Society News

National circles gave thanks to God that the unfortunate accident which befell the son of His Excellency the President, Sheikh Michel el-Khoury, and his daughter, Miss Huguette, in Rome, was extremely slight. As we congratulate His Excellency the President and Madame his wife, from the depths of our hearts, on the safety of their two children, we pray God to watch over this noble house of Lebanon.

○ News from Rome reports that Mrs. Laure, wife of His Excellency the President, is still the object of the authorities' warm attentions. Many receptions have been held in her honor, the most notable among them that of the President of the Italian Republic and his wife.

○ On the 22nd of last month the noble Mrs. Fayza al-Solh, wife of His Excellency Riad Bey al-Solh, paid a visit to Tripoli at the head of a delegation from the Young Muslim Women's Association. In al-Fayha' a great celebration was held, at which a new institute for young Muslim women was dedicated. The president of the institute, Miss Jadida Shaaban, spoke, giving thanks and welcome and touching upon the association's purpose and its high aims.

The donations bestowed by certain ladies, by Their Excellencies the Ministers, and by the official bodies came to one thousand Lebanese lira.

The first thing Mrs. Fayza al-Solh did was to pin the Order of Merit upon the breast of Mrs. Naji Sha'rari, who has spent 35 years as an educator in the government schools of Tripoli.

Mrs. Fayza al-Solh was gracious enough to visit the Young Women's Institute in Beirut, where she inspected its work and showed great zeal in support of this national and humane project.

As she went about the corners of the institute she offered observations that bespoke the refined taste and sound grasp of fine points that distinguish Mrs. al-Solh. Before leaving, she donated to the institute the sum of five hundred Lebanese lira and praised the efforts of the institute's president, the energetic Mrs. Habiba Shaaban Yakan, of its honorary president Dr. Saniyya Habboub Naqqash, and of the ladies in charge of its various branches.

○ The competent departments are returning once more to the study of moving the public houses from Martyrs' Square to special quarters to be built on a street set apart, surrounded by constant surveillance and daily medical inspection.

By this removal the Governorate of Beirut aims, first, at beautifying Martyrs' Square, and second, at stamping out, by gradual degrees, the spread of prostitution.

○ The Makassed College for Girls was the first institute to begin its athletic activity this year. Early in the present month the college gave a great festival, attended by the wife of His Excellency Riad al-Solh; in this athletic celebration there shone forth a spirit of vigor and of taste in the perfection of the various dances, and the feeling of gaiety prevailing among the institute's students.

Another thing that drew the eye at this celebration was the beginning of an organized Guide movement among the girls of the upper classes. It is a blessed step; would that all the girls' schools of Lebanon might follow its example — great benefit would come of it. Elsewhere in this issue is a special account of this movement at the Girls' College, with some scenes of it.

The credit for this belongs to the directress of the college, the great educator Miss Zahiyah Dughan, who enfolds this institute in her broad care and nourishes it from her own good spirit.

○ On the ninth of May there gathered in the UNESCO Palace a number of men and women educators versed in the treatment of children's questions, to consider the founding of a Lebanese national branch of the international "Child Welfare" institution, whose seat is Geneva and which belongs to the United Nations organization.

His Excellency Hamid Frangieh opened the session, setting out the purpose of the meeting, and presented Mrs. Colby to speak on the project. She set forth the association's idea and showed the abundant benefits that would accrue to Lebanon from joining this international institution. She then read the "Declaration of the Rights of the Child," which the association approved and which the United Nations organization adopted and circulated to all the countries belonging to it. Mrs. Colby called upon those present to found a national committee in Lebanon, and the idea was received with approval and consent.

Thereafter a committee was formed to set to work by making contact with the various children's institutions now existing in Lebanon, and the election yielded:

1 - Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush
2 - Mrs. Alice, wife of His Excellency Alfred Naccache
3 - Miss Zahiyah Dughan
4 - Mr. Georges Shahla
5 - Father Qortbawi

○ The "Helping Hand" association in Bino, Akkar, held on the first of May a memorial celebration in honor of the association's founder, Mrs. Hanneh Haddad Atiyya. It was a splendid, well-ordered celebration, attended by a great throng from Beirut, Tripoli, and the neighboring villages. Mrs. Nazik Sarkis spoke for the Lebanese Women's League, and Mrs. Muneera Shehadeh for the Lebanese Arab Women's Federation, and Miss Farwi Atiyya gave a sketch of the late lady's life, so full of sacrifice, struggle, and good works. Messrs. Louis Abou Sharaf and Georges Nasr also spoke.

The closing word fell to His Excellency the Minister of Education Hamid Frangieh, who thanked the members for their zeal, urged them to keep to the road, and pinned upon the breast of Mr. Farid Atiyya, son of her whose memory was being honored, the Lebanese Order of Merit, in appreciation of his mother's works and her services in the fields of culture and humanity.

The word of thanks, on behalf of the Atiyya family, was spoken by Mr. Khalil Atiyya.

○ Among the most notable activities at the Cultural Forum of late was the valuable lecture delivered in the Forum's hall by Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush, on the subject:

"A Testimony on Woman"

In it she called for free compulsory education, and for the Lebanese woman to be given room to work in every domain of life: in the institutions for the reform of juveniles, in teaching and in health, in social affairs and elsewhere. She said: when the cultured, awakened woman demands to occupy these posts, she is striving to raise the level of home and society, and the happiness of the family.

She spoke with praise of the report which Lebanon's women's delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women presented to the government