Bird, Smith and Thomson, it is said, "Of the females, none can either read or write, or the exceptions are so very few as not to deserve consideration.

Female education is not merely neglected, but discouraged and opposed." They also stated, that "the whole number of native children in the Mission Schools from the beginning had been 650; 500 before the interruption in 1828, and 150 since." "Female education as such is yet nearly untried." During that year Mrs.Thomson and Mrs.Dodge commenced a school for girls in Beirut.

Dr.Eli Smith speaks of this school as follows, in the Memoir of Mrs.S.L.

Smith: "A few girls were previously found in some of the public schools supported by the Mission, and a few had lived in the Mission families.

But these ladies wished to bring them more directly under missionary influence, and to confer upon them the benefit of a system of instruction adapted to females.