Society News

• On the twenty-seventh of last February, Miss Marie-Ange Abi Saleh delivered a lecture at the Nadwa on the subject: New Lines in Education and the Extent of Their Application in Lebanon. Miss Abi Saleh is one of our brilliant young women in the field of education; she lately spent three years in France, practicing its concerns in the universities and the psychological laboratories and under its masters in European circles generally. In the first part of her lecture she gave proof of a wide acquaintance with the various currents that have worked their good work upon the rising generation, and with the tendencies of teaching in the Latin and Anglo-Saxon schools. In the light of these new lines in education she reviewed the actual state of teaching in Lebanon, recording its good and constructive face while also criticizing its harmful blemishes, and she concluded by defining the foundations on which education in Lebanon must rest.

Her observations came out conscious, deep, and true; we could wish that those concerned with the affairs of teaching among us, responsible and otherwise, would take them up.

- And on the twelfth of March came the turn of Mrs. May Fayyad at the Nadwa. Mrs. Fayyad is one of the ladies of cultivated Lebanese society; her activity works for good among circles and persons, and she creates about her an atmosphere fragrant with patriotism, truth, and constructive beauty. Nor may we omit to mention here that our woman of letters gathers in her home, every two weeks, a circle of our young men and girls in sweet evening converse over intellectual matters generally — literature, poetry, and music. The Nadwa was most happily advised when it entrusted Mrs. Fayyad to speak to the patrons of its hall on civic consciousness and the aspiration toward beauty. The lecturer ranged deep among the concepts of civic consciousness in general, applying these concepts to our Lebanese reality, calling for the cultivation of this sense in all our hearts, that it may remain a stout hedge about the homeland, pointing to the beauties of our earth and our sky, and urging the preservation of our sweet natural climate. Mrs. May Fayyad's lecture was a talk from heart to heart, one that minds will absorb, that Lebanon may abide in safety and hope, ever looking toward the loftier and the more beautiful.

On the afternoon of the 20th of this month this school held a reception day, to which it invited the mothers of its boy and girl pupils, to increase cooperation and understanding between the home and the school; the invitation won the parents' approval, and the attendance was great.

The principal of the school, Miss Alice Abd al-Nur, invited Mrs. Sabiha Faris to speak during the visit on an educational subject. She treated the problem of the child between home and school and what he needs, and did so excellently and profitably; at the end the mothers pressed forward, asking Mrs. Faris about certain difficulties they meet in bringing up their children, and she answered them with every pleasure and clarity — which stirred admiration and thanks to the school's administration for the opportunities it affords parents to cooperate with the school for the good of their children.

• Mrs. Asma Tubi is one of our sober women of letters, and her writing is distinguished by a guiding bent — humane, moral, and patriotic. Last month she delivered a lecture at the National College in Aley which made the finest impression, leading the school's administration to undertake its printing and its distribution among the pupils, in response to the insistent demand... She then delivered a second lecture at the English school, the B. S. T. C., and every success attended her. May God multiply the likes of Mrs. Asma Tubi — and let readers await a delightful article from her in the coming issue.

• The Society for Combating Prostitution in Lebanon continues its activity by every means toward the attainment of its goal. Among the results of its efforts — its addressing of memoranda to the Prime Minister's office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Municipality of Beirut, and its dispatch of delegations to the competent departments — is that it found in the Municipal Council attentive ears for its appeals, the more so since the ladies who are members of the Council are among the first to work in this field for the safety of society and the dignity of woman.

No sooner had the Council referred the memorandum submitted to it by the society to the health committee, which counts among its members the ladies referred to, than the committee hastened to hold a special session on March 14, 1956, to which it invited the Society for Combating Prostitution; the society delegated to attend the session its president, Mr. Mohammad Jamil Beyhum, Mrs. Adelaide Rishani, and the two doctors Muhammad Haydar and Zakan Shakhashiri.

The session was presided over by Mrs. Laure Tabet and attended, of the members of the municipality, by the two ladies Ibtihaj Kaddoura and Ellen Rihan and by Messrs. Fawzi al-Itani, Dr. Michel Duaybis, Agop Atchejian, and Maroun Awwad, in the hall of the Municipal Council.

It was observed that the aims of all agree and meet at the point that licensed prostitution must be abolished and clandestine prostitution combated. It was therefore resolved that the committee urge the Municipal Council most pressingly to adopt this matter. And pending the enactment of new legislation abolishing official prostitution utterly, it was resolved to demand of the government the following:

1 - The removal of the brothels from their present place to outside Beirut.
2 - Sterner combating of clandestine prostitution.
3 - The cessation of the granting of new licenses for houses of prostitution.
4 - The cessation of the granting of new licenses to wayward women applying for registration in the houses of prostitution. The Council further conferred with the members of the Society for Combating Prostitution on certain other means conducive to the goal, and it was resolved to form a committee of Messrs. Mohammad Jamil Beyhum and Fawzi al-Itani to study them and to present a report on them at a second session.

