The Lebanese are by nature cul-turally conscious. No compulsory laws, even in our present inde-pendent status, force the average inhabitant of this country to send his children to school. He does so because of a deep rooted urge refreshed through constant contact with different streams of culture.

Lebanon, a highway between East and West, has been privileged all through its history with the sublime duty of teaching mankind.

Its earliest inhabitants, the Phoenicians traffiked in all values, spiritual and material, way back in 1000 B.C. They crossed the sea to hand their precious alphabet to Greece.

Through succeeding periods of conquest the Lebanese never lost their thirst for knowledge.

When the Arabs conquered Lebanon in the 7th. Century, they found it saturated with Greco-Roman culture.

When the Turks entered Lebanon in the 16th. century they did little to encourage learning. As a result of their despotic regime an overwhelming majority of liberal minded people left their fatherland in pursuit of tolerance and freedom.

Early in the 17th. Century for-eign missionaries started coming to the rescue. Although their motive was not purely educative, they helped a great deal in fighting ignorance and fear.

The first organized attempt at opening shools started early in the 19th. Century when Ibrahim Pacha, the Egyptian conqueror of Lebanon, initiated a system of boys' education.

Far more important to us than that event was the opening in 1834 of the first girls School in Beirut. The enterprize was started by Eli Smith and his wife, a young and devoted American couple whose zeal and idealism made them go all the way to Leipzig in search of Arabic printing. Few books were

provided for, and immediately a number of other schoolds opened.

Soon, the French took the lead and surpassed, in their boys and girls schools, every other foreign effort. With the ardour of medieval monks their friars taught, trans-lated and transmitted knowledge to all classes of Society.

The British started in 1873 a boys and girls School in Brummana and ever since the school has been flourishing under the auspices of the board of Friends in England. At the moment it is the only school that prepares for the Oxford and Cambridge matriculation. A little later another British Mission started a women's training in Beirut; this school is also progress-ing steadily.

Not very far from Beirut, to the south, stands the village of Shoueifat that has greatly contributed to the intellectual standard of Lebanon. Through the individual initiative of Rev. T. Saad, a co-educational institution was founded about 70 years ago. At the Shoueifat College, hundreds of young men and women were educated; the institution is still flourishing and progressing.

Miss Malek, an ambitious woman, started also another school that has been training girls for a healthier and better way of living.

The Russians, way back in the early 19th. Century, opened a number of primary institutions for girls. During the first world war however, they handed them over to the Greek Philanthropic Society, who has at the moment, a very well run series of schools.

In 1917 the Turks, hitherto disinterested in opening schools, sent to Beirut, Fahda Edib, a very capable woman leader accompanied by 50 trained teachers, to open a primary, a secondary and a normal school for girls. The scheme was a success except that it came a bit late to leave a lasting impression.

Zahrat El-Ihsan, the first

National School for girls opened in 1867, sponsored by the Greek Orthodox community. During the war its services were greatly needed by people who refused to send their girls to either the German or the Turks.

Another admirable adventure in National Education was that of Marie Kassab, a woman of high idealism who started a private school, in 1916, when Beirut was suddenly deprived of a number of European Institutions.

Marie Kassab's School, known as the « Ahliah National College », is actually our highest Lebanese Institution. Its main raison d'être is to initiate the young women of the country to the appreciation of their own as well as Western culture.

After the armistice of 1918, a great number of foreign schools for girls re-opened their gates.

The widest territory was to be won again by the French Missions who were particularly invigorated by the presence of the French Mandate in Lebanon.

During the Mandate period, 1920-1940, the Government dou-bled the number of its primary institutions, a great number of religious schools belonging to the Christian and Moslem Philanthropic Associations, opened their gates.

In 1946 the Ministry of Education in Lebanon issued a decree by which all private insti-tutions, foreign or National, passed under the control of the state. The official program (syllabus), is at present enforced in all schools.

Our official secondary program is modelled after the French, but leaves space for National needs.

Besides Arabic, which is the basic language of instruction in primary grades, the child must learn either French or English. The number of foreign languages grows as he advances into sec-ondary grades