Teheran July 9th, 1919.

Allaho Abha,

My Dear Mrs Platt;

If you notice the date of this letter you will know that tonight we will have the Mashrak ol Ascar meeting & this time it is at our house & there will be nine people, we four, Mrs Draeger our lovely German Bahai friend, Dr Arosto (brother of Mirza Lotfullah), two Persian Bahais & their wives, who being relatives the women may uncover their faces. one of the women is Miss K’s assistant in the school & to whom Abdul Baha sent a tablet several years ago telling her to help in The Tarbiat school, she is a remarkable woman [page 2, right side of image 34], the mother of seven daughters, one (married) & one son, the baby girl not yet two years old. but three of her daughters teach in the school. what counts for a great deal here is the fact that they belong to one of the best families here & so do all the other teachers.

At the meeting tonight an important announcement will be made. [illegible] a bank account has been opened in the name of the Tarbiat girls’ school & I am sure it is the first time such a thing has been done here. The letter from Lotfullah which arrived July 10th enclosing your draft & your letter with the pretty little silk flowers which came last night will be read. we are so grateful to you we do not know what to say: words are poor expressions of appreciation for such goodness. be sure the money will be used most judiciously. Miss K. & I are agreed on the question of free [page 3, left side of image 34] pupils & what we really think from practiced experience would startle most people. Miss K. took on a little girl as your pupil, tried her for a year & she did not make good progress either she was lazy or lacked in brain capacity & so Miss K. said, “How can I keep that child & let money from Mrs P. go toward her”? She notified the school they must pay for her & now they do. almost without exception the girls who are free pupils are the ones who do not work well, are not promoted & are the ones who cause disturbances & we think they should be made to pay even a part of the regular fee, but the fees are so small it is not enough to pay proper teachers for good work, building rent, coal & the ordinary incidentals, [“leaving” crossed out] & provide materials such as is often needed. school furniture, materials for teaching. there may be & have been [page 4, left side of image 33] exceptions to this idea of ours & if Miss K. finds a girl whom she think bright & ambitious, whose parents are not able to pay for her she will tell you, but most of the charity children come from the lower class who have not brain capacity & the money spent on them is wasted.

You would be amused to hear the explanation of a thermometer given by a pupil in an examination, committed to memory from a book & not a girl in the school had ever seen one. soon as I heard of it I bought a good one & now they know what they are talking about. This is only one instance but it is so with everything, & only shows how necessary teaching materials are. The Persians themselves do not realize these things.

The closing exercises of the school were not given & will not be until October, the month of [page 5, right side of image 35] Ramazan extended all through June when nothing of that sort can be given, the big cannon wasting a lot of powder bangs at 3:30 a.m. when a real Mohammedan does not even take a day of water or even medicine, fasting until after sunset. I think very few did it this year & when this time was finished the sun became very hot & the weather too warm for one to enjoy a commencement. Miss K. has started on her vacation of two months, during which time her assistant & the teachers will do sewing and more practical work with less brain work & the diplomas will be given the graduates in Oct. when I believe a lovely commencement will be given. The girls are working on their flags & the autumn flowers will help to add beauty to the scene. [paragraph, page 6, right side of image 36] Do you remember the cloth that was around the box you sent us? We made two aprons of it. strange to say I never had any use for an apron or the people who wore them constantly but now I am driven to it & glad enough to get one.

I do not believe you will see the Caldwells. we hear they left America May 25th & another telegram tells of their being in Liverpool June 21.

In a tablet recently [illegible] to a Persian Abdul Baha says it is well this country did not enter the war & it will be evident so we are wondering what will happen. many rumors are about regarding the political situation & perhaps before this letter gets to you the N.Y. papers [page 7, left side of image 36] will know more than we do. in another tablet to a Persian he instructs them to look after us that we are their guests, that it is important & necessary. Dr Moody thinks something great will happen, but in all the great troubles here of two years ago when food was not to be found & everything terribly expensive many died of starvation, not one of the Bahais had great trouble, we had stored in our home large quantities of wheat and rice that was brought and kept for the less fortunate ones.

Miss Kappes wants to add to this letter but I think our letters have crossed so much some of the things you want to know have already been answered. This a.m. [page 8, left side of image 35] we were talking about your idea of giving prizes, it is [“in” crossed out] direct & plain in instruction from Abdul Baha that this must be done. we think there are things like embroidery sets, perhaps small things stamped for simple outline stitch, they are cheap, effective, pretty, & the girls can do them with a little help. pillow covers, table covers, cushion covers, doilies that they can put on their small trays & of course there are many of these things possible that we have not seen. the girls like American handkerchiefs especially if they have colored borders they are cheap & the postage is not expensive. any cost of pencils are always very much prized. the value of a [page 9, right side of image 37] thing does not count for so much as the fact that it is presented especially before people, it belongs to the oriental character to like show & notice. there are little sewing or needle cases that are not expensive the girls would like. I think they are not more than 10 cents each & for dewing the flag you might send some twine, red & green spool thread no. 50. with great difficulty it has been found here at ridiculous prices. I will put in a bit of the color to show you. They are made of red, green & white, a broad green stripe on top, white on the middle & broad red stripe at the bottom on the center of the middle (white) stripe is a yellow lion & the sun & Miss K. teaches the girls to draw, cut & [page 10, right side of image 38] applique with button hole stitch around the edge. it is all done by hand & serves as a good sewing lesson. the girl outlines her own name in Persian & English on the corner of the bottom red stripe. to show you how silly some of the women are one of the schools has initiated Miss K’s idea of making flags by the pupils but not of Persian colors, of blue & pink. many of them imitate her methods in school work but in such a crude way you hardly realize the original plan. they think they improve on the ways of the Tarbiat school.

The entire year of Star of the West has come excepting No. 14 but they all come in strange order so we think that will come too. we are anxiously [page 11, left side of image 38] waiting news of the Convention, what Ahmad Sohrab had to say & know in good time it will come. We have the Star of the West bound each year in a vol. it is quite well done & cheaply & each one contains an enormous wealth of Holy words that we cannot half comprehend I am sure much as we enjoy them.

I think I wrote you of the beginning of the building fund that was started the 3rd day of Naurooz Miss K. started it not knowing we have a tablet in which Abdul Baha says anything begun at the time of Naurooz will succeed, we have met 3 times the 9th of the Persian [page 12, left side of image 37] month & only a few of us where I started the acct. for the school it was put in with your money 66 tomans, in good times a dollar is 11 krans (1 kran=10 cents) but now the Am. dollar is only 5 krans & a fraction the English pound is 25 krans so you see your money came to a little over 109 tomans. we will be very careful & you will represent a large share in the building fund besides a proper suitable girl.

With a great deal of love to you & any Bahais whom you may see

Yours in El Baha, Sarah A. Clock.

19 Ave. Alladollah