The old clock on the stairway at the Collège de la Sainte-Famille, a Jesuit high school, grade school, and preschool in Cairo, is in the shape of an obelisk with hieroglyphs carved in the case.
		Photos and story by Fr. Edward Schmidt, SJ In Egypt, 118 years old is not very old. Where the ruins of Luxor's temples and palaces approach 4,000 years and where the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza is 600 years older than that, a school like the Jesuits' Collège de la Sainte-Famille, or Holy Family, in Cairo, even at 118, makes more-modest claims to antiquity.

Cairo itself is a relative newcomer, its oldest monuments dating back only to the Roman era. The crowded, dusty, noisy metropolis with a population estimated at 15 million is a modern phenomenon. In its neighborhood, Holy Family College is in fact the oldest thing around. The elevated highway that roars in round-the-clock rush hour outside the front gate of the college grounds follows the route of an old canal. The central railroad station, on the other side of the highway, was just the end of the line, a dropping-off spot, when the French tropical-style buildings of Holy Family began to rise in 1888. The neighborhood's name--Faggalah, which means turnip field--reflects its early identity.

The college traces its origins to 1879, when Pope Leo XIII asked the Jesuits to open a seminary to prepare candidates for priesthood for the Coptic Catholic Church. This Church dates back to the earliest Christian times, but its numbers were very small by the late 1800s, only a few thousand served by a dozen elderly priests. Fr. Remi Normand, the superior of the French Jesuit mission in Syria, arrived in Egypt in early January 1879 and within a month had researched the situation, rented a small house, and sent three Jesuits there to start the school.

As preparations went on during the winter and spring, Egyptian and also some foreign families heard about the plans. Sensing an opportunity for their sons, they asked the Jesuits to broaden their mission to include nonseminary students; Rome granted permission. On October 1, 1879, the college opened its doors for 8 resident seminarians and a few day students in two classes; the number kept growing and reached a total of 30 by the end of the first school year.

Problems went hand in hand with this promising beginning. In September 1881, the Apostolic Visitor for Coptic Catholics, Msgr. Antoun Morcos, thought the Jesuits were spreading their resources too thin and told them to concentrate on increasing the number of seminarians. While Fr. Michel Jullien, SJ, traveled to Beirut to work things out with higher superiors, the day students showed up for school. The approval was given to let them resume classes, and the school year began. The following June, the school year ended early for many of the students, who fled Cairo in the wake of a revolution. The seminarians and the Jesuits left for the safety of Beirut.

That Bulls cap notwithstanding, these students are in the middle of Cairo. When the bell rings, Ahmed Essam El Ridy, Peter Nagui Rifki, Alfred Youssef Fourad, Tarek Farid Raouf, and Rami Rafik Morgan will be inside, taking part in a Jesuit educational tradition at Sainte-Famille that began there in 1879.

In September, assuming that the mission superior would grant his approval--he was on a steamship to Constantinople at the time--the exiles returned to Cairo. There they found their house scarred from the revolution; they also found 112 boys ready to start school. They still had to await formal permission, but classes began. On October 25 Fr. Jullien was able to announce--with full permission-- "The college is open."

Soon after, Fr. Jullien received approval to build a new school, and he bought land in what was a quiet Cairo suburb. As problems mounted, another closing was ordered by superiors, another reassessment, another reprieve. To construct a large school on low land that suffered seepage from the nearby canal challenged the builders, but Br. Fran¨ois Mourier, SJ, an architect, found the solution. And the building rose, a building described by Fr. Antoine Foujol, SJ, the new rector, as "a fortress of peace" and "a colossal structure destined to educate its students in knowledge and in good manners." The school year 1888 opened with 282 students at all levels; the Jesuit staff included thirteen priests, three teaching scholastics, and ten brothers.

A very early decision that the Jesuits had to make--beyond the practical details of rooms and books and food--was how to adapt the standard Jesuit curriculum to Egypt. This curriculum had succeeded for centuries in Europe and in America and even in Beirut, but it was clear to the Jesuits that in this new and very different setting they would have to adapt. They would teach Latin and French and even Greek. But these students would not become leaders of Egyptian society if they did not also learn educated Arabic; and they really ought to learn English if they were to be successful in the modern world and if they were to serve their country well.

The desire to emphasize the culture of Egypt was reflected in the ceremonial program that concluded the second hool year. Besides a presentation in French about classical studies, it included a reading in Arabic and a formal presentation in Arabic about the study of Arabic. And it may not have been an accident that the books that the students were to receive as academic prizes were stacked up in a very Egyptian-looking pyramid.

As the college grew, it continued to assert its Egyptian character. Parallel to its program leading to a French baccalaureate degree, it initiated a program leading to an Egyptian baccalaureate degree. A French Jesuit official in Rome praised this initiative in 1901 and three years later reflected that he saw such huge differences between European and Egyptian cultures that it was not right simply to "transfer our programs into Egypt without modifying them." He added that to force the French classical education on Egyptians would be "to do them violence." And he formulated a golden rule: "One can and one must adapt our programs to the native genius and to the needs of the country in which one finds oneself." He remarked that the Jesuits' teaching English and science was really orienting the school to the needs of Egypt.

