cal articles, and is delighted by a downpour of words and a torrent of phrases. But they began to wither away when readers began to open their eyes; and no doubt material insufficiency hastened the passing of these papers — but for that, they could have lived longer, for many of our readers even today judge an article by its words rather than its meanings. And, upon my life, how great would our poverty in women's journalism be had not the Lebanese Women's League risen to establish the magazine "The Woman's Voice," opening thereby to woman the field of contributing to what Arabic journalism ought to be.
And in spite of that, our poverty in women's journalism is still severe.
Nor do I forget here the part played by the schools and their responsibility for this poverty. Our girls' schools are unable to furnish the sound type of cultivated woman. What we observe with regret is that our girls' passion for aping the French exceeds that of the boys, and that their fondness for speaking foreign languages — sometimes without reading them — kills in them every inclination to master their own language, or to read it, or to write in it. And we observe, on the other hand, that the few who have had the chance, by one means or another, to master this language have not had the chance of a rich modern culture from which to draw inspiration when they write; so their ideas remain feeble, and imitation and banality prevail in them.
We do not ask the girls' schools to prepare women journalists for us. That is the business of schools of journalism. But it is their duty to prepare women who master their language in a modern fashion, tinged with taste and with the modern renewal of style, drawing from the sciences and letters of the foreigners nourishment and richness, just as it draws from the sciences and letters of our forebears a firebrand and an inspiration.
But where are our schools? Have we schools of our own to establish, to control, or to direct? I fear this subject would drag us into dwelling at length on a painful matter — so let us stop here.
There has come to the homeland's precincts, on a short visit, the estimable Mrs. Evelyn, wife of the gracious notable Mr. Aziz Nader, one of the pillars of the Lebanese colony in São Paulo, Brazil. Mrs. Evelyn is one of the emigrant women who have rendered abundant service, material and moral alike, to the woman's renaissance and its reform projects. Among her latest good works was her gift to the Lebanese Women's League of the sum of 500 Lebanese liras, to be spent on the reform projects it carries out. And it would please us for the Lebanese government to appreciate her noble services and her abundant merit, and to award her the Lebanese Order of Merit.
"The Woman's Voice" sent its special representative to receive her, and she had the honor of visiting her at the home of her kinsman, the notable Mr. Georges Karam, in Ras Beirut, where she talked with her about the activity of the emigrant Lebanese woman. We here summarize this delightful conversation in the following information, which our readers will be interested to learn:
1 — The Lebanese colony of São Paulo is among the largest of the colonies. It holds a social standing surpassing that of the other colonies.
2 — Contact between the homeland and the lands of exile increases day by day: on the one hand because of the ease and speed of communications in this age, and on the other because of the emigrants' concern for the mother country, especially since it gained its independence.
3 — The emigrants' concern for Lebanon and their attachment to it depend in the first degree on the resident Lebanese themselves. If they give proof of their loyalty to it and of their desire for reform, the emigrants
will be encouraged to return to it, whether to visit it for a long or a short while, or to settle in it for good.
4 — As for the emigrants' attitude toward their mother country, it is an honorable attitude. They are loyal to it with an utter loyalty. How they yearn for it, and try their utmost to speak of it and to speak its tongue! For that reason most emigrant families take care to teach their children the Arabic language and to make it alone the language they speak among themselves; as for Portuguese, speaking it is confined to commercial business and the like.
5 — There are numerous societies in São Paulo, women's and mixed, which all the inhabitants join regardless of nationality. There are no purely Lebanese societies. And the eagerness to enroll in these societies is keen among the emigrants.
6 — "The Woman's Voice" used to reach me in a regular way, and likewise all the subscribers I know in São Paulo; and how we would wait for its arrival and all read it with longing and delight! We have noticed the great progress this magazine has achieved in recent months.
This is the substance of what was said by the estimable lady whose return to its precincts has gladdened Lebanon.
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