A New School!? (An Illustrated Report)

In the village of Sadd al-Boushrieh, twenty minutes by car from Ras Beirut, stands the elementary school attached to the Lebanese University.

The road that leads to the school is bordered now by pines, now by banana groves, and it brings us at last to a verdant knoll, on whose breast sits a stone house of three stories, looking out over Beirut and the sea at once.

My companion on this visit to the elementary school attached to the Lebanese University was the educational expert Mr. Kubetska, the man with the first hand in bringing the idea of the school out into execution... All along the way he talked to me of the obstacles that must be overcome. I listened to him run on with enthusiasm, like a father proud of his child who has just begun to crawl!

No sooner had the school taken us in than he hastened to confer with the school's principal, Miss Nahla Marwa, offering her technical guidance and leaving her a free hand in choosing the schoolbooks for all the classes... inquiring into this matter or that, deciding one question, and solving another problem. I admired his vitality and energy.

Among the things Mr. Kubetska said:

"We are striving to make this school a fit setting for the training of teachers for the elementary schools. We shall open the way for students of the two universities, the Lebanese and the American, to train here. What is truly regrettable is that among the branches of the Lebanese University there should be no branch for elementary teaching; and I do not know how we are to prepare teachers for the secondary schools before we have laid the foundation for the elementary schools!"

To another question Mr. Kubetska replied:

"This school is not 'American'; it is a school in whose establishment the American 'Point Four' is taking part, on sound educational foundations, and as soon as it is on a firm footing it will be attached to the government apparatus, for it is a school that follows the Lebanese government curriculum."

From his talk I saw that Mr. Kubetska is thoroughly versed in his subject and alive to its fine points. And I watched the measure of confidence and cooperation in the work between him and the principal in charge — how he would welcome her suggestions and approve them, then discuss certain problems with her until they reached a solution that satisfied them both!

The principal gave me some minutes of her time, in which she acquainted me with the program she intends — lately in America — and that in her inmost heart is a longing to make our government elementary schools in Lebanon a second picture, brighter of face than they are now!!..

And while we were watching the children at their midday meal, scattered over the rocks in the shade of a passing cloud, each child hugging his lunch and devouring it hungrily, I heard from the principal's lips some charming things that deserve to be set down — among them the story of the four children whom the "bus" left behind on the first day: they simply set out on foot in dead earnest, caring nothing for the length of the way, until they reached the school after a march of two hours and more!!

If this tale proves anything, it proves the children's eagerness and the measure of the value they set on the school. And this is what lifts the spirits of those in charge

its application in the school. And I noticed that her head was steeped in the educational theories she had drunk in of the project, and makes them eager to carry the work forward with strong faith.

This feeling of mine was deepened by what I found in the children, as I went round the classrooms: cheerfulness and friendliness, and an ease with the modern educational methods on which the school proceeds. And I honored in those charged with the teaching their cooperation in developing the child's personality and strengthening his will, by giving him a share in arranging the daily schedule of lessons. One of the pleasantest sights, every morning, is to watch the class teacher with the children gathered round her, exchanging views on their lesson schedule for that day, and ending by writing it on the blackboard, assured that this result answers to "their" wish — theirs and no one else's!

So the elementary school attached to the Lebanese University, founded with the help of the American "Point Four," has a merry atmosphere that suits the child's merry spirit; and it is, besides, a small community in which the child takes shelter, feels at home among its members, and pours out all the kinds of questions that cross his mind, meeting open hearts with room for everything he wants.

And I turned homeward from the school, possessed by a feeling of gladness for these little ones delighting in their earthly paradise, and touched by a feeling of keen regret that such generous opportunities were never given to us in the days of our childhood!