The Home Is the First School of Education

The home or the family, Madam — over which nature has crowned you queen — is a natural gathering of persons bound together by the ties of blood, who form a material and moral unity: the smallest living unit in the social body, the first link in the chain of society, and the cornerstone of which the larger community is composed. And the unit of this family is — the individual. The family has passed through different stages in which its conditions changed, and in every one of them woman was the important factor within it. These stages are:

1 — The age of motherhood, distinguished by the confinement of kinship and rights to the mother.

2 — The age of fatherhood, when the father became the recognized source of lineage.

3 — The joint age, in which kinship acquired two sides: paternal descent and the maternal bond. It is self-evident to speak of the family's social function: organization, association, cooperation, the idea of submission to the ways that secure the happiness of the whole, and the idea of government are all derived from the family. The first nucleus of the social body is the home, and no nation stands upright, nor does any strength form within it, unless the family in it makes its members sound. If we look closely at the homes that neglected the upbringing of their children through ignorance or poverty, we see the great difference between them and the cultivated homes that were careful in raising their children and directed them aright.

There is no need for me to remind you of the fate of a nation in whose families the disease of ignorance and neglect has spread, so that it left its children with neither upbringing nor learning. As the mother is, so the children grow; and as the children grow — they who are the members of the nation — so is the nation: elevated by their elevation and degraded by their degradation. In proportion to individual upbringing and its method, work bears fruit for the advancement of the family and for raising the beacon of the homeland and its prosperity. The variety of a nation's desires and of the inclinations of its men depends to a great extent on the variety of the desires and inclinations of that nation's women; if the woman is cultivated and sound in her patriotism, her sons and daughters will be so as well.

My sister, woman — you are the mother of many children or of few, or the mother of one child, or about to become a mother. Come then, let us talk about this beloved one they call the child — no matter whether boy or girl, for each is half of society, and the sound whole is completed only by both together.

I imagine you now — as you listen to the talk of a mother like yourself — clasping your child, boy or girl, to your breast and printing on his soft face the kiss of love and tenderness, the kiss of motherhood, which carries the loftiest and holiest meanings of love, and lending your ear to what I have to say.

You remember, no doubt, Napoleon's famous saying: "She who rocks the cradle with her right hand rocks the world with her left." Have you thought how to use this power which the Creator granted you and which philosophers, sages, and poets have extolled? Have you grasped what it means that a weak hand like yours can rock the world? Yes — if you grasp where your strength lies, the saying of Napoleon and of the philosophers and sages will be fulfilled in you; for the great men and women who invented and discovered, who laid down systems and changed the face of humanity, were but sons and daughters.

Women great in their spirits and their principles — you are the factory of men and women. I do not mean that you are the cause of their existence, but that you are the one charged with raising them soundly — an upbringing unmarred by superstitions, idle tales, and weakness, built upon a lofty, solid scientific foundation.

You are the child's mother, and you must be a companion, a friend, and a wise educator to your child until his stem grows strong and his character becomes firm — able to face the problems and hardships of life, equipped with the strong, cutting weapon that you placed in his hand.

One of the Arab sages said: "Rear your son for seven years, discipline him for seven, accompany him for seven, then leave him to face life, for you have fulfilled your duty."

Once you know this station of yours and appreciate the responsibility laid upon your shoulders — namely, preparing the builders of tomorrow — you must take the straightest paths and the best ways, and this requires of you culture, attentiveness, and vigilance.

A tender, pliant seedling lies in your hands. If you watch over its growth, straighten its crookedness, and keep harmful influences away from it, it will come up a tree of towering branches, giving good fruit and spreading shade. But if you neglect it and leave it to the mercy

of fate and environment, it will bend and stray from the straight path.

When we want to build a house, we take care first to lay a firm foundation — often upon rock — so that it will be strong, and neither storms nor nature's hurricanes will have the power to tear it down.

And the hurricanes of society, Madam, are mightier and heavier in impact and effect than the hurricanes of nature; and this child, this small creature, is one of the pillars of the nation and a structure in the homeland more important and grander than the loftiest skyscrapers.

One of the physicians of society said: "Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a trait; sow a trait and you reap a character."

And you, my dear, are the mother of a child who adored you as a little one, loved you as a youth, and accompanied you in middle age; he is in your hands from the cradle to the grave. If he grows up noble, a reformer, a great man, he will be a pride to you; and if he turns out sluggish, weak, a burden, or a vagrant and a criminal, the fault will be yours, because you neglected his upbringing — and if someone departs from this rule, no measure can be taken from the exception.

It is within the power of fathers and mothers to prepare the destiny of tomorrow's world, and this is the most glorious of works through all the ages. We know that we are still groping our way in this building, reform, renewal, and progress toward the building of tomorrow; and the best means for us to follow is to sow the qualities that will fit this child to bear the responsibilities of tomorrow.