Vice President of the American University of Beirut for Public Affairs, and in the front rank of the leaders of Arab thought. He was head of the editorial board of al-Muqtataf in the days when al-Muqtataf stood at the summit of the Arab press. His many works bear a sober scientific stamp and an engaging style.

Q — What is your view of the fate of the rising Lebanese generation, pulled this way and that by multiple intellectual currents? What practical means do you propose for drawing together the points of view that these currents create?

A — I do not fear the multiple intellectual currents, so long as those who think have been fortified with the rules of sound thinking and with intellectual honesty. Multiple intellectual currents are the inevitable result of giving free rein to freedom of

thought and freedom of opinion. What ought to be feared is ignorance, which leaves the mind prey to passions rather than logic; the interdiction of thought, whereby people become like members of the herd; and intellectual harlotry, which dresses matters up as other than they truly are, and from presenting them in a distorted form arrives at crooked conclusions.

And I know of no means of raising the young to take the better of opinions and the more useful of actions except an education in which the cultivation of the mind and the refinement of the soul proceed under a single rein. The cultivated mind sets forth in search of the truth, weighed down by no fetter save the fetter of longing for it, and the fetter of the principles which thinkers, philosophers, and men of science have distilled through the passage of the ages for the discovery of truth and the assurance of it. The refined soul aims at the good, and its exercise, like the exercise of the mind, is a labor that does not end so long as life lasts; and the joining of the two, in a world whose bonds are all connected, is something demanded by this tremendous power which science has placed in the hands of its sons — if they use it well, it is abundant good; and if they use it ill, it is destruction and ruin. This is the greatest struggle,

cast in the mold of our modern world, and I know of no shortcut or smoothed road that leads to it.

Q — What are the principal requirements of the successful journalist? And how is one to attain them?

A — Who is the successful journalist? We must define him before we examine his qualifications. If the successful journalist is he who brings out a widely circulated paper, without regard to the means by which he attains that wide circulation, then I have no answer to the question. But if the successful journalist is the man who presents to his readers, every morning or every evening, a miniature picture of the world, gathered from the various sources of news, bringing into relief what is, in his judgment, worthy of relief, discarding the superfluities, or holding them back, or abridging them; who adds to this an opinion founded on wide knowledge and sound judgment concerning the major problems; and who sets all this forth in an arrangement that pleases the eye, thereby making good circulation a foundation for freedom of opinion — then in my view his qualifications, in the first rank, are truthfulness and accuracy in reporting the news, honesty in expressing opinion, and the aim of the public good. But the successful journalist is a man of a craft, over and above being a teacher or a general guide, and the secrets of his craft are skill in ferreting out the news, soundness of judgment as to its value, putting forward what ought to be put forward of it and holding back what ought to be held back, and setting it forth in a correct, easy style and in a form that arrests the reader. Most of these qualifications are attained by study and experience, and the schools of journalism are competent to train students in them. It may be said that the journalist is "born," not "made"; and there is no doubt that a company of the greatest journalists were natural, self-made journalists. But study in the schools of journalism, and training in its arts and its means, smooths the road to success for most students and levels countless difficulties — especially since modern journalism is not news and articles alone, but is also printing, paper, pictures, administration, sales, subscriptions, advertisements, and promotion; and these are all matters for which the journalist is not "born" fitted, but which he must study, train in, and master in their methods.

Q — Has the Lebanese press reached a high level? And do you believe that the abundance of daily papers in a small country like Lebanon multiplies the benefit, or lessens the importance of the respected papers among them?

A — What is the high level? Is it the number of copies of a paper sold? Is it the number of its pages? Or the abundance of its pictures? Or the elegance of its printing and production? Or the extent of its political and social influence, or the degree of its independence of opinion? If you will be so kind as to answer these questions, you may arrive at a balance in which to weigh advancement, or a