The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1889-09-06
CHILDREN IN ALCIERS.
Great Changes Wrought in Their
Habits Under the Influence of Ed

Great Changes Wrought in Their
Habits Under the Influence of Ed
ucation.
Youths Companion.
Tho city of Algiers, the capital of tho
great French province of Algeria, in
northern Africa, has so mild u climate
that snow is almost unknown. The av-
erage temperature in January is 54 de-
grees; palm trees grow freely in the gar
dens and suburbs. and the country has a
tropical aspect. No little excitement
was produced. therefore, when one day
last winter there fell snow enough to
cover the ground. The last such snow
fall had taken place in 1861, so that
none of the younger people of the coun-
try had ever seen any thing of the kind.
The sensation was so great, indeed,
that all the schools were closed, and the
pupils, rushing out, were heard to make
such remarks as these:
"Look! 1t is raining cotton!'
Lets get some, and take it home and
save It'll"
The boys gathered masses of the
fieecy o to keep fv- a curiosity, and
were astoniShed to see it turn into water
in their hands.
The boys of Algeria are a strange
race. Most of them are Arabs, whose
speech was brought hundreds of years
ago from Arabia. They are Mussulmans
in religion; if they go to their own
Arab schools, called zawyas. they are
taught little except TO recite verses from
the Koran. They are for the most part
bright and merry, much like other boys
,,,~~r +ln,,c,1,a, hut ,,n1;.,nl L., l.,
grave and suspicious in the presence Of
foreigners.
Girls are seldom admitted to the Arab
rarely to the French schools. They are
usually married at an age when Amer
lean girls are still playing with dolls.
A good portion of the Arab boys attend
the French schools, and in some of the
towns all the Arab children speak and
write French.
There is, however, a race of people in
Algeria who are much more eager to
learn than the Arabs. They are the
Kabyles, who although Mussulmans in
religion, some scientists believe to be-
long to the same race as the inhabi-
tants Of southern Europe. They are
mostly farmers and mountaineers, and
are very Industrious; they are eager to
learn, and send all their girls and boys
to schools wherever schools are founded.
Among them are some strange colonies
descended from the Ancient Romans,
and still calling themselves Romans, or
"Rumi."
The Algerian Jews, too, who are de-
scended from the Jews whom the Span
ish oanished from their country, pay
much attention to the instruction Of
their children.
Under the influence of education great
changes are taking place in the charac-
ter of the population Of Algeria, which,
at the beginning of the present century,
was almost entirely Mussulman, and
practically uncivilized. NV, although
there are not quite half a million Euro
peans in the country, more than a mil
lion people speak the French language.
Algeria, moreover, is but q part of the
French domain in Africa. There are
French colonies here and there around
the whole northern half of the CONT
nent, and nearly all northwest III Africa,
including Tunis, Algeria, Senegal and a
great part of the western Sondan, prom
Uses to become French eventually.
The French flag has been carried as
far into the interior OF Africa as Tim
buctoo, which, not many years ago, was
a synonym for all that was strange, far
away and inaccessible