Our Aim: To Prepare an Ideal Homeland

I shall not sing the praises of children, nor shall I say that they are our own hearts walking upon the earth. This is a thing we all feel; and were it not for the importance of children, and had we not appreciated their place now and in the future, this great number would not have gathered here today. We have sung much and talked much — but what have we done? What have we prepared for our children? And what are we going to do to raise the young generation of this beloved homeland? Do you want our children to go on being raised on all manner of cultures? Or do you want them Lebanese, whose language is Arabic, proud of their country, striving to raise it to a high level of progress, of pure culture, and of true civilization?

The physical upbringing of the young is less important, and less difficult, than their spiritual upbringing and the direction of their minds and their deeds. That is why we see the institutes of education floundering in a current of experiments, and the psychologists coming out at us every day with some new departure.

And we see the various groups that believe in sundry social doctrines imposing them upon the young, relying on force and on propaganda dressed as justification, so that the young may profess what those groups favor and adopt their principles.

Nazism, Fascism, and the various parties began their work by spreading propaganda among the young, because the young are pliable, capable of being molded and directed; they take up different tendencies, embrace them with enthusiasm, and grow fanatical for them.

Schools and cultures have multiplied in our country, small as it is. They are French here, English and American there, and sectarian; and before the war there were Russian, Italian, and German ones.

We do not deny their merit and their usefulness, from a hundred years ago down to this day. But the time has come for us, now that we are an independent nation, to unify our culture and prepare it for our young in a form that accords with our present consciousness and the glory of the ancient East. For the East, as you know, gave the world in the past a civilization, sciences, and a religious philosophy for which the world is still, and will always remain, in its debt. In chemistry, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and the other sciences we gave the West many of the foundations and the knowledge upon which it proceeds. Then we gave the three monotheistic religions: in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Koran is the philosophy of spiritual and social life — a lamp that guides the world to the true path.

Yes, the time has come for us to unify our culture and make it of us and for us, taking from the many cultures — after all we have profited from them — whatever suits us, so that we may form a Lebanese Arab culture by which the young generation of Lebanon shall be raised.

The Lebanese people at present is divided into several groups, differing in thought and expression, joined by no common language and united by no common system. Some of it imitates the Anglo-Saxons and their ways; some is enamored of the French and their life; and there are other differences that have arisen from the existence of sectarian schools — Islamic, Orthodox, Maronite, and others. How, then, do you expect cooperation, solidarity, and unity of inclinations and directions from groups of differing tastes and upbringing? This is very sad, and it is the disease that is eating us. I assure you that we shall never rise, and there will be no

order in this country, unless the young are raised in one single way and in the love of one single homeland.

Some may find this too difficult where those who have passed school age are concerned. So be it! Naturally it is hard to change these people and to divert the course of their thinking; but we are working now for the young generation and the children, so let us confine our concern to them. I therefore ask the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people to organize a ten-year campaign in which they shall wipe out general illiteracy, illiteracy in the Arabic language, and ignorance in national upbringing and social life. And that by the following means:

1 — Establish in all parts of the country primary and secondary schools, governmental and private, proceeding upon one single curriculum — Lebanese, Arab, and world-minded:
I ask for a Lebanese curriculum because we are Lebanese, proud of our Lebanese character and our special traits.
I ask that it be Arab because we are Arabs. History and language bind us to the other Arab countries by the bond of neighborhood, of interest, and of aim.
And I ask that it be world-minded because the age of isolationism has passed, thank God. The world has begun to cast off isolationism, narrow national racialism, fanaticism, and selfishness, and calls for liberation from the fetters of these backward principles.

2 — Let education be compulsory, fitting young men and young women for work in the country's natural resources — agriculture, industry, and summering — and limit the number of students of the liberal professions and the fine arts, restricting it to those who have the inclination and the gift. For we are in pressing need of producers, and we have professional men in plenty.

3 — Cooperate with the foreign universities, and make them develop so that they work for the good of Lebanon as though they were national universities. And strive to found a national university in the not-distant future.

4 — Make the teaching of foreign languages compulsory alongside Arabic. And bring into Arabic the scientific, technical, and foreign terms in Arabized form, so that their use becomes easy.

5 — Send scholarly missions of young men and young women to the West, and draw upon their experience in organizing every side of life in the country, for the sons of the country know the country's needs better than foreigners do, and care more for its interest and its good.

6 — Set aside playgrounds for the little ones, for our children fill the roads and the alleys.

7 — Permit no sectarianism whatever in the institutes of education. Separate religion from the state. Encourage religion in individuals, and let the fear of God and the love of one's neighbor be deep-rooted in the soul of every single person.