The Woman's Voice supports this blessed movement and wishes it success.

• Mrs. Suad Mawhij Saqr, agent of "The Woman's Voice" in Argentina, is one of those most zealous for the magazine; for a time, before her departure from Lebanon, she nourished it with the pen of a born woman of letters...

Word has reached us that Mrs. Saqr was blessed, at the opening of the new year, with a baby boy, "Miguel Angel" — to her and to her generous husband our sincerest congratulations and good wishes.

The following has come to us from the secretary, Mrs. Nazik Sarkis:

The General Arab Women's Union held its annual meeting in Cairo on March 21 and 22 last, at the invitation of the Egyptian Women's Union. The meeting was attended by the presidents and secretaries of each union of the Arab countries, or those deputizing for them. The discussions took up the proposals each union submitted to the bureau; what has been accomplished of the earlier resolutions is examined, while what has not been accomplished remains in course of execution; and the standing problems were laid before the meeting for discussion. The members of the congress traveled, and they are as follows:

Bureau of the General Arab Women's Union: the president, Miss Ibtihaj Kaddoura; the vice-president, Mrs. Ellen Rihan; the treasurer, Mrs. Muneera Shehadeh; and the secretary, Mrs. Nazik Sarkis. From Jordan: the president, Miss Zulaykha al-Shihabi, and Mrs. Zahra Salah. From Syria: the president, Mrs. Adila al-Jazairi, and the secretary. From Iraq: Mrs. Ismat al-Said, deputizing for the president, and the secretary, Mrs. Azza al-Istrabadi. For Palestine: the two ladies Sadhij Nassar and Wadia Khartabil. And from Lebanon: the two ladies Shafiqa Diab and Anissa Najjar.

The two most important items on the agenda, which those assembled are working to bring about — both being among the resolutions the delegates adopted at the meeting of 1950:

1 - To strive to create understanding, to spread peace, and to strengthen fraternal relations among the Arab countries.

2 - To continue striving that woman may obtain her political rights in full in all the Arab countries. And we shall keep the readers of "The Woman's Voice" informed of the resolutions adopted and of what is accomplished of them.

Program of lectures for the month of April 1956

Thursday, April 5
Islam between Yesterday and Today
by Sheikh Mustafa al-Rafii

Monday, April 9
Reflections on Lebanese Literature
by Mr. Edouard Honein

Monday, April 16
"Nations Are but Their Morals..."

Thursday, April 19
The True Nature of the Man of Letters
by Mr. Abdallah Lahoud

Monday, April 23
Lebanese Economic Policy
by Dr. Albert Badre
(the subject to be introduced by Mr. Muhyi al-Din al-Nsouli)

Monday, April 30
Lebanese Social Policy
by Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush

by Mr. Victor Lahoud

The Zahle Child Nursery Society sent a telegram, over the signatures of its president, Mrs. Emily Nasrallah, and the president of the Children's Home committee, Mrs. Rose Ghawwa, to the committee for the relief of the earthquake victims, informing them of its readiness to take in ten girls of the stricken families for an unlimited term, and offering likewise to perform whatever services may be asked of it.

The Editors: This is a generous humane sentiment; we could wish that all the women's institutions possessing the means for it would follow the example of the Zahle Child Nursery. God bless such zeal!!

• Mr. Mansur Munsif, proprietor of the Mun Hayim house of dressmaking and fashions, has lately returned from Paris, where he spent a month acquainting himself with the newest tendencies of the spring fashions and bringing them back for his patrons in Beirut, accompanied by his own impressions and personal taste — so welcome home.

This year an activity we have never known before has been observed in the association of graduates of Beirut College for Women: life has stirred in it, after a long slumber, following the election of the new president, Mrs. Eva Badr Malik.

The first move made by the new administrative board was the invitation, at the end of last February, to a rich dinner held at the institution, gathering some hundred and fifty graduates who came — for the first time in the College's history — in the company of husbands and friends. It was a splendid banquet at which friendships revived, around the small scattered tables, by the light of drowsy candles!

The new administrative committee, with Mrs. Malik at its head, has succeeded in reviving the spirit of enthusiasm and loyalty toward this women's institution, unique in our Arab East, and in reviving the good, friendly relations among colleagues and companions, and the working together for one noble end.

The dinner interval was interspersed with a magnificent artistic program, nourished by Miss Samia Saab with her fine ballet dancing and by Miss Samia al-Hajj with her excellent "opera" singing. The president's word made the loveliest impression, after which the jokes flowed and sweet memories were recounted, to general approval and applause.