While watching the opening ceremony of the Third Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, on the evening of the eleventh of last July at the UNESCO Palace, we could wish for nothing but to acknowledge the great effort exerted by the competent department in the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts to invigorate the artistic movement in Lebanon.

It is cause for wonder to learn that the number of artists who took part in the third exhibition reached one hundred and fifty, and that a third of them, by rough estimate, were of the fair sex.

... Figures not to be scorned, for a small country like Lebanon, and a fine manifestation of progress of which we may hold our heads high — and this in the midst of a summer of emigrants and tourists — our kinsfolk and our dear guests...

Some may object that most of this vast output is of no artistic value worth mentioning, that it amounts to nothing more than primitive attempts, and that most of the exhibitors are amateurs, not professionals...

Movement, in itself, is a blessing, I say, and a spur to creative invention on the part of the artists, and to viewing and criticism on the part of the public; and that is benefit enough for both sides — the exhibition, then, is a living school!!

And then, are not the first manifestations of modern art in the world its floundering in a chaos of schools — classical and realist, expressionist and symbolist, etc.... a struggle in full swing, with time alone holding the final word? Let us march with the caravan and await the unfolding of events!...

While we give the Ministry of Education credit for its zeal for the good name of art and the raising of its standing, we cannot, finally, forgo pointing out that hundreds of eyes were, at the hour of the opening, fixed in hope upon the entrance of the UNESCO Palace, awaiting the First Lebanese, under whose patronage the ceremony had been announced; but His Excellency, for the second time, disappointed those hopes and failed to appear... How everyone would have loved to see his radiant countenance, dispensing smiles, showing his lofty sympathy for this young renaissance which Lebanon is recording in his era!

News agencies and newspapers have relayed, with a certain incredulity, the report of the communiqué recently issued by the Syrian Ministry of Education, forbidding clubs and private schools to include girl students together with boys in the formations put on for special occasions, and in radio programs.

What manner of communiqué is this?! How far it stands from our modern understanding of the foundations of sound education!! It is a slap in the face of those young women who are making ready, in their near tomorrow, to exercise their political rights!!

We can understand a communiqué of this sort being issued in a sister country still far removed from the renaissance of civilization, where a law has been enacted forbidding any girl whatsoever to enroll in school!! But that such a communiqué should be issued in Syria — that gives cause for astonishment, and for questions as to the intentions of the Minister of Education.

Communiqués, Your Excellency, must be in harmony with the stage of progress the country has traversed; otherwise they provoke a negative reaction of shrinking back between the sexes, one that drags the country backward, and they become, in consequence, a scandalous manifestation of that odious reaction which we had supposed we and you had finished coming to terms over!

And we ask ourselves, further, whether it would not be well for a Minister of Education who draws his inspiration from such communiqués to step aside for one worthier of the post — for one graced with an open mind, versed in the spirit of the age, who leads the rising generation forward... not backward!!