Another early decision affected both the success of Holy Family College and the way it looks today. The parents who wanted their sons educated at the new Jesuit school in 1879 were not all Christians, nor were the 112 boys who showed up at the battle-scarred school to start classes in 1882. Records show that 65 were Catholic, but from a variety of rites; 29 were Orthodox; 12 were Muslims; and 6 were Jewish (Israelites in French). The proportions have changed, and most of the students today are Muslim. But Holy Family has a proud record here too of reflecting Egyptian society, where for the most part religious differences have not kept people from living together in a stable society.

Through the years, the number of students increased and the buildings were enlarged; elementary schools were added, branch campuses opened, the seminary transferred elsewhere. The school counted 500 students in 1917; 1,000 in 1948; 1,500 in 1972; about 1,800 today. And all along, the school adapted its curriculum to the changing needs of Egyptian society and the modern world.

In Egypt today, private schools have to be language schools, and Holy Family College is officially a French-language [see below] school. English, however, is widely taught, and students receive a fully rounded education in humanities and science.

Cairo has grown to surround Holy Family College. Its early country setting has been swallowed up by urban development, and its secluded quiet is now drowned in the screeching of trains at Ramses Station and the nonstop blare of car horns and clamor of untuned motors. The air always carried the dust from the desert just beyond the green strip of the Nile; that dust now carries with it every form of pollution that modern life can add to it.

Visitors come to Egypt to see the pyramids at Giza and to travel up the Nile to Luxor; they come to see the past and to wonder. Students come to Holy Family College to learn from their past and to hope and to dream of what they can be and of how their past can become a better future. Time does not change some things.

Sainte-Famille in Cairo is officially a French-language school. This reflects its history as a project of French Jesuits in the late 1800s and the fact that all the students learn French as their first foreign language. In this interview, Mrs. Nabila Makram-Ebeid, who has taught English at Sainte-Famille for fifteen years, talks about her school.

What's an English teacher doing at a "French-language school"? I teach English as a second foreign language. One advantage we have is that our boys learn more than one language other than their mother tongue, French and English, and by the time they finish high school they're quite adequate in both. English is a second foreign language, but it is quite advanced, not low level. In languages, we set our own curriculum; it's up to the language teacher. It's different from science or math, where the government sets the curriculum. With languages we try to find out what is best for the boys, and we don't necessarily teach by the book. Teaching languages takes practice so that students become able to express themselves in this language, to describe whatever they see, to say what they think about, to express opinions. What are your students like? I teach junior high, ages 14-15, and I believe these boys should behave in a fairly manly manner. At such an age they are certainly teenagers, but still one sees a bit of the child. So we try to help them through our teaching here to know how to express themselves, to develop opinions. We want to change them a little bit, to have the boy feel that to a certain extent he is on his own. This happens gradually, but at age 15 he should be able to form an opinion of his own regardless of that of his teacher. His teacher guides him there, but he should understand that he should have an independent opinion. What kind of atmosphere do you find at Sainte-Famille? A great benefit at this school is the leadership: it's run by the Jesuits, which is something that helps the boys very much. It's admirable the way they look upon the boys as individuals, in spite of the large numbers, and work to help them as individuals. One of the things they try to do is to know each and every boy individually and, if there is a problem of any kind, to solve it together with the staff. We also maintain discipline--not always an easy thing. On this point we fight against a lot of factors, society in general. And we are trying to teach the boy to be as organized as he should be; well you must understand the difficulties I'm talking about--just take our traffic, for example! Unfortunately, there are certain things that the boys see around them, and to be able to adjust to that is not easy. But what we do does work. When our students start university studies it's remarkable how quickly they're entified as Jesuit graduates; they are very distinguished among other students. Later, when they take jobs, they find that employers, especially in foreign companies, prefer a Jesuit graduate. Your students come from a variety of religious backgrounds; does this cause any problems? Not here. Boys enter this school at age three or four or five, and they quickly learn how to deal with other students and the teachers, no matter what their religion might be. We don't even bring that subject up at that age; we don't focus on it. I'm a Christian, but I have never even noticed who is my Muslim student and who is my Christian student. I've never felt any discrimination here on this point at all, neither between teachers and the staff nor between the students; I don't think the boys feel it either. I think they feel they are one. One very good thing too is that each can respect his own religion and the religion of the other. As a teacher I'd know if students felt this tension. You can find Muslims here whose best friends are Christians and the other way around. The matter of religion here is neither an obstacle nor a disadvantage. On the other hand--and maybe this is why I like it here--one doesn't feel the struggle that might be found somewhere else. I don't know about other places but I'm assuming that this could be found in any other organization in the country. Here, no; we have never felt it, which is really beautiful. It sounds like you enjoy teaching at Sainte-Famille. Teaching is such a hectic job, you sometimes feel that all you are doing is going into thin air and you feel it's useless because the boys don't respond to you as quickly as you want them to. But more than once it's happened that I've been able to reach out to some student who needed help, needed a friend, needed someone who understood how to approach him. It's a very important role that a teacher should play. It's beautiful to see how your students turn out. And as a teacher I know that sometimes just by standing by a student's side I can do miracles. And later it's beautiful to see how they turn out. But in the long run you know you've definitely done something to help these boys. In Egypt in general, the teacher's profession is not considered one of the major professions. Doctors and engineers come first. Unless teachers really love teaching and take it as a mission, they don't stay too long; it doesn't pay that much. But for those who like it, the gratification is high. There are teachers here at Sainte-Famille who've been here as long as I have, fifteen years. It's a good indication that we've found something.