Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/304

250 Asheetha and Leezan. I may be mistaken, but I have my doubts on the subject. …

"But there is one subject connected with the establishment of schools to which the attention of the Church has already been called, but which I beg again to lay before the Committee at home for their serious consideration. If we establish schools we must have books, for of these the Nestorians have none except those used in the churches, which are in a language understood by the Clergy only, and not generally even by them. If we are to superintend the preparation of elementary books for education, we must have the assistance of persons competent for the task. To enter upon this work, however, without the consent and promised support of the Church, we cannot, lest like the man who failed in building his house, because he had not previously calculated his resources, our failure may be more serious. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has voted £500 for this purpose; but unless an equal vote is promised yearly from the funds of the Church, we must soon forbear working. We are anxiously waiting the Societies' reply to our first report on this subject before we enter upon the necessary preliminaries.

"Moreover, I have made arrangements with Kasha Mendu for opening a school at Amedia, to be taught by him, and on his return from the Patriarch, he will probably be accompanied by the Nestorian priests of Dirgni and Mezi, with whom I intend to consult about a similar measure to be adopted in these two villages. The only book available for schools is the Syriac psalter, of which Kasha Mendu possesses several manuscript copies; but how little the children will be profited by this, you may easily imagine when you hear that it is written in a language of which they hardly understand a sentence. The advantages to be gained, however, at the outset are these; the children will thereby have been collected together, the school will have been formed, and the people will have been led to sanction and approve of the measure by seeing the pupils receive the same primary instruction as all among them do when they first begin to read. Other advantages might be enumerated, not the least of which is the influence which these schools will undoubtedly have in preventing the Nestorians remaining in the