A Word from His Excellency the President

The world today stands at a crossroads, yearning to take the path whose air is clearest and richest in cooperation and understanding among peoples.

It is the path of goodness, love, and concord, toward which the soul inclines from its first breath, calling upon thought in its wide horizon, and upon the spirit at its loftiest level, to create a human brotherhood embracing the world of man, and turning his science and knowledge to account in strengthening the sense of the lofty human values, free of the passions of aggression and tyranny.

Here is revealed the exemplary role played by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It calls upon education to raise the level of the individual and of communities; upon science, to make of the brains of geniuses and inventors a hedge for peace; and upon culture, to widen man's understanding and acquaint him with others.

And Lebanon, in its inherited civilization and its deep-rooted culture, is proud to make a fruitful contribution to the revival of these principles and those values, and proud that its soil, during the holding of the third session of the UNESCO organization in its domains, should be the source of the spiritual and intellectual radiance that lights humanity's road to a happy future.

And who is worthier than woman in general, and the Lebanese woman in particular, to take up this noble mission and to devote to it an effort full of tenderness and affection?

November 18, 1948