Fact and Comment

Athletics and other extra-curriculum activities have their place in colleges in Syria, just as in American institutions. Even the compulsory chapel question has come up. The Syrian Protestant College of Beirut, which was founded over fifty years ago, is modelled after the American college and has many points of similarity. The Daily Princetonian prints the following description of life there:

"The campus covers over fifty acres and includes about twenty buildings. In ordinary times the enrolment approximates 900, and is usually limited only by dormitory room. These students are divided among five main departments: preparatory, collegiate commercial, medical, and pharmacy.

"The faculty is composed largely of Americans, and all instruction is given in English. The students represent a great diversity of races and religions; Syrians, Armenians, Turks, Greeks, and Egyptians forming the majority, but Moslems, Jews, and half a dozen different sects of Christians are mingled in discriminately. It is by this comradeship that the barriers of religious intolerance, one of the greatest of Oriental problems, can be broken down.

"It is interesting to watch the evolution of the native student. It is hard indeed to recognize in the polished young gentlemen who receive their diplomas the raw untutored boys from the back country village.

"As in all colleges athletics play an important part. Soccer is the main sport, closely followed by field hockey, basket-ball, and track. Football is considered an excessive strain to Oriental tempers. The mildness of the climate makes it possible for sports to be enjoyed all winter. Most of the athletes are so by nature rather than by training; an amusing instance was that of a country boy who insisted on running barefoot on a cinder track. Almost all the contests are intra-collegiate, but occasionally the university soccer team has an opportunity to try its ability against outside teams, and is often defeated by the crack elevens from the British warships. Baseball has usually been restricted to the American instructors, but in the last year or two the students have taken it up with some success.

"There are numerous undergraduate activities, of which the most important is the Students' Union. This is primarily a literary and debating society, although it also takes up dramatics and arranges for lectures by outside speakers. There are also Greek, Arabic and Jewish literary societies.

"Since Syria has been isolated by the war the activity of the college has been greatly interfered with, but in spite of unfavorable conditions the enrolment this fall was over 250, and work will undoubtedly be continued, in some degree at least, till normal times return."