• There has been founded in Damascus a league of graduates of the higher institutes — under the name of the Social Circle of Graduates of the Higher Institutes — which has taken premises on Abu Rummaneh Street. The first fruit of its cultural activity was the lecture given by Dr. George Haddad, professor of the history of civilization at the Syrian University, under the title "The Mission of University Graduates." He explained that their mission, once they have armed themselves with sound learning, with solid culture, and with the moral qualities and habits that accord with true learning and culture, is a mission of struggle in the cause of knowledge, goodness, and truth in all walks of life, in all manifestations of civilization, and in all fields of work: in administration, in professional work, in social service, and likewise in scientific research.
• The Social Circle of Graduates of the Higher Institutes issued invitations to a symposium on the problems of the Arab home — the first of a series of symposia which the Circle will hold in succession, and which will treat the social and national problems from which our society suffers.
The first speaker was Miss Inayat Ramzi, secretary of the Social Circle of Graduates of the Higher Institutes. She recalled how the university graduates of the past lay in a spiritual slumber, heedless in mind and feeling of popular cultural guidance and of social service — whereas the distinction of the graduate lies not in the acquisition of knowledge during one stage of life, but is a spiritual mark and an intellectual direction, a delicacy of feeling, an abundance of sentiment, a splendor of giving and a beauty of sacrifice. For this reason the graduates
cannot stand with folded arms before the intellectual, social, and emotional currents; otherwise it would be a squandering of the truth of their mission, since there is no force greater than the force of the graduates of the higher institutes in guiding society and solving its problems — especially in a society such as ours, ruled by spontaneity, arbitrariness, chaos of temperament, and stagnation of social feeling. She showed how individual studies and personal opinions in such vital social and national questions are of little avail, and are not safe from error, fallacy, and excess; hence the Circle judged it good that these questions be treated in symposia in which a number of people of judgment and experience take part.
She then introduced Dr. Abd al-Karim al-Yafi, professor of sociology at the Syrian University, to direct the first symposium, on the problems of the Arab home. And no wonder that the care of the family and the study of its problems should be the starting point of social work and social reform, for the family is the important social cell, and the happy home is the first moral influence in the social body — indeed, in humanity. Dr. al-Yafi surveyed in broad lines the cause of the ills and the source of the maladies in the structure of the family, at the stage of its founding and after it, and in its relation to society; he also examined the aspects of the Arab home's strength and its virtues, calling for the reform of the former and the buttressing of the latter. The audience then exchanged views on the matter.
• A large delegation of the ladies and young ladies of the Women's Union in Damascus called upon His Excellency the
President of the Republic, Mr. Hashim al-Atassi; His Excellency the Prime Minister, Mr. Sabri al-Asali; His Excellency the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi; and His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Ali Buzo. It carried to them the legitimate demands of the Syrian woman, and her desire that the constitutional articles of the constitution of 1950 relating to the Syrian woman's right in elections be amended in a form that would entitle her to elect and to be elected, so that she may carry out her mission in the national and social field in full, at the man's side. In the course of its meetings with the officials, the delegation also set forth the necessity of enacting special legislation to regulate cases of divorce and plurality of marriage, in a form that would prevent the ruin of the family and the scattering of the children except in limited cases of necessity — this to preserve the structure of Syrian society from harmful social evils.
• The Department of Social Affairs in the Ministry of National Economy, supervised by the energetic Mrs. Hayat Malki, has arranged a special day for the celebration of Syrian Mother's Day, after the practice of the advanced countries of the world; and the Department of Social Affairs has chosen the Friday falling in the second week of May of each year as the date for celebrating this day.
The Department has prepared a special program for this day in cooperation with the Ministries of Education and of the Interior, the Special Governorate of the City of Damascus, the Directorate of Propaganda, News, and Broadcasting, and the women's associations and the bodies working in the social field, so that the celebration may reach the height of splendor and be commensurate with the standing of the mother — the eternal source of life — in Syrian society. On this day