The Providence of God had prepared teachers admirably fitted for this work, who undertook it with cheerful hope and patient industry.

It was decided to make a paying Boarding School of a higher order than any existing institution in Syria, and to resume instruction in the English language, giving lessons also in French and Music to those who were willing to pay for these branches.
Mr.Michaiel Araman, for many years a teacher in the Abeih Seminary with Mr.Calhoun, and for some time a native preacher in Beirut, was appointed instructor in the Biblical History and the Higher Arabic branches; his wife Lulu, the Matron, and Miss Rufka Gregory, the Preceptress.

Rufka was an orphan, as already stated, and was trained with her sister Sada in the family of Mr.and Mrs.Whiting for many years.

As a teacher and a disciplinarian she had not an equal among the women of Syria, and under the joint management of this corps of teachers, aided by competent assistants in the various branches, the Seminary rose in public esteem, until it became one of the most attractive and prosperous institutions in Syria.
In March, 1862, Rufka's day school of seventy girls held a public examination in the Chapel.

The girls were examined in Arabic reading, geography, grammar, catechism, arithmetic, Scripture lessons and English, with an exhibition of specimens of their needle work.