My Impressions of America

Miss Marie Sabri answered the editorial staff's invitation to visit The Woman's Voice's new office on Hamra Street, following her recent school journey to Italy at the head of ten students of Beirut College for Women.

It was a fitting opportunity to talk with Miss Sabri about her own impressions of the United States, where she spent a full year at Columbia University and took a Master of Science degree, with distinction, in college administration, returning to the Beirut College to fill the post of Registrar.

Many things stirred my admiration and my interest in America, said Miss Marie Sabri. I shall first mention the most important of them, and then come to one particular matter to which I attach the greatest importance. And I shall spare the reader the weary repetitions we so often hear and read from those who visit the United States.

The first thing that meets us in American life is this energy in all classes of people and at every age. Gray hair on the head is a familiar thing in America; but grayness of spirit, and idleness, are very rare.

Among the most striking examples of this is the ambition that knows no bounds in the pursuit of learning and knowledge — no matter whether the person be a man or a woman, an adolescent, an adult, or aged. It is quite an ordinary thing to see old, retired women devoting themselves at last to taking the doctorate!

With this goes their respect for work, and their pride in it, however its social value be rated. How many an attractive and prominent girl student will tell you with much pride that she works during the summer as a waitress in a café, or as a children's nurse, to secure her school fees or her living if she has come of age. There every person is self-reliant and independent, and there is no trace of pampering, of leaning on others, or of putting on empty airs that lead to nothing.

Then too, the American takes pride in his country and orders his life by it. Of late the practice has grown of inviting girl and boy students from other countries as guests in American homes, that they may become acquainted with their life and strengthen the bonds of understanding and friendship with one another.

But what caught my attention most of all was the American's ignorance of the truth about our country. And I am glad to point out that there are efforts in America, especially at Columbia University, to close this gap and to carry out a positive campaign to acquaint the pupils and students of American schools with the actual state of affairs in "the other countries," and particularly in the Middle East.

Under this campaign the pupils spend about a month in study of a given country; then a student at Columbia University who belongs to that very country is invited, and he spends a whole day with them, going about it with them in various practical ways within reach of their understanding, trying so far as possible to fix the important information in their minds and to give it the shape and form that agree with their ages and their mentality...

Miss Sabri went on to say:
I was invited one day to spend a day at an elementary school, to talk to pupils between the ages of 9 and 12. On entering the school I was astonished to find a little exhibition of such things as the pupils had been able to obtain that bore some relation to our country — they had spent a month in study of Lebanon and Syria... Among their collection I saw straw trays, jugs, pictures, maps, and so on... It was a delightful conversation, and for all my quickness and fluency I could not keep pace with all the questions the little ones showered upon me. Such as: Are you really from Lebanon? Do you have automobiles? What do you eat? And what do you wear? Do you sleep on the ground? Or in tents?...

I was amazed at the little ones' curiosity and the extent of their interest in the matter... I wrote my name for them in Arabic, and they noticed at once that I write moving from right to left, the opposite of what they do!! And they set about copying my name and asking me politely to write their names for them in their own notebooks...

In the afternoon a number of the children's mothers came, and it was a delightful session of getting acquainted, in which they showed their readiness and their eagerness to know everything about the cradle of the religions...

I returned to the university believing the matter had ended there. And how deeply I was touched when, some days later, dozens of letters reached me from those little ones, expressing their sincere thanks and their pleasure at what they had heard from me, together with their wishes — each in his own childish fashion — to visit Lebanon and see its cedars, its shores... and the temples of Baalbek, and so forth...

Then it grew clear to my mind's eye how greatly we need true publicity for our country! And to this end persons must be chosen in whom all the qualifications are united, that they may be able to represent their country in the best possible manner.

And I propose that Lebanon have women ambassadors, uniting learning with beauty of appearance and loftiness of character, so that they become the center of all eyes in refined society — and when Lebanon has women ambassadors of this kind in every land of the Mahjar, then we may rest easy about our reputation abroad, and be sure that we are represented in the countries of the world in the best of fashions.