and self-government- to Porto Rico and the Philippines; and it will not be long before we shall have to d.-cide in what form, with us or without us. these Elands shall rule themselves.