The Folk Museum and the Village Revival Society

• On the day of the anniversary of its founding, the American College for Girls opened the Folk Museum which it began this year; and it won the admiration and approval of everyone among its visitors who saw it that day. This Folk Museum is the first of its kind in Beirut. Its aim is to preserve our folk heritage from decay and extinction, and to make it a wellspring of inspiration and awakening for our present generation and for the generations to come.

The Folk Museum is not a museum of historical antiquities and objets d'art; it is, rather, a museum of the things that belong to daily life: clothing and costumes, household utensils, old handwork — embroidery and work in (jewelry) and wood — and, besides these, weapons, lighting vessels, faience, and pictures representing the old costumes. The things displayed in the museum are either things no longer used in our daily life, or things whose use may be expected to die out within a few years, and which truly represent our Eastern spirit.

The museum is under the direction of Miss Afaf Abd al-Baqi. She urges every citizen, man or woman, to send in the things in his possession, however slight their value and however small their size; and she calls attention to the fact that all things sent to the museum are prized at their true worth: the donor's name is entered in the museum's registers, and is always mentioned whenever these things are displayed.

This museum is not only the museum of the College's students and graduates, but the museum of every Lebanese and Arab citizen.

• The Village Revival Society, in Ras Beirut, under the presidency of Mrs. Loreen Rihani, held a charity bazaar on Saturday and Sunday, the eleventh and twelfth of December, at which it displayed the work and products of its three village centers — Monsef, Bishtfin, and Maarakeh — and the work of other villages, among them Abadiyeh, Aley, Deir Qoubel, Baysour, and Talia of Baalbek. It was a collection unique of its kind, confined to genuine village work: straw work, broom-plant work, woodwork, preserves and jams, and finely wrought Arab handwork.

The Village Revival Society works constantly to raise the standard of the village — in learning, in society, and in material life. It holds the firm conviction that the village is the backbone of Lebanon, and it therefore labors to keep that backbone straight, working, and alive.