true minor scale, mistook the correct face of the Greek musical method. The Lebanese theorists, by presenting the correct theories concerning the individual Greek art (as reported in the Parisian review L'Acoustique, the organ of the French Academy), have since obtained valuable information about the Greek Dorian mode, from which all the modes of the Greeks were derived, and which is known among us as the maqam Hijaz Kar Kurd — applying to it an accompaniment (harmony) more magnificent and sweeter than the modern Western accompaniment.
Fifty years ago I read, in the dictionary of the British musical academy, an article by James Lecky on the music of the Arabs, in which the following appeared: it may be concluded from the writings of the Moravian scholar Kiesewetter that the Arabs used the major triad (which is the cornerstone of the art of music, and upon which the Westerners built their music). It is not possible, as you know, to conceal the truth; it must come out plainly into the open — above all after the appearance of the translations of the works of the Arab musicians of the Middle Ages, as was mentioned above.
The contemporary physicist Helmholtz succeeded, with the help of a set of diapasons, in devising an instrument that gives artificial vowel sounds in imitation of the human voice, exhibited for the first time in London in 1872. Now the great teacher of singing Delle Sedie, to whom I was introduced by one of my colleagues, was looking for an accompanist during his singing lessons in Paris; he noticed my interest in the question of vocal culture, told me of the foregoing, and made me understand the truth
of his theory, built upon the method of Helmholtz's theory, so that I might spread it in my turn. This friend wrote out his study in fourteen volumes. And it is stated in the dictionary of the British Academy that Auber, director of the Paris Conservatoire, after satisfying himself of the evident superiority of his method, urged and persuaded him to accept a professorship at the Paris Conservatoire on conditions that had been granted to no one before him — among them the chairmanship of the artistic committee for revising the program then followed in that institution for vocal culture. But after my return to the homeland I was unable to pursue the theories of Ustad Delle Sedie any further, for my
specialty, music, did not allow me to give them the necessary time — until lately there came to me a chance, which I call providential, that placed in my path the delicate instrument that could be employed to demonstrate this theory, in the person of the Lebanese girl whom I have had follow the method of vocal culture used at the Théâtre-Italien of Paris — the temple of vocal culture in former days. And on that same basis Miss Badi'a Ashqar sings the examples that have been composed to display the first Arab harmonies that history has recorded.
The hospital service of the London County Council is considered the largest in all Britain: it comprises 68,000 beds, and it stands in continual need of a growing number of nurses, servants, and workers.
Mr. George Isaacs, Britain's Minister of Labor, opened, for the recruitment of nurses, an exhibition held in the Council's hall. Among the things he said was that the women of today, who have been released from their work in the factories, the offices, and the various war departments, and who did their work to the full in the service of the homeland — these women are now seeking peaceful work with noble aims.
Nursing has from ancient times been an honored profession, counted among the noblest and most humane of occupations for the service it renders to the sick and the helpless.
This exhibition is a fine oppor
tunity to show gifted women that nursing in Britain is also an attractive calling, and that its conditions are improving and advancing with steady steps. Cheerful young nurses stood ready to answer the visitors' questions in all the sections, among them a section displaying all the various surgical instruments, the operating rooms, the breathing apparatus that gives oxygen to infants, other devices that give off vapor, the iron lung, and more...
There was a model representing a nurse's room, with its comfortable bed, its chair, and its bookshelves; there was another room for keeping the staff's valuables; and there were a number of photographs showing the nurse's life during her training days, from her entry into the hospital until she passes the final examination. They also show the nurse during her training in the work of a particular specialty, such as