For the Sake of National Guidance

Readers' Mail

Dear Madam Editor-in-Chief,

Greetings — I recently read in the esteemed "Woman's Voice" an article by the writer Asma Tubi on the subject of "Our Language," in which she touches on the duty of mothers and the failing of the schools. In my heart of hearts I thanked the writer for her alertness to this vital subject; is not the man of letters the voice of the nation and the teller of its sorrows and its glories?

I agree with the writer that our schools fall short in the national guidance that strengthens self-confidence, and I fear the mothers will not be able to set right the school's shortcoming. Accordingly I propose to you that you set apart a page of guidance in our magazine, The Woman's Voice, in which our women writers would write about those figures who make us hold our heads high — such as Jabir ibn Hayyan, or Ibn al-Nafis, or al-Ma'arri, or al-Bustani, or Emir Bashir, and so on — an article that would be a tale for us mothers, one to lift our spirits and to counter some of the contempt for our language and our heritage that the foreign schools have left as a deposit.

And I beg you to summon the women writers to this useful patriotic work, for I believe that our national work today is not merely to be content with marching toward the future, but to straighten twisted souls, to crush the inferiority complexes within them, and then to form citizens who believe in what lies deep in their souls and take pride in something that runs in their blood — something that was, that still is, and that shall never pass away.

Accept the highest meanings of sincerity,
from your fellow-citizen,
Anissa Najjar

The Editors: We hold in high esteem Mrs. Anissa Najjar's lofty patriotic zeal, and while we appeal to our women writers to heed her sound call, we cannot but ask: who is worthier than Mrs. Najjar herself, a specialist in history, to edit this guiding national corner??