An Appeal to the Arab Girl

Our age today is an age of progress and civilization, in which hundreds of women have triumphed in delicate and critical situations; they have carried out important responsibilities most ably and steered the helm of present-day society. We have seen woman play her part on the white screen, in schools and associations, in conferences and hospitals; she accompanies man on every one of his journeys, and he cannot do without her work and her valuable help.

We see you, daughter of the East, struggling and striving for the love of honor and perfection; you have put on a dignified garment that now rivals the garment of your American and European sister. We know that you have covered a long stretch of the racecourse so as not to remain behind her, for you are her inferior neither in intelligence nor in strength. We see the American woman plunge into the fray of business, and how fine is the shrewdness and sagacity we see in her! Thus I love to see you, daughter of my country — to see you wherever it befits you to live. A blessing, then, on your smiling future!

The girl of the East has risen from her slumber and taken up her grave task, struggling in the field of progress; but she has not reached her goal. On her shoulders there still rest important responsibilities to which attention must be turned. She has learned and advanced, she has kept vigil through the nights, and she is still worn yet zealous. She has won many positions, but she has forgotten what her country longs for today. We have the writer, the directress, the teacher, and their like, and excellent are the glorious works these women perform; but we are also in pressing need of nurses, to fight filth and disease. The prisons and the schools — nay, society as a whole — need educated nurses holding legal diplomas, so that our country may be cleansed of germs and pestilences. Why do we see children and young men pale-faced and weak? Yes, the doctors do their glorious work, but the nurse's eye sees what the doctor's does not: she is the woman and he is the man; and she was born to be a tender mother, clasping her little ones with a noble, lofty affection. The responsibility for upbringing, cleanliness, and the care of the family rests upon her shoulders, and thus the nurse embraces society with her two arms to rescue it from its dangers.

Women who do not know the value of cleanliness cast their children and their families into the pit of diseases — diseases of the eyes, the mouth, the skin eruptions, and their like — which carry off many of them and leave the rest a burden upon society, spreading the germs of disease wherever they dwell. To this class of society we must send the nurses, to fight hard and strong, and to teach mothers and children cleanliness and prevention.

There are hundreds and thousands of prisoners who need her, to preserve their cleanliness and to rescue them from pain and aches, so that they may leave prison in the fullest health of body and mind.

We want these girls in the hospitals and in the homes; we long for them in the schools, to guard the children's health with every care and to guide them in practice, and so give the country men and women who know the value of health and cleanliness.

The soldier asks for you, too, to watch over him as he lies on his bed, far from his mother's tenderness. The child asks for you, and thousands of souls long for you in their hard hours. Welcome, then, to your coming, and blessings upon you.

The nurse in America enjoys today the loftiest rank among women, and however much their number increases, the country still needs every one of them. In America there are precision, cleanliness, and energy.

Why then, we girls of the East, do we not practice the art of nursing, to protect our brothers and ourselves from the scourges of disease, as those women protect their sisters and themselves?

To you, refined and educated daughter of the East, I send this message of mine, that you may join me in the field of struggle and honest work. I send it from a large and ardent heart; within its folds I breathe wishes brimming with happiness and felicity for every girl who joins one of the ranks of this honorable profession. You will then represent progress and advancement — nay, you will represent the virtuous wife and the happy mother. You will perform your task most ably, coming to the aid of your neighbor and your friend in the troubles of her own illnesses and her family's; and you will spread through your whole society the spirit of energy — nay, the spirit of honest work — that families may enjoy their health.

And your victory is the true and lasting victory!