upbringing, for by their soundness society is made sound, and by their corruption it is corrupted and collapses.
There is no doubt that the best means to the straightening of morals and the reform of souls lies in instilling the teaching of religion in souls. Religion is the best restraint: it inspires the loftiest ideals and calls to the straightest paths. Truly we are poor in religion, in an age when material life has overwhelmed the things of the spirit. Let us then equip the new generation with a spiritual immunity that will enable it to stand fast in support of the right and to work for the highest ideals amid the crush of life and the tyranny of matter.
(4) I do not deny that woman is for the home; but she will not truly be the queen of this home and the apple of its eye unless she takes part in public life. For woman is not merely the flower of the home: she is the spirit of society. The woman who has received a higher education and shared in public life has proven that she is fitter than others for married and domestic life, and that this education of hers has only increased her attachment to husband and child, and her grasp of the affairs of upbringing and the home. Beyond that, she has been able, in addition, to practice a work she masters, to earn from it, and to benefit society.
And what harm is there in the gifted Lebanese woman being an engineer, a worker, or a social reformer? Here we see Madame Curie completing her husband's work, while the wife of the astronomer Flammarion took to turning the screws of the great telescope before which her husband grew gray and grew old.
Has the woman no right to develop her knowledge and to aid, with her culture, that tormented humanity? The woman will never depart from her nature and her femininity, however lofty her culture and however numerous her works in public life. We must help her, then, to be at one and the same time a mother to her children and a support to the social family: there is no danger here to her home.
(1) The educated Lebanese woman, taken as a whole, has given many proofs of her feeling of responsibility toward her society; she has likewise made attempts in which she demonstrated a sound awareness and a deep understanding of her reform mission in the social field. Among the most important of these attempts are her endeavor to fight illiteracy, and her founding of special institutions to protect childhood from vagrancy, from the dangers of disease and destitution, and from exploitation in labor.
And the Lebanese woman, while she takes pride in being in the vanguard of those who registered for themselves the first step in the arena of social reform among the Lebanese elements, feels that she still falls short of performing her mission in the fullest manner. The most important causes of this falling short are a deficiency in preparation and guidance on the part of home and school, alongside her deprivation of a share in public life — a share that would enable her to contribute effectively to drawing up the plans of social welfare and to carrying out her portion of those plans. Because of the laws in force and the traditions followed, her activity remains confined within the sphere of private efforts; and I would have wished, after the competence and ready aptitude she has shown, to see her occupy her fitting place in the public departments.
(2) The problems of the Lebanese woman in the literary field are part of a whole, and they do not differ in kind from the problems faced by the writers of Lebanon in general. The most important of these is the position of literature in Lebanon with respect to the economic dangers that beset it and force the writer to employ his talents in making a living rather than in production. The inclination to savor literature and to practice it is a natural bent in the Lebanese, women and men alike. In my
belief, literary production is among the most splendid and beautiful kinds of production that Lebanon can give the world, because of the natural inclinations joined together in the character of its sons. But production of high quality calls upon the individual for good preparation and devotion, and both have passed beyond the reach of Lebanon's writers because of their need to make a living. This difficult situation not only keeps the writer from producing; it creates for him a total difficulty in printing and publishing what he has produced.
The masters of literature in Lebanon, women and men, stand in total need of moral and material encouragement, and this encouragement has become a necessity that cannot be avoided. A country like Lebanon, which has set the mission of learning above the mission of the sword and the dirham, must strengthen this mission with all the power and energy it possesses, so that in time its literature may occupy its fitting place in the field of world production.
(3) The most important problem of upbringing in the Lebanese home is the parents' ignorance of the child's psychology, and
Mum
Do not be afraid...
Try Mum
and you stand only to gain
The fragrance of perfumes and the sweetness of flowers
are all in Mum
Mum
It makes you feel happy
and keeps bodies and clothes fresh
rid of body odor
especially in the summer season