Show bible used as a basic text book eighteen thousand copies ot of the bible have been distributed in the orphanages pha nages ot of the near east relief during the past two years according to a report from the overseas directors ot of that organization the bibles printed in eight languages were secured through the cooperation of 0 the american and british bible societies the greek and armenian churches and various cooperating religious belil relie ious bodies A great many english bibles have found their way to the foreign depots of the relief organization frequently gifts of individuals in america in many cases an american church member contributing an old cloak or suit to the annual bundle day campaign has tucked a bible or an english testament into one of the pockets forgetting that verk very few of the refugees are arc able to read even a single word of english these bibles are carefully sorted out and are distributed to the teachers or to students in in english classes tor for use as text books in most near eastern countries th the e bible has been used tor for centuries as the basic textbook text book tor for instruction in schools it is the standard book in language teaching and tor for classes in the native grammar and writing while many ot of the psalms are intoned by the singing classes singing being a favorite subject of study among the near ear eastern peoples in three schools for the blind maintained by near east relief there are no complete braille bibles although each of the schools has a more or less lesa complete new testament in the braille of the native tongue most of the braille books used in these schools have been punched out by hand by the students and teachers greek and arabic being the languages used A braille version of parts of the book of job john u made in blind school at athens was r recently on exhibition at the near east relief headquarters here owing to lack of suitable material for the purpose the students had made the book out of 0 pages secured by carefully cutting the front and back from boxes of american america breakfast food this cardboard made an ideal material tor for punching out the braille letters and similar books covering a wide range of subjects are constantly used in the schools in athens |