The Question of the Rural Woman

Salwa said, wiping away her burning tears: "There is nothing in the universe to equal the grief of a bereaved mother; the fire of pain will blaze in my wounded heart until I am laid under the earth."

I searched for some phrase with which to comfort the wretched mother, but words refused to obey me, and I felt a tear scald my cheek — a tear that turned afterward into a revolt that stormed through my soul and shook my humanity.

Salwa was indeed bereaved — of a child who had not passed his second year. But the child's age is not the matter of my inquiry; rather, the cause of his death... No one denies that death is the natural end of life; but the woman who spoke to me had, without knowing it, done her own flesh and blood a mortal wrong. The symptoms of his illness began without her perceiving them — and how was she to know how to tell health from sickness, sunk as she was in ignorance up to her very ears?... The disease advanced until its danger grew desperate, and she did not know that this ailing child in her hands was moving, little by little, to meet his doom. At last his weakness became plain to her, and she showed him to a neighbor of hers, a woman no more learned or practiced than herself in the rearing of children; perhaps his pallor stirred in the neighbor some instinct that moved her to advise consulting the doctor. And so it was done — but after the time had passed!...

The poor child died, leaving in his mother's breast a grievous wound and a broken hope! In the face of such a case, who is to blame? The mother, whose ignorance was the weapon with which she stabbed her child? Or the causes of that ignorance? Shall we lay the blame upon society's shoulders, or the individual's? I leave that dispute to my gentle readers, and return to my subject. This mother, whom I have set forth as a living example of the rural woman, is one of thousands who are answerable for the rising generation — the fathers and mothers of the future; and we naturally want it to be, first of all, a generation of strong constitution — else how shall we hope for the rise of a nation whose people are sickly? Then we want for our children nourishment of soul and mind, to form their provision for facing the rough paths of life; and the home is the first foundation on which character and body are built. Does she bear these burdens — or does she scarcely comprehend anything of the world about her? She stands, besides, at the very heart of our society. Shall we leave her to stumble in an ignorance she may hand down to her children, or shall we think of guiding her? — and this is a necessary condition if we would reach the goal we seek in life, as children of a nation that forever yearns for elevation and progress?...

I am not the first to raise the question of the rural woman and the possibility of guiding her; nor have I shown more than one face of the danger that threatens our society through the ignorance of the mother. Some questioner may well say: "And is it possible to strip the film of ignorance from a generation full grown? Trees cannot be straightened once they have aged."... Yes — even trees can be straightened, if a strong mind imposes its will and labors toward its end... And so, in raising this question, which pains every one of us, I set forth various possibilities that may avail in guiding the countrywoman.

This constructive project is worthy of the attention of those responsible for the affairs of society in our country; its importance is of such standing as to merit the gracious government's regard, for its encouragement and support. I hold it likewise the duty of the women's associations and institutions to place it on the list of their works. They would thereby have carried their aid out of the precincts of the city into the compass of the village, appointing committees of women versed in child-rearing, upon whose shoulders would fall the charge of guiding mothers, by practical means, in the care of their children — and then of laying before them the evil consequences to which neglect leads: consequences that fall upon individuals, and whose effect then passes beyond them to spread through the whole surroundings.

A fanciful idea, as it seems to you, Madam; but a will wedded to work is warrant enough to bring it into the compass of practical fact — and every work was an idea or a fancy at its beginning!

These villages whose beauty we sing — till imagination runs away with us so far that we all but ignore their reality — are not, taken whole, the truth of the matter. I can almost glimpse the marks of astonishment on your face, gentle reader: a look at our villages as they stand — their symmetry, the harmony of their nature with the woods about them — breathes rapture and refreshment into your soul. But come with me: let us enter one of them. The automobile may not carry you to its heart; you may be driven to go on foot, or to ride a beast, to reach it. And the first thing to meet your eye is children cradled by the alleys, with no one to guide them or trouble over their direction. Where are their mothers, you say? They are at the labor to which a life of poverty and destitution compels them, with never a look at what may befall these living creatures, sprung from them and from the very core of their being.

The woman of the countryside works, and I honor her efforts: she prepares all the needs of her family, food and all the rest, and the hardness of her means of working is no secret, for she lacks every convenience her sister in the city enjoys. Then she accompanies her husband to his work and struggles beside him on one and the same ground — all this over and above the hardship of bearing children.

Necessity drives her to toil; but does she grasp that her children need her more than the work of the hour does? And how is she to reconcile the two claims, when both are pressing necessities?...

Then there is the problem of illiteracy — no stranger to our understanding. For though the Lebanese village is counted more advanced than others, we find that most villages all but lack even the primary school — above all for girls. Is it not time we understood the necessity of educating the girl? And where the school does exist — for all its want of what is needed to make a true atmosphere of learning — most parents take no interest in the schooling of their children, and prefer that the child do petty services, at home or outside it, rather than go to sip the elixir of learning. Is it not just that we demand, for these fathers and mothers, a law compelling them to send their children to school, if only through the primary stage?... And what can come of children left to stray? A generation reared in the alleys is a danger to its society. Can our humanity be content with such a life for our own flesh and blood? Shall we leave them to wallow in the dust, and to scatter it over themselves and their eyes as a veil that shuts from them the light of truth and knowledge??...

A great educator was once asked: "At what age does the training of a child rightly begin? In youth — that is, at twenty?" He answered: "No — before that." The questioner returned: "In childhood, then?" And the educator signed no — earlier still. And when his questioner marveled, he reassured him, saying: "Education exists before birth; and by that I mean the education of the mother, that she may be able to bring up a sound and knowing generation."

However far the educator carried his example, he is very near the truth of upbringing. The school to which we send our children instills precious learning into their minds and understandings; but there is one that comes before it in laying the foundation of the building — and that is the home. How shall a building be expected to stand against thunderbolts and the elements, if its foundation is shaken? Or rotten??

It is time we took in these bleeding truths, so long as we vie with the civilized countries and run at full stride in the race-course of civilization!

In the United States there exist institutions which teachers and parents join together to study the problems of teaching and upbringing, so that parents become acquainted with the methods followed in the education of their children. When shall we have the like of these institutions — with parents concerned in how their children grow, no longer leaving them to the school, which cannot shoulder more than the responsibility laid upon it after the home!...

These are fundamental matters, which every one of us feels, and comprehends if he reflects in earnest. Lebanon takes pride in its villages and wants them to rise together with its cities, that it may soar high in the sky of civilization — and how shall that be, if its two wings are not equal?