The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-05-10
Todav's News of Western Illinois
After Fifteen Years as Missionary
and School Directress in Egypt
Mercer Woman Returns for Visit

AIedo, May 10.-After eight years
as directress of a girls boarding
school, Miss Carol E. Mcmillan is
visiting in Mercer county. She will
spend nearly a year and half in
America before she again leaves for
Egypt. Miss Mcmillan will spend
most of the time with her sisters
in Aledo, Mrs J. r. Thompson, Mrs.
r. F. Cabeen, and Mrs. T. R Ed
monds. Miss Mcmillan has spent
Is years in Egypt with the Ameri-
can UNITED Presbyterian mission.
This is her second furlough since
she first arrived in 1906. 1t is pos
sible that she will spend a part OF
her rest period in recruiting young
college men and women, 200 of
whom are needed in the various
branches of the missions many ac-
tivities.
Miss McMillan's school, with $50
pupils. is in Tanta, so miles north
of Cairo, in the geographical cen
ter of the fertile Nile delta region
This territory, under perennial If
rigation, grows from two to eight
crops a year, sells sometimes for
1880 an acre. rents for S120 an
acre and supports half the popula-
ton of Egypt, who live often 1000
to n square mile. 1t is in this dis
trict that the best of Egypts fam
Gus cotton is grown.
Tanta. with a population of more
than $4,000 people, is the third city
of Egypt. The folks who live in the
mud-brick villages around about
are a simple, hospital folk-except
when stirred up by some agitator.
They still pillow with a sharp stick
and otherwise carry on their work
just about as their ancestors did
thousands of years ago. They are
more than nine-tenths Mohamme-
dams, with a sprinkling of Copts,
the remnants of the ancient Egyp-
tians. who, when conquered by the
Mohammedans, formed the bulk of
the population of the country; for
time was when the Nile valley was
Christian For various reasons
the christianity of the Copts has
degenerated into mere Journalism
or less-small wonder after thir-
teen centuries of more or less Wig
orous suppression.
Miss Mcmillan is one of the ITS
AmericanS-13 from Illinois-main-
tanned in the dozen largest cities
of Egypt by the United Presbyterian
church. Tanta, with its II Ameri-
cans, it's hospital, girls school,
boys school, school for bible wo-
men and general evangelistic work,
by automobile and railroad in the
surrounding villages, is an exam
pie of what a mission station should
be- By the time Miss Mcmillan re-
turns, construction should have be-
gun on the fine, new building for
her school, which is to be erected
on a seven acre tract of ground.
Also to be erected are 4 community
house for Egyptian women and the
bible women's school and mission
residences-all made possible by
the denominations New World
Movement campaign.
The Tanta girls school is one of
the ISL schools operated under
mission auspices. Some are tiny
affairs in small villages, but they
include also the girls college in
Cairo and the college for boys at
Assiut, 235 miles up the Nile from
Cairo, with an enrolment of 700
and a record-maintained every
year-of higher standing in govern
ment examinations than any other
college in the country. All told,
is, 900 pupils daily are in mission
schools - Mohammedans, Copts,
EYangelicals.
From Alexandria to Assuan-as
far as from Atlantic City to Chicago
-adherents of the mission are to
be met, congregations are to be
found, for the Egyptian Evangelical
church community now exceeds 49,
900.
Miss McMillan's school is in the
center of a district which is ex-
tremely superstitious and illiterate