• The first anniversary of the pioneer of the women's renaissance, Mrs. Julia Tu'mah Dimashqiyah, was the foremost event taken up by the press of late. It was convened by the General Arab Women's Union together with the League of Women's Organizations in Lebanon, in the hall of the Ministry of National Education, on Sunday morning, December 5.

The hall was packed with the departed lady's admirers, men and women of the finest circles, and the ceremony proceeded in an atmosphere of reverence and of homage to her memory. There followed one another at the rostrum Miss Ibtihaj Kaddoura, president of the General Arab Women's Union; then Mr. Muhyi al-Din al-Nsouli, Minister of Information; then Mr. Fuad Ephrem al-Boustani, President of the Lebanese University; then Mr. Salah Labaki, president of the People of the Pen Society; then Mrs. Ellen Rihan, secretary of the League of Women's Organizations — recounting the great departed lady's achieve-ments, her lofty virtues, and her generous services to thought, education, and instruction, and to the movement for the emancipa-tion of woman in Lebanon and the whole Arab world.

The ceremony closed with a gracious word of thanks from the departed lady's daughter, Mrs. Salwa Dimashqiyah al-Said, who said, after a short introduction:

"Perhaps there are among you those who knew my mother better than I knew her, or who accompanied her in the various fields of her work. But the one

thing I alone have known is that the sincere affection which bound her by the firmest of ties to dear friends, women and men both true, was what alone helped her face her long illness; it was what helped her overcome her pains and repaid her for her sufferings with the sweetness of love and remembrance. Yet that sweetness was ever tinged with a certain sorrow, from her feeling that she fell short of rendering her friends some part of what she owed them for the kindness they had lavished upon her in her lifetime; and she has left to me my own helplessness in expressing the duty of thanks to them for honoring her memory after her death. How often she repeated in my hearing the torment that cut her heart to the quick — that illness denied her the showing of what she called an obligation laid upon her toward her friends, for fear they might count it undutifulness or neglect on her part. This pain stayed with her to her last hours, until there was found beside her bed a letter, the last thing her pen traced, written in a weary hand that fell below the elegance of script for which she was known. It is addressed to a friend whom she does not name — and I take her to mean by it every friend, woman and man alike — and it shows the severity and the hard reckoning to which she held herself, to preserve the pure affection between her and them. Here I convey to you those of its passages which release me from performing this duty on her behalf. She wrote:

"'Despair has begun to use harshness in humbling me, and

my will has shown itself feeble before its cruel blows; so I fear I shall not be granted the chance to realize my hope of returning to some respite of life in which I might make you feel the esteem I bear you, and the longing to meet you, so as to make amends for all I have missed toward you in these days that kept promising me recovery was near. But today, alas — here are my resolve and my will falling prostrate before the decree of fate. So I answer you at the last moment in which I am able to write, to commend you to God's keeping, to bring you thanks, and to beg your pardon: thanks for the blessing of friendship, which has garlanded my neck and filled my heart with happiness; and pardon for whatever may have issued from me that was set down to shortcoming or indifference — nothing drove me to it but illness, and illness alone, nothing else. So farewell, farewell.'"

• The series of educational lectures for the year '54–'55, sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Department of the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts, opened with a valuable lecture delivered by the educator Mrs. Widad Maqdisi Cortas, sec-retary of the Lebanese Academy and principal of Ahliah National College, on Thursday, December 2, in the hall of the Ministry of Education. Its subject: "The Problem of Building the Pupil's Personality."

The hall was packed with an audience drawn from the choicest circles, in view of the eminent standing Mrs. Cortas holds in the field of education and teaching. Certain as we are of the impor-tance of the educational insights the honored lecture contained, we shall print a summary of it in our coming issue — let readers watch for it...