In Society — The Inauguration of the Lebanese Women's League Kindergarten

In the "Bir Hasan" woods, beneath its green pines with their spreading shade, the Lebanese Women's League held, on Friday, June 19, the ceremony inaugurating its "kindergarten."

The ceremony was under the patronage of His Excellency the President of the Republic, and was attended also by Mr. Saeb Salam, the Prime Minister, together with men of the government and a crowd of the League's friends who value its positive work in the service of the budding shoots of the rising generations..

Mrs. Salwa Mahmasani Moumina opened the ceremony, welcoming those present and thanking His Excellency the President and the pillars of his government for accepting the invitation and for their kindness toward this project. Among what she said:

"It is a duty, in every formation or building, to look to the firm setting of its foundations, so that it may be strong, sound, and true. Thus we have seen the care that the advanced nations give to kindergartens stand equal to their care for the great universities. And thus, too, the Lebanese Women's League has wished to lay a stone in the foundations of Lebanese cultural formation with this kindergarten whose building we celebrate inaugurating today.

There is no doubt that every stone in an edifice of learning is a firm cornerstone in the edifice of the nation's glory. For the wealth of learning is richness of mind, life of spirit, and immortality of thought, which scarcely any riches can equal, and against the glories of its values no glory, however high it towers, can hope to stand. All the immortal wonders we see in human life are nothing but the traces of this wealth and its produce."

She concluded by saying: "I cannot but pay tribute to the efforts of the president of the Lebanese Women's League, Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, who has headed this association since its birth and led it with zeal, devotion, and wisdom in spreading its cultural message; she has been the best of bearers of the best of messages in the most beautiful of homelands. Long live this homeland, Lebanon, a haven of enlightened thought, and long live its beloved President."

She was followed by Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush, who spoke at length of the association's work since its founding, ten years past, of the stages through which the kindergarten project had passed, and of the obstacles it overcame until it triumphed at last and took bodily form in this building.

It is worth mentioning that the building whose erection was being celebrated cost (400,000) four hundred thousand Lebanese lira, collected from people of generosity, from the Lebanese and Syrian communities in Venezuela, and from the community in São Paulo — while the land is a gift from the Lebanese government.

Among what Dr. Harfush said:

"The building standing before us is the first building the League has raised in the name of learning.

It is an enduring monument in its life, for it carries within its recesses, in its majestic silence, the most complete tale of the reality of life in Lebanon.

In it appears the affection of the Lebanese emigrant for his mother homeland — an affection embodied in a valuable material contribution, generously made by the communities of Venezuela and Brazil alike.

In it shines the picture of the strengthening of the public interest through mutual cooperation between the state and private effort.

And on every stone of its walls, the struggle has inscribed the memory of endeavors made by a handful of human beings who felt their duty toward society and worked for that duty out of faith, undeterred in their resolve by the breadth of the gulf between the height toward which the goal soared and the low ground where their humble means and narrow possibilities left them.

May Lebanon have, at every turning, an edifice raised in the name of learning.

Yet this building, for all its simplicity, is distinguished in that it expresses the first collective effort undertaken by the Lebanese woman in the service of learning.

And the essential aim of this effort is not only to free the young from bondage to the letter and the word, but to strive to free them from bondage to the traditional differences before whose ancient tyranny our society has surrendered — until that surrender deluded the individual among us into feeling himself a stranger in his own country, remote in his ideals and his thinking from his neighbor and his kin."

Then she said: "This humble house is no one's property; it is the property of Lebanon, the property of its people and its sons, of rich and poor alike.

Whoever loves Lebanon will strive to make this house — and every house built in the name of learning in Lebanon — a cherished, solid edifice, supplied with all the material and moral conditions that assure it the progress of its work and the permanence of its continuance.

For 'he who builds a school closes a prison.'

And the Lebanese Women's League, as it presents to His Excellency the President of Lebanon and to its people the fruit of its humble effort, looks with eagerness and the warmth of faith toward the day when every prisoner of this nation shall become a good citizen, freed by knowledge from the terrors of ignorance, want, and disease."

Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush concluded by saying:

"The League is a voluntary civic body, and a body that gives its time freely for the fulfillment of its message asks no wage in life better than the moral reward it reaps when the whole community stands up for its highest ideal.

Its building is nothing but the trust of the generations, which it places as a deposit in your hands. Whoever holds the deposit dear has shared in laying its first stone."

Here the children of the kindergarten took part in the program of the ceremony, and their angelic voices rose with the twittering of the birds; the sweet melodies and graceful dances were the best expression of childhood's delight and its happiness at the moment it takes possession of a precious gift it has longed for!

Finally Mr. Nasri Maalouf delivered a charming address on the subject "Building from the Foundation," in which he said:

"Such is the mark of those who work for their day, for their morrow, and for the day after their morrow. How much we need to take this wisdom to heart in everything that touches life and passes through our hands in the way of creation and construction — that we not raise the new, leaning for support, upon the crumbling old; that we not put on embroidered new garments over the soiled and threadbare; that we not bandage the wound with a sterilized dressing while beneath the dressing lie germs that ravage the body and carry the causes of death.

How radiant is this truth, which has escaped so many of us and which the minds that established this institution have grasped. How did it slip from our thoughts that whoever wants the taste of grapes must sow their seed, tend the plant, set out the shoots, and then gather the fruit — not turn to the boxthorn and treat it with watering, shade, tillage, and care, hoping to gather grapes from thorns.

Building from the foundation!

In the kindergarten, banners are woven for heroes; in the playgrounds of childhood, the spirit of manhood unfolds; and upon these modest pillars rises the great edifice of the homeland."

He concluded with these words: "And behold, the mistresses of this institute are like the bees setting out at morning, hovering and circling over the blossoms, going and returning between field and stream, so that the eye sees of them nothing but movement, activity, and perseverance; then our waiting is not long before the season of the harvest comes, and the veils are drawn back from the combs of honey — and behold, it is a mighty, colossal work, filling the eye and the soul, testifying to the ability of the women who labor and to what the pent-up force — which is half of humankind — can accomplish when it goes forth free, educated, and noble into the field of social activity.

Honor to the valiant Lebanese woman, who knows her homeland's claim upon her and pays it in full, without neglecting the claim of her house and her family or the claim of her own self.

Honor to the great work, which its author undertakes of his own free choice, not compelled to it; as a volunteer, not for hire.

And happiness to us, and an omen of good fortune: we have begun the building from the foundation."

Then the donations began. It was a gracious gesture from His Excellency the President when he donated five thousand Lebanese lira; President Salam likewise donated five hundred Lebanese lira, and so too the ministers and those present, who gave sums ranging from the ample to the modest.

A raffle was drawn in the American style, and it fell to His Excellency the President at a thousand Lebanese lira.

Finally the President drew back the curtain from a monument carved with this inscription: "School of the Lebanese-Syrian Community in Venezuela" — the community that donated thirty thousand dollars to the project.

The Woman's Voice, having recorded these passages from the beautiful words woven around this great project, cannot but raise its warmest congratulations to the president of the Lebanese Women's League, the venerable Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, and to the members of the board of directors, for the tremendous efforts they have expended and for the perseverance of their diligent striving, until it was granted them at last to pluck the fruit of their toils — and behold, the fruit is delicious and good.