Thank God, Madam, that today there is no longer anyone to deny us women the loftiness of the purpose for which we were created, or to dispute with us the absolute authority in the management of this little kingdom — the home. And what purpose is loftier than the management of the household, which is in truth the supreme department, where the individual must learn his first lesson in ordering and organization, so that he emerges from it fully qualified to take charge of the departments of the state — political, social, and literary..... Accordingly, the responsibility that rests upon us is a great one, obliging us to study the subject from all its sides at every favorable opportunity, whether by way of reading the books written for this purpose or by profiting from those who have more experience than we.
There is no doubt that this subject of ours still calls for our serious and speedy attention, that we may raise the level of our Arab home, which to this day lacks a great deal in this respect. The towering buildings and sumptuous palaces that we see multiplying day by day throughout the country are not what is meant by the home we seek and call for — no!! The home the nation demands is that home which fulfills the conditions of health and nourishment, which contains the marks of art and beauty while observing economy and thrift, whether it be a splendid palace or a humble hut. It is that home to which the nation can entrust the protection of
the family and its happiness, and the rearing of children in like habits and similar inclinations, so that the bonds of affection and brotherhood among its members grow strong, and the ties between it and the various Arab lands grow ever firmer in trust and loyalty.
There is no end of soothsaying that numbs our nerves, until we no longer feel the weight of the responsibility laid upon our shoulders toward it — above all upon that mother who holds it to her breast. For she is the first and last repository of the trust of the ages and
the secret of life. Yet most of us, alas, surrender to this kind of numbing of the nerves in the face of this supreme responsibility — though we are by no means heedless of whatever touches our national dignity: then we rise up and rush with fervor beyond all fervor to ask how we are to advance, how we are to climb the ladder of modern civilization — this civilization the West has attained and thereby robbed us of that dignity — how we are to unite upon what serves the country's good, how we are to put aside divisions and
differences and cross the barriers that ignorance has raised among us; how, and by what means, we can prepare the nation's leaders and rulers — the men who will steer the helm of great affairs, take the nation's destinies in hand, and carry it either upward or downward... We repeat these questions and their like at the blowing of every wild storm
My sister woman! Here is motherhood calling you to listen a moment while it is spoken of — not because I, as the speaker, deserve this hearing, but because of the ties between you and me, the kindred states of soul, and the shared womanly responsibilities where motherhood is concerned — this office with which the Lord Most High has singled us out, to tend it and
to keep it. Duty summons us to mutual understanding and an exchange of thought concerning this human trust — this child — whom the Creator of the worlds fashioned in His image and likeness, and in whom He deposited such powers as guarantee to him and to us the continuance of life and the endurance of existence, between my arms and yours, my sister woman.
Yes, there is none among us who denies the importance of this dear child, who has scarcely come into the world before all eyes turn toward him and the exaggeration begins about what is in him and about him — intelligence and beauty, and what is destined for him in the future of aptitude, genius, and precedence in the world of learning and work, and to