Woman's Aims in Higher Education

Although her renaissance is still at its beginning, and although the bonds that limit her activity are still too heavy for her to shake off, and although her higher education is still, in the eyes of many, a kind of folly and a waste of time — despite all this, I say, many women have succeeded in freeing themselves completely and entering the finest universities and colleges.

What truly gives cause for joy is the steady increase we see in the number of our girls who flock to the colleges, which promises the bright future we await for our country; and this proves that woman has awakened from her slumber and set to work for a happier life by the road of sound learning. Something like a new life has stirred in the world of woman, and the number of women students has grown with the passing of the days. One result of this has been the increase in the number of women students who enter every year the American University here in Beirut, or the other universities in Europe and America.

The number of women students in the first academic class of the American University — the Freshmen — has passed the hundred; the second academic class has reached ninety, and the new third, 25. Yes, this is a record figure, when we know that the total number of women students did not exceed fifty in the recent years, and that it did not go beyond four or five twenty years ago, that is, at the beginning of its founding.

And this increase in numbers is nothing less than proof of woman's renaissance.

Many are those who accuse woman of a deficiency in learning that does not help her to take part in the various fields of life; but whoever looks into the statistics of the college or the university can only deny all of this, for the women students are distributed among all the branches, so that you cannot find a department of arts or of sciences without a feminine name in it.

They say that medicine requires a mighty mind and a retentive memory: has woman's name, then, been struck from its rolls? No — in this year's statistics we have a number not to be despised, and likewise in the branch of pharmacy, apart from specialization in mathematics and the natural sciences.

They say that theoretical studies demand patience, endurance, and a penetrating mind: have women's names, then, flown from their registers? On the contrary, the number of women students in this field is growing steadily; and experience has proved that when woman has at her disposal the means available to man, she can keep pace with him in the various fields of learning and of practice. All this shows us clearly: first — that woman has awakened to the value of sound learning; second — that she has not confined herself to one branch of it to the exclusion of another; third — that in the field of specialization she has exploits which only the ungrateful and the spiteful will deny. And the mighty works performed by the graduates of the College and the American University and of the universities of the world are shining proof that higher education is among the most urgent necessities for woman.

We see from all the foregoing that higher education has lofty aims, among them:

The preparation of mothers and housewives who can prove to the world that the educated woman can be a model housewife and at the same time answer the needs of the country.

And since the Arab countries are in need of capable women educators, and since we believe that sound education must begin from the foundation, and that the elementary schools need capable women teachers specialized in modern educational methods, we have seen fit to direct our attention in particular toward graduating women teachers educated to a high level and specialized in the teaching of the elementary classes.

Likewise we try to prepare students distinguished by knowledge of the art of home economics and by mastery of all the domestic arts pertaining to their own kingdom — a science founded upon several sciences, such as sociology, psychology, the science of hygiene and first aid, the rearing of children, the principles of nutrition, decorative work, drawing, and the preparation of food.

As for the highest aim of higher education, it is to graduate students who feel deeply that outside the home they have a nation demanding of them positive work in the cause of the great national question.