18 Ave. Alladollah Teheran, July 1st, 1920

My Dear Mrs Platt;

Your letter dated Jan. 9th came to us yesterday with your generous gift of the draft of 49 pounds, for which the bank here gave one hundred twenty nine tomans two krans and 16 shahis. I made the deposit and Miss Kappes proposes making a fixed deposit of most all of your money and the bank will give 6% and compound interest, so you see it will not really be idle, tho not earning much it will be safe. the draft had Abdul Baha’s signature in English, the two initials A. were in small letters, but Baha was in [page 2, right side of image 44] capital B. I showed it to several persons, all of those with whom I came in contact. Miss Kappes has written to Abdul Baha and her letter will go in the same post as this one.

For a period of I think 15 years a very good school has been conducted here. The Persian and German Goots sharing in the expenses with a small proportion paid by the pupils. The director is our friend Dr Drager (German) & he has always had a large corps of good teachers & I am sure the boys had all sorts of good opportunities & some of them went to Germany to perfect their studies. After the first year of the war no money came from Germany none was given from the Persian Goot & the teachers all had to go back to Germany. The building is [page 3, left side of image 44] a very good large one in a large garden. Centrally located & we have all sorts of hopes that in some way the Bahais may get it. in Miss K’s letter she will appeal to Abdul Baha regarding it, for we do not believe a German school will again be opened here.

It is certain everybody is making every possible effort for the Mashrak ul Ascar but we hope they will not forget the Tarbiat school. Abdul Baha in a tablet said “it will not be only the best school in Persia but the best in the whole world”.

I have been present at many of the examinations which will be closed today by the last of the babies & yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to your little girl [illegible]. She is a [page 4, left side of image 43] very dear little thing, a little round smiling face & very bright. I told her I would write you how well she did. She will go from the second division of the 1st grade to the 2nd class. She writes very good simple Persian from dictation & does simple arithmetic & draws geometrical figures, square triangle & circle, but she is I think only 7 years old. She belongs to one of the good Bahai families on her mother’s side, but I do not know about or at present recall from where her father came. The families intermarry so steadily one cannot keep them straight, her father went away 3 or 4 years ago & I do not know in what capacity, no one knows where he is or even if he is living. The mother died a year ago, she and her children [page 5, right side of image 45] two other girls had been taken care of by contributions of their relatives, none of them all very well off but very united & good to each other. I have been trying to get the child’s birthday for you & may yet succeed, most of the people keep no record & only know some where near the time of a birth by connecting it with some other event.

In this examination of our 200 girls Miss K. has had the teachers of the boys school come to conduct it, all those above the third class had to cover their faces before the examiner, but the little ones Miss K. examined mostly herself with one of the men teachers to assist, and they tell her the girls know more than the boys. [page 6, right side of image 46] That sounds well when you compare the statement the men made when Miss K. proposed the girls going to the Goot Board of Education for a certificate they told her the girls could not study those subjects, & now in the space of 4 or 5 years all the other girls schools have followed Miss K.’s plans, if she does something new one year the next one the others do the same & when the girls are assembled for the public exams the inspector says she can always tell a Tarbiat girl from her behavior.

Miss K’s vacation usually begins July 1st but this year because of the Mohammedan [page 7, left side of image 46] calendar they follow it is a few days later for two months.

I hope you will see the two Persian men who must have reached American in time for the Convention, one of them Manutcher was our interpreter & lived in our family five years.

We are looking forward to Mr and Mrs Obers’ arrival & have no idea where they are.

Local political troubles are reported but not in Teheran. The Prime Minister recently resigned, but the Cabinet has a chronic disease & very frequently they break out resign & the whole lot are changed. They used to do it every 3 or 6 [page 8, left side of image 45] months but this one has been in over a year if not two years.

You will wonder why you get such a big envelope - it is one of a few Mr Caldwell gave me. stationery is hard to get here & now the way between Russia & Persia is blocked everything has to go via the south & Baghdad.

With all sorts of all kinds of expressions of gratitude you can imagine I leave them out but content yourselves with the thought that you are doing a great deal for Abdul Baha’s school.

With much Bahai love from the four of us, Yours in El Abha Sarah A. Clock. (M.D.)