Mr. Rifat Habbab is a specialist in social affairs, and in this article he offers sound views, gained from his long experience in important posts, which may well be worth lending some attention.

During the past ten years, a number of Eastern students from the various countries of the Middle East have enrolled in the schools and universities of England, where they took the social sciences as their principal study, and where a special program was applied to them, drawn up for students who wish to undertake social work, of a kind suited to the requirements of social service in the East.

1 — The Kind of Training

The purpose of sending most of these persons on missions to specialize in social matters is that they should return to take up important posts in their own countries. This being so, it was necessary that these young men and women be provided with a sufficient acquaintance with social and economic problems, and not merely with the ordinary training that concerns the social services.

2 — Specialization in Training

Each country determines the kind of work in which each of these students must specialize. Thus, for example, the Government of Palestine used to specify the kind of work for each student — as probation officer, specialists in juvenile reformatories, labor officers, etc. This served to bring peace of mind to the students. In the other countries, however, where the social services are still in their primitive stages, the students of those countries find themselves in constant anxiety when they see how exceedingly broad the program they are required to complete is.

When they finish their studies, the majority of Eastern students are employed in the urban areas, and few of them are employed in the rural areas; hence the scope for specialization in the work is far narrower than it is in the advanced countries.

3 — The Value of Special Training for the Eastern Students

There are evident drawbacks in separating the Eastern students, because the students themselves are at first suspicious of every attempt to separate them and to

treat them in a special way — especially those who come from socially advanced countries. But since there is a broad program that can be completed in a short time, the benefit that comes from applying this method outweighs the harm that results from it.

The study of the social and eco-nomic affairs of the Near East is among the most important aspects of study in these fields, and so it is difficult to cover such studies without setting them apart.

It is likewise necessary to give the students additional lessons during the first year, and to have them attend the lectures; and they must work with extra diligence and energy in order to catch up with the students who are more mature, more aware, and older.

The Eastern students share with the ordinary students the general lectures on social affairs and services and their development, the growth of industry and agriculture, the history of social legislation, and the first principles of economics and psychology. They also attend more specialized lectures on the branches of the work they wish to take up, such