One of the most serious difficulties in the way of the higher female
education in Syria, is the early age at which girls are married. One
young girl attended the Beirut Seminary for two years, from eight to
ten, and the teachers were becoming interested in her progress, when
suddenly her parents took her out of the school, and gave her to a man
in marriage. After the festivities of the marriage week were over at her
husband's house, she went home to visit her mother, _taking her dolls
with her_ to amuse herself!

The Arabic journal "the Jenneh" of Beirut, contained a letter in June,
1872, from its Damascus correspondent, praising the fecundity of Syria,
and stating that a young woman who was married at nine and a half,
became a grandmother at twenty! Such instances are not uncommon in
Damascus and Hums, where the chief and almost the only concern of
parents is to marry off their daughters as early as nature will allow,
without education, experience or any other qualification for the
responsible duties of married life. When the above mentioned letter from
Damascus was published, Dr. Van Dyck took occasion to write an article
in the "Neshra," the Missionary Weekly, of which he is the editor,
exposing the folly and criminality of such early marriages, and
demonstrating their disastrous effects on society at large.

Since the establishment of schools and seminaries of a high grade for
girls, this tendency is being decidedly checked in the vicinity of
Beirut, and girls are not given up as incorrigibly old, even if they
reach the age of seventeen.

Dr. Meshakah of Damascus, who has long been distinguished for his
learned and eloquent works on the Papacy, is a venerable white-bearded
patriarch and his wife looks as if she were his daughter. I once asked
him how old she was when married, and he said _eleven_. I asked him why
he married her so young? He said that in his day, young girls received
no training at home, and young men who wished properly trained wives,
had to marry them young, so as to educate them to suit themselves!

Education is rapidly obviating that necessity, and young men are more
than willing that girls to whom they are betrothed, should complete
their education, lest they be eclipsed by others who remain longer at
school. I once called on a wealthy native merchant in Beirut, who
remarked that "the Europeans have a thing in their country which we have
not. They call it ed-oo-cashion, and I am anxious t