Our Girls at Their School Desks: The American University of Beirut

I still remember a saying that one of the teachers at the American College for Girls kept repeating in my hearing: "Be assured, my girl, that every year you spend at school takes away another year from your share in marriage — especially if you go to the university!"

That teacher may be right or she may be wrong, but she uttered her "wisdom" out of experience — that is, after she had entered the university and finished her higher studies there. And here I am endorsing her saying, likewise out of experience. But the outcome does not trouble me, because the scholarly and literary benefit a girl gains as a result of her university studies exceeds in value the number of years it takes from her chances of marriage!!

The step of entering the university was not easy at first, and a clamor was often raised against the girls who went there — so much so that some did not hesitate to declare that for the Arab girl to enter the university meant the certain destruction of her morals and her mind. And how not, when they want to keep her crouched in the corner of ignorance and of blind dependence on man? And thus the coming Arab generations would be doomed so long as the mother remained ignorant.

But the days have shown that the Arab girl can enter the university and, by her success, defy everything that was said to the contrary. And though the number of our girls was very small at first — for the university, old as its founding is, did not admit girls until 1923, when Misses Edma Abouchdid and Mira Saffouri, of Palestine, entered, both joining the medical department; then Miss Marie Hawi followed in 1929 — and though the number grew very slowly, in the past two years it has reached a record figure compared with the past. The number of our girls today is about fifty-four.

Thus our girls are spread among the departments of the university, and it appears that they prefer the department of arts, where they scatter among its various branches — philosophy, history, language, etc....

As for the science department, their number there is, regrettably, very small. The

branches of this department are plentiful: medicine, pharmacy, chemistry, physics, and biology.

In past years the university girl was a stranger to the university: she went into the classroom and the library, and from there home. Now, however, her activity and vitality have widened, and she has become the true partner of the male student in all his affairs and doings. We see her, moreover, taking part in all the social and scholarly activities held at the university, whether on its stage or in its halls.

She is a working member of the editorial committee of the magazine al-'Urwa al-Wuthqa — the organ of the student body — and she holds, besides, excellent positions in the athletic and literary societies: the secretary of the debating club and of the ping-pong athletic club is a girl student, and so too in the arts club.

As for the plays staged in the university theater, the girl takes her part in acting them beside her comrade the young man.

All this goes on in a fine atmosphere of sportsmanship and culture, in which the girl feels that she and her fellow student are two comrades, each bearing toward the other the respect that is his due.