Questions of Education

For months the questions of education have occupied educational circles in Lebanon... We have heard much about the teachers' strike, and about their return to the schools; we have seen their demands, clear and frank, and the promises of the competent authorities to do them justice.

These are truly vital questions, and we thought to lay them before our readers through our thinking woman of letters, Rose Ghorayeb. It is a happy opportunity to learn her opinion on the subject, for she is, without doubt, in the front rank of those who have worked in this field and dealt with educational problems at close hand.

The teachers' cause has developed, up to this hour, in a way that promises that the government — after procrastination and reluctance — has begun to be aware of its responsibilities. Or has sensed, in certain sections of the people, an awareness that compels it to be aware.

The first of these responsibilities is to do the teacher justice and make him the equal of the country's other officials and employees; the second is to adopt the free schools and supply them with financial assistance.

But the questions of education are many and complicated. And the problems that await the government may be more tangled still than what it has faced until now.

Perhaps the most important thing incumbent on the government in the future is to take the position of the just arbiter and the directing mind amid the chaos of currents that pull at the affairs of education among us.

For the country is divided into factions and parties. And in every faction there are elements of extremism, or of reaction and rigidity, whose creed is violence and whose habit is partiality and selfishness.

These are the elements that must be fought, and against going along with any one of them we must be on guard, whatever its color or its bent.

Those who call for freedom of education and mean by it the freedom to sow that national fanaticism which imposes on people a kind of doctrinal cultishness.

And those who intend by it the freedom to open commercial schools, and to grant certificates that delude students into believing they have completed their learning, when learning disowns them.

And those who mean by it the freedom of certain states to spread their propaganda in the schools and impose their influence and their cultures upon the students. Or who intend by it the freedom of isolationist groups to teach their own languages and cultures, to create a state within a state, and to hold in contempt the language and culture of the country in whose shelter they live.

We believe in freedom when it is in the hands of trustworthy and sincere people, desiring cooperation, working for the public interest; but how can we be sure they will not abuse their freedom, unless a minimum of laws is imposed upon them?

And who has the right of supervision but a government that truly represents the country with all its elements?

We believe in the government despite its errors and defects, as we believed in independence at a time when we were not able to shoulder its burdens. And as we believed in the parliamentary system despite the burden of its laws upon us.

And we believe in the government schools, even though in their cultural standard they are still very backward and low.

And we wish from the depths of our souls to encourage these schools, despite those who oppose them on the claim that they are irreligious — though all of them make room for religious instruction.

And we hope that the government will multiply them and work to reform them and raise their standard.

Because through them it secures free compulsory education for the whole people.

And because these schools are the only ones removed from the influence of propaganda, political and sectarian alike.

The country, despite its divisions, is not without good, progressive elements, far from extremism and personal designs — some of them in the teachers' syndicate and the departments of education, others in the fields of administration and in the cultural institutes.

And the government can profit from the guidance of these elements, and from their specialization and their experience.

So that it may be able to solve the problems of education in the spirit of justice, and as the interest of the country requires.

For Lebanon's interest requires that it preserve its scholarly reputation and be, despite its smallness, a center of every progressive movement.

We have passed, in our politics, from the stage of dependence to the stage of independence, despite the great difficulties that accompanied that passage. Is it wise that in our educational system we should remain children and dependents?