286 Egypt
a revival of Egyptian craftsmanship and decorative design.
Silk weaving, wood carving, metal working and inlaying,
and carpet making are still living crafts in Cairo, though
languishing under competition with Western machine-
made rubbish, The process of industrialising the more
important of these, such as carpet weaving, by intro-
duction of power-looms, is being carefully conducted
under the present Government. Schools of Arts and of
Artistic Crafts have been founded. A grant of ;£ 10,000
has been voted for a Committee of Fine Arts appointed
to advise the Minister of Education, Other grants have
been made to music, to the drama, and to a history of
art in Arabic. Liberal allocations have been made to
industrial schools, and new schools are being built. The
Ministry of Public Works is to exercise control over build-
ing and planning, and a native style of architecture is
being sought. A good example of such an experiment is
the new Court House at Assiut. Another possibility is the
Arabic style favoured by Kitchener and followed by the
French in Morocco. A third school finds its models in
Pharaonic Egypt. So strong, indeed, is artistic taste and
tradition in Egypt that present day prosperity seems
likely to produce before long something of worth to the
world. In any case the conversion of the medieval Islamic
state into a modern industrial nation has not yet had the
depressing effects in Egypt that it has had elsewhere.
Colour, costume, and character have so far survived, and
efforts are being made to save them instead of, as in
Turkey and China, to sweep them away.
This book began by calling attention to a modern work
of art in Cairo which represents Modern Egypt as a
woman awakening the Sphinx. The part played by
Egyptian women from the first arousings of the national
consciousness to the riots of the final rebellion has been