A Talk in a Month: A Recreation Club for the Young

A Talk in a Month

For the Sake of Our Children

Care for the child is not confined to his health and his lessons alone, but extends to his recreation as well. We have begun to be aware of this three-sided problem in Lebanon and have set about solving parts of it: we have built nurseries and child-welfare homes and opened clinics for children sick and well, where they are cared for with all the skill and knowledge we possess. And we have founded kindergartens, now more widespread in the country than before, directed by specialists versed in the principles of education and discipline. Then we began to prepare for our children what would nourish their souls, and certain attempts at translating and writing books for their literature have proved entirely successful. But the question of amusing them in ways that turn to their profit and suit their ages and inclinations in their free hours — this we have left aside, whether from failure to appreciate its importance or because other things have kept us from it.

What, then, have we done at the present time to solve this problem, one wonders?! What edifying means and methods have we prepared for our youngsters' amusement outside home and school?! Were we to put this question to every mother in Beirut in particular and in Lebanon at large, we should feel her flounder for an answer, and we should perceive that she senses the problem but cannot alone find a fitting solution to it.

Yes, all of us as mothers stand perplexed: how are our children to spend their free time?! Where are they to spend it?! And with whom?! Who, one wonders, is responsible for the matter of their recreation!

We feel they are safe within their homes and schools, but in danger closing in on them in their free hours, for they very often learn bad habits through bad company and for want of a center or a garden of their own where they might amuse themselves in ways suited to their ages and inclinations. To what motion picture can we take them that would be fit for them? What magazine of their own can we put into their hands? We are without doubt greatly remiss in giving conscious attention to refreshing the spirits of our little ones as people in advanced countries refresh theirs.

Lately some of us have become alive to this fundamental problem in the training of the young, and a year ago we called upon one another to unite our forces and strive for its solution. We formed a committee of mothers and educators in Ras Beirut called the "Committee for the Recreation of the Young," attached to the Lebanese Public Health Association, composed of Mesdames Olga Shammas, Muneera Shehadeh, Anissa Najjar, Zafer Dabghi, Edma Shakhashiri, and Miss Nahla Marwa. Its aim is the creation of a "Recreation Club for the Young" for our children under thirteen years of age. The intention is that this club should offer every kind of sport, amusement, reading, and motion pictures, and the means of cultivating artistic taste through music, drawing, and handicrafts; and that every child may be able to discover a hobby of his own to pursue with passion in his free hours.

From this club a magazine for the young must in time spring. Our hope is that moral and material support will be forthcoming from the government, the voluntary reform institutions, and fathers and educators, so that we may achieve our aim and open the club's doors at the first possible opportunity, making of it a model to be copied in every quarter, town, and village.

When we record this new piece of news in the pages of the esteemed magazine "The Woman's Voice," we take upon ourselves a pledge to persevere, despite all difficulties, in founding this model club, hoping that woman especially will back us with all ardor and positive spirit, as this magazine of hers has backed us so effectively. And we do not doubt that, just as we boast today before the world of our magazine, unique in the Arab world, rich in its fresh subjects and its style, so will woman soon be able to boast of this club (for the recreation of the young), in addition to the rest of her noble works, which grow deeper year after year.