Ask Whatever You Wish

From Miss "N. H.," of Souk el-Gharb, came the following questions, which she put to Mrs. "Society Researcher," asking her to answer them.

And as "the Society Researcher" gives her answers here, she seizes this opportunity to urge her readers, women and men alike, to lay their questions and problems before her, that she may do her utmost to answer and resolve them.

(1) How do we treat the psychological ailment called the inferiority complex? I am sixteen, and easily upset by the most trivial causes. This often distresses me, and I have tried again and again to change this condition without success. Is there any hope of my cure, and what is the remedy?

(1) Dale Carnegie said: "I wish the term 'inferiority complex' had never been coined at all, for its existence has made everyone who detects in himself the least shyness or sensitivity label himself with an inferiority complex, as though it were a definite ailment with no cure." This feeling, even in its extreme degrees, is neither a sickness nor a disease; it is merely a way of behaving and feeling that will soon pass away if one perseveres in genuinely improving oneself. Your saying, Miss, that you are "easily upset by the most trivial causes" shows that you are self-conscious; it is a very simple matter, and you have no ground for believing yourself lacking in ability. These are my chief counsels to you:

1 — Forget yourself. Whenever you find yourself in company, forget yourself and think of those around you. Ask after this lady's health and that gentleman's journey. Welcome this child or that. Praise Suad for her new dress. Comment on Zayd's latest article. Take a genuine pleasure in the affairs of those around you.

2 — Cultivate in yourself a gift that sets you apart from others. Develop your personality by taking up a hobby to fill your free time. You may incline toward poetry, or toward collecting verses that please you, or toward seeking out and collecting folk songs, or toward graceful, beautiful dancing, or toward singing or playing an instrument, or toward the study of botany or of insects. Whenever you find yourself in company and it falls to you to display your gift or your hobby, your self-confidence will grow.

3 — Know that every man and woman, even the greatest boasters and show-offs, is visited by this feeling of self-consciousness, in greater or lesser measure.

And these outward displays are, most often, nothing but a screen for the insecurity that lies at the bottom of their souls.

(2) It is said that there was a Jewish lady who worked as assistant to one of the German scientists in preparing the atomic bomb, and who was expelled from Germany in Hitler's days, and so became the cause of the secret of making the atomic bomb passing into American hands. What is this lady's name?

(2) "Liza Meitz." When she fled from Germany to Sweden in 1938 — she is Austrian — there was neither secret nor knowledge of the atomic bomb anywhere in the world. There were only a number of German, Japanese, British, and American scientists racing one another in mere experiments in atomic energy whose results had not yet appeared. As for "Liza Meitz's" part in the invention of the atomic bomb, it is that she rendered valuable services to the committee on atomic research, like the other twelve researchers in this field, of whom she is one. It is glory enough for womankind to claim "the lady of the atom," who today is nearing seventy years of age and who quietly and simply carries on her scientific researches.

(3) Why do fabrics shrink after washing?

(3) It is in the nature of certain threads — wool and linen, for example — to stretch when wetted, thereby producing a contraction in the cloth. The best means of guarding against shrinkage is to soak linen in cold water before sewing it, to pour boiling water over skeins of wool, and not to hang it out until 14 hours have passed.

(4) Why are kittens' eyes closed during the first week of their lives?

(4) Cats' eyes have the peculiarity of opening a vertical membrane over the pupil by night and closing it by day; and since this mechanism is not yet complete at the moment kittens are born, their eyes remain closed until the work of the membrane that shields them from daylight is perfected. They are sharp-sighted by night and weak-sighted by day.