In our last issue we mentioned the lecture delivered at the al-Nour Club by Mrs. Loreen Shoucair Rihani, president of the Village Welfare Society, on "Reviving the Lebanese Countryside." In fulfillment of our promise to our readers, we here print a summary of this valuable lecture, for the general benefit.

The story of the countryside in Lebanon draws for us many different pictures. If you come with me on a little tour of the villages of Lebanon — to its north and its south, to its Metn and its Chouf — you will find pictures in which darkness has prevailed over light, and pictures in which light prevails over darkness.

The villages of the Lebanese coun-tryside number about two thousand. Some are large and some small, some far and some near; some keep pace with the procession of civilization — electricity lights them, learning tends them, and paved roads join them to the network of public highways — and some have been left behind by the procession, whom deprivation has set down in the lap of ignorance, poverty, and disease. It is to this part of the countryside that I confine my talk, and I lay before you its condition in the various fields:

The cultural condition: 1 - Illiteracy is widespread in most of the villages, and many of them lack schools. 2

- The existing schools are mostly elementary and much neglected.

The health condition: 1 - Doctors are very few, and to most villages a doctor goes only rarely. 2 - The remote villages lack even a nurse and a licensed midwife. 3 - Contagious diseases spread, because prevention is not provided. 4 - In some villages swamps abound, where flies and mosquitoes breed. 5 - Others still lack latrines and sanitary conveniences.

The economic condition: 1 - Unemployment is widespread in most of the villages, and it has caused and still causes the double emigration: the emigration of the country people to the city, and their emigration abroad. 2 - The peasant is poor, and cannot care for his land or keep it up. 3 - The peasant is ignorant of the modern scientific and technical methods of agriculture. 4 - The industries that would give life to the village do not exist. 5 - The country-side lacks industrial and agricultural

schools. 6 - Some villages lack water for drinking and irrigation. 7 - And others lack electricity.

The social condition: 1 - Some villages are still isolated and solitary: no road reaches them, and no stranger comes to them. 2 - The isolation of these remote villages is deepened by their lack of electricity. 3 - The countryside lacks places of recreation to rest the peasant and refresh him.

Thus has the village fallen behind the city, retreating into its ignorance and its torpor, and the balance between the country's two principal pillars — the city and the village — has been upset; and this upsetting of the balance spells danger, and collapse. If the countryside is one of the country's fundamental pillars, is it permissible that it be abandoned, or its affairs neglected? We do not deny our government its concern for reform and public works, nor our ministry its building of schools, hospitals, and dispensaries, its opening of roads, and many other works besides; nor do we deny the services and efforts of the various societies and their work toward raising the country's standing — not to mention the popular consciousness in the country, alive to its responsibilities and aspiring to reform. Yet most of these efforts are expended in the city, and the countryside's share of them is but little indeed. Woman felt these responsibilities and wished to perform her share

Gripe Water

Happy tidings to the ladies

New quantities of the famous "Gripe" Water have arrived in Beirut

and it is now on sale in all pharmacies.