EL-AZHAR AND ITS MOSLEM STUDENTS have at home. There was not a chair or a table in the halls; there were no maps or diagrams and no scientific instruments. There were no libraries visible; the books used were mostly pamphlets.

There is no charge for tuition and the poor and the rich are on much the same level. Many of the undergraduates are partially supported by the university; it is no disgrace to be without money. Some of the students and profes¬ sors live in the university. They sleep in the school¬ rooms where they study or teach, lying down upon mats and covering themselves with their blankets. They eat there, peddlers bringing in food and selling it to them. Their diet is plain, a bowl of bean soup and a cake of pounded grain, together with some garlic or dates, forming the most common meal. These things cost little, but to those who are unable to buy, the university gives food. Nine hundred loaves of bread are supplied without charge to needy students every day.

As I passed through the halls I saw some of the boys mending their clothes and others spreading their wash out in the sun to dry. They did not seem ashamed of their poverty and I saw much to admire in their attitude.

The professors serve for nothing, supporting themselves by teaching in private houses or by reading the prayers at the mosques. It is considered such a great honour to be a professor here that the most learned men of the Mohamme¬ dan world are glad to lecture in the El-Azhar without re¬ ward. In fact, the only man about the institution who receives a salary is the president, who has ten thousand piastres a year. This seems much until one knows that the piastre is only five cents, and that it takes ten thousand of them to make five hundred dollars.

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