of a thousand years' vintage. Barbers served as dentists and grocers as pharmacists. But by the early twentieth century the whole picture was on the way to a radical change.
The point of departure may be fixed in 1860 when, as a result of the communal wars in Lebanon, which had spread to Damascus, public-spirited Europeans hastened to the aid of the afflicted in the area. Some of the work was intended for immediate relief, some for enduring value. The French military intervention in Lebanon, resulting in the granting of autonomy to the mountain under a Christian governor- general and the aegis of the then six great European powers, made of that land a chief centre for receiving cultural influences and radiating them to the entire adjoining area. Another international development of an entirely different nature, the opening of the Suez Canal to world traffic in 1869, helped to end the physical and intellectual isolation — and with it the stagnation — of the entire region and to restore it to its traditional rôle as the link connecting the three historic continents.
In the newly constituted Lebanon philanthropic and educational agencies could operate in a more congenial atmosphere. They thrived. Catholic missionaries needed no introduction to the area, some of them having been in operation on a limited scale since the benevolent days of Fakhr-al-Din al-Mani. Before the end of the nineteenth century these Capuchins had founded parishes in Antioch and Beirut and maintained houses in Aleppo and three Lebanese villages. Another Catholic mission, the Lazarist, had started work in Damascus as early as 1755 and twenty years later had founded a school for boys that is still in operation. This was the oldest modern school in the city. In the early stages such institutions were, as one would expect, patronized by Christians only.
Protestant activity was not slow to vie with Catholic. Following the war of i860 the German Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth established a centre at Sidon, transferred later
