We cannot contain our astonish-ment and wonder when we learn that this being (woman) — the axis of man's feelings and hopes, the dawning-place and wellspring of his inspiration — has come to the fore in social, scientific, economic, and political life, and has thereby rendered the nation a splendid service.

And we women here stand in need — in what need! — of someone to place our hand upon our destinies and our rights, to give us con-fidence in ourselves and to drive from our minds this confusion of enfeeblement and despair — the notion that we are not capable of walking as equals with man in thought and in deed.

Has it escaped the mind of anyone who deeply loves her sex and herself that the age of idleness and torpor is over, and that woman today is in a new phase, advancing with wide strides in the field of the philosophical, medical, mathematical, social, and political sciences, until she has arrived at an important truth — the one she has lately grasped: the merit of cooperation with man in work and in profession?

And has it escaped the mind of him who describes her as weak and incapable of work, the grounds of defense that woman furnishes today, and her advance through all the branches of human activity, to which she has lent an unforgettable hand?

The steps she takes along the road of advancement and progress are swift and wide; the flowering of her knowledge and the ripening of her mind have prepared her to occupy this eminent throne.

Learning has widened her outlook, so that she has grasped her duties and her responsibilities; it has car-ried her ambition further, so that she is no longer content with what contents the common woman; her aim has grown great, and she has seen that she owes a duty toward the society in which she lives — to move with its evolution, its progress, and its flowering.

Why, then, do you want woman only as a wife who fills the house with joy and tenderness, and a

good mother who bears the fruit that nourishes the family, and do not want her to look to the good of the whole as she looks to the good of the individual? Man does not live for himself alone, nor does he labor only for his own circle. And is woman's stand upon her rights in life a stand that contradicts her and clashes with her?

What the Eastern woman lacks is encouragement to widen her horizons, and the granting of freedom of opinion and of action in its widest range, so that she may breathe, grow, and flourish, revealing her aptitudes for the service of the human interest and the public interest — equal with man and standing with him, storming at his side, shoulder to shoulder, the fields of work; and if she keeps pace with him in the life of learning and thought, she will not fall short of him in practical, material life.

And we would be happy if we found, in the East, woman occupying the place that befits her, and given her rights whole and undiminished; for however great her happiness, if she has not obtained the rights that are hers, and does not perform the duties that are upon her, it is a happiness incomplete.

• Mr. Salah Aitani and his wife have been blessed with a baby boy, whom they have named “Emad.” The birth took place at the hospital of Dr. Mohammed Khaled. The Woman's Voice congratulates Mrs. Aitani and Mr. Salah Aitani on the birth of “Emad,” and wishes the little child health and long life.