Personality of the Month: Mrs. Nazik Sarkis

* A graduate of the National College in Shweifat.
* An educator, a social writer, and an orator.
* An active member of a number of women's associations, chief among them: the General Arab Women's Union, the Lebanese Women's Union, the Lebanese Women's League, Tahdhib al-Fatat, and others.
* Mother of three married daughters.
* The government awarded her the Lebanese Order of Merit in recognition of her services and her contribution to the education of the rising generation.

Q — How did you come, step by step, to writing and public speaking some forty years ago, at a time when the Lebanese woman was feeble of strength and faint of voice?

A — I began writing while I was still at my school desk. The teacher of Arabic, Mr. Salim al-Khoury — God rest his soul — discerned in me an inclination for writing and encouraged me; and in the Arab Society victory was my ally in every debate. Nor do I deny my women teachers' influence in guiding me: after every speech they would congratulate me on my success.

Q — And what was the incentive that led you to accept invitations to deliver speeches on all sorts of occasions?

A — The first incentive was my sincere feeling of the injustice done to the Lebanese girl. I was once listening to the conversation of some lady visitors at our house. My mother asked them: Why do you not send your daughters to school, now that they have become young girls? They answered her: We should like our daughters to be educated, but our husbands say: It would be a sin to spend on a girl's education when we are not well off — tomorrow she will marry, and what will we gain? Better to educate the boy: the benefit comes back to us, and we shall have ease in our old age.

Q — Do you remember your first appearance as a speaker, and when it was?

A — Yes, I remember. It was at a party of the Tahdhib al-Fatat Society — the associations in those days used to hold oratorical parties, for which nowadays they have substituted dances or "Garden Parties." My subject was "Who Is to Blame?" and I concluded by saying: it is the man who is to blame, for neglecting the girl's education and burying her talents, ignorant — or feigning ignorance — that her education is a duty, for the rearing of the men and women of the future. The audience — most of them men — kept interrupting me with warm applause, as if to say: how true these words, and how noble this defense — but the time has not yet come. Yet it was not long before their eyes were opened to the truth, praise be to God.

Q — Did any particular personality have an influence on your direction?

A — I admired three ladies, whom I took as my models. The first was the late Louisa Procter, founder of the National College in Shweifat some 67 years ago. She was principal and teacher; I knew her when she was over eighty, working from seven in the morning until ten at night without weariness or flagging, out of love of raising the level of the Lebanese girl, and for the sake of God. The second lady who had an influence on me was the late Ijni Saad, wife of the Reverend Tanios Saad — the right arm of Louisa Procter, who also assisted in administration and teaching, and the founder of the Tahdhib al-Fatat Society in 1909, its aim being to educate girls whose families cannot afford their schooling. From Mrs. Ijni Saad I took the love of serving society.

Q — There remains the third lady who influenced your life. Who is she, Mrs. Sarkis?

A — She is Mrs. Asma Abillama, principal of the National College for Girls for about half a century, who still puts her heart and soul into teaching, far from any love of display. She is modest to the utmost degree, despite her many talents.

Q — Do you feel that your natural inclinations developed along the path you aspired to? I mean, have you other talents which circumstances prevented from being nourished and grown?

A — Would that you had not asked me this question, for you have awakened a pain in my soul that I thought had been buried with my youth. As for the answer: yes. I had a talent for music, vocal and instrumental.

Q — Rather, it still exists...

A — Yes, it exists, but rust has overlaid it from neglect... I used to train the school choir. And there was a deep hope that kept haunting my soul: to travel to Italy to study this art. But material circumstances did not allow me, and I married on the strength of a promise that we would go to America, where the field is wide for the fulfillment of my wish. But the First World War, and other hindrances, blocked the roads before me, and I have remained where I am...

Q — What a loss... And now, I know, Mrs. Sarkis, that you work in a number of associations. Which of these associations receives the largest share of your affection and your activity?

A — As for activity, I divide it equally among the associations in which I work; as for affection, the one that receives most of it is the Tahdhib al-Fatat Society, because I am one of its founders, and it was my first acquaintance with social activity... From its founding to this day this society has educated hundreds of girls; some have become housewives, some work in the field of teaching, and others in the service of society... Its members work with energy and steadfastness to secure schooling for close to thirty pupils every year in the schools of Beirut, Shweifat, Tripoli, and Kfarshima.

Q — It is indeed a positive work deserving of every appreciation. And what more, Mrs. Sarkis, about the Tahdhib al-Fatat Society?

A — It has two branches, one in Beirut and the other in Shweifat, and its members number close to two hundred, working with one spirit and one heart, far from any love of display. The society still carries on its work despite the passing of two world wars over it. It is the oldest association to concern itself with the education of the Lebanese girl; it works in silence, content with constructive results.

Q — In the light of your long struggle for woman's attainment of her political rights and her equality with man, do you believe that we shall soon arrive at what we aspire to — equality with man in civil and political rights?

A — The promises are many and honeyed, and the efforts of the women's executive committee are unceasing. It is painful that most of the women of the world today have had this right acknowledged — and Syria is among the Arab countries. Often I ask myself: is the Pakistani, the Indian, the Japanese woman more advanced than the Lebanese? Yet with all this, we are by no means despairing of the present wavering situation, and we are determined to continue the struggle until we regain our right to life, and are able, in consequence, to exercise our full rights as Lebanese citizens.

Q — May I finally ask Mrs. Sarkis about her feeling at the hour she received the Education Medal?

A — I felt no joy, because all my life I have considered every class of pupils graduated at my hands, through the years of my long educational struggle, as so many moral decorations, of deep value in my soul.

Q — I appreciate your sincere feeling toward your pupils, and in closing I can only express my utmost admiration for your many-branched activity and your high resolve, wishing you continued good health, that you may go on carrying your lofty mission to your sister, the Lebanese woman.