MODERN GREEK WOMEN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MODERN GREEK WOMEN.

The Greek women far excel those of other races, not only in personal refinement, but in general intelligence and desire for self-improvement. The classical Greek type is very noticeable in some localities; in others it has suffered from admixture with foreign elements; but we find it again in perfection among the inhabitants of the seaboard of Asia ftlinor, though the Greeks were there once so crushed and denationalised as to have replaced] their mother-tongue by that of the conquering Turk. Sm3'rna, Gemlek, and Philibar on the coast, and Demirdeah and other places in the interior, possess some magnificent specimens of the Greek race. The Greek women of the upper class are generally clever, well-bred, well-informed, and might rival in aceomplishments, culture, and conversational powsrs, their siaters of the West. And the Greek ladies of " Tlie Phanai , " at Constantinople have for centuries been renowned for their ability aud acquirements. The advantages of education are, however, by no means restricted to the upper class, for not only in the towns, but in almost every village whore there is a Greek community schools have been founded in which the instructions given to girle/anges from the simplest elementary lessons to aDcient Greek, psychology, and mathematics. Here the children of rich and poor sit side by side in the same class, a practice which, I am assured, tends, rather to elevate the tone of the children of the people than to deteriorate the manners of the better bred. The teachers in these rural schools are often young women from Athens who have left homo and country to improve the condition of the lessfavoured country-women in Turkey, and are in return idolised by the scholars and their mothers.—Woman's World.