It is the language of the homeland that must be the most sacred, above every other language...

Thirty years ago there rose the cry of Mayy, saying, 'Speak your language.' And she went on — God rest her soul — to tell of an old Italian bookseller whom she asked for one of D'Annunzio's works in Italian. When he learned that she knew the language well, his face lit up and he said, in the tone of one pleading: Why, then, do you not speak it with me..? I know that French is more widespread, but ah, how beautiful Italian is — it is the language of art and music, of the heart and of youth.. its words summon up the shores of Italy... her hills.. her greenness.. the canvases of her museums.. her song-filled nights, her fertile heart, and her immortal soul.

Then Mayy went on to describe how she carried this talk to a gathering of noble Arabs. Some of them were convinced, but one of them stepped forward, opened his mouth with an elegant opening befitting the twentieth century, as Mayy puts it, and said:

— Yes, but the pronunciation of Arabic is hard for us. There are rough letters, like — striving to perfect the pronunciation — the.. 'ayn.. and the ha and the kha.. good heavens, all of that tears the throat..'

And thirty years ago, too, Sheikh al-'Azar wrote: The bride and groom are Arabs, the guests invited to the wedding are Arabs, and it is in an Arab country — but the invitation cards were written in French.. Arabic has died.. she died, so they buried her and wrote upon her tomb: a stranger in her own land.

I wrote in my turn on the subject.. and cited dozens of Orientalists who speak Arabic and pronounce the.. 'ayn.. and the ha.. and the kha that tear our friend's throat.. they pronounce these rough letters without their throats being torn..

And one asks oneself, before this language that is a stranger in her own land: why should she be a stranger..? And one's thoughts wander over the corners of the world to see whether anyone does as we do..? All people, from the smallest nation to the greatest — each one among them prizes his own language and takes pride in it. Why, then, should we be the exception..?

The educational institutions that put their own language

in the first rank, for study and for speech.. and thereby serve the aims they pursue.. are not responsible for all this excess.. When we lay the whole responsibility upon them, we forget the influence of the home in the formation of the rising generation.. indeed, it is as if we confessed that it has no influence at all.

When these institutions teach the student their language first, they merely make that language easier for him in writing and in reading.. As for the writing, there is no danger in it, since these languages are, on the whole, international.. And as for the reading, there is no danger in it either, since by means of it the student is enabled to study the masterpieces of Western literature with depth and understanding.

I do not deny that these institutions endear to the young their own language and their own culture; but neither do I deny that they range the field alone, find-