Do You Remember, Brother?? — In the Margin of the Fifth Conference of the Lebanese Home Economics Association

In the margin of the Fifth Conference
of the Lebanese Home Economics Association

"And does home economics need conferences and studies too? We have heard that conferences are held for medical, scientific, political, and linguistic research — but home economics? What is there in it to study? Is a conference to be convened over a cooked dish and a washed plate? How silly your mind is, my dear — no, how silly the minds of all women! Woman in this age of ours is lost; she does not know what to do! And sillier still, I hear that this branch is taught in the schools and that some girls specialize in it. I believe home economics is nothing but 'blather-ology,' studied only by a girl with no brains!"

This is what I used to hear from my brother, and from many men and women, whenever they learned that I was going to Beirut to take part in planning the annual conference of the Lebanese Home Economics Association. To you, brother, I address this word — and to the many people of my country who believe that the science of home economics is confined to the crucible of cooking and dishwashing...

The conference of the Lebanese Home Economics Association opened this year at Beirut College for Women.

Do you remember, brother, the time you came home worn out and fuming, threw yourself into a chair, and said: In the schools we learn reading and arithmetic and we specialize in many branches, but of one essential matter we know nothing — how to choose our clothes. Neither at home do we learn it, nor at school. I want my suits to be elegant and right for every occasion, but I do not know how. And I, at that very moment, was in tears, for I had washed my woolen sweater in boiling water and hung it on the clothesline the way one hangs out any bedsheet, and it came out strange-looking, its freshness gone, and with it the red color I loved!

How I wished you had been with me, brother, on the evening of Friday, March 29, to see that group of the College's students, with their adviser Mrs. Holen, give an exquisite presentation, in perfect taste and elegance, on the importance of knowing fabrics and clothing — how to choose them, how to economize in buying them and take care of them, and what is fit to be worn at each occasion. You would have learned that the girl is trained in these essential matters you demanded so long ago; I would not have wept, and my red sweater would have kept its freshness!

And do you not remember when we returned to our village, after an absence of four years, to greet a man come home from Australia, and many of the village folk were at his house? You kept whispering in my ear:

Where are these women's teeth?... "Why are their faces so dried up, so wrinkled, so lifeless?" A little later came supper — potatoes, and rice, and kibbeh fried in Hama ghee, and other spiced and heavy dishes. And do you not remember the returned traveler's answer to your question — what difference had he found between the Australian people and ours? As though he were surfeited with the potatoes and the kibbeh, he answered at once: There are many differences, but I will answer you with one. The Australian eats, and the nourishment is distributed to every part of his body, so his body keeps its clean build and he stays active and cheerful. We eat, and our faces turn sallow and our bellies swell, and we become strange figures, without proportion or harmony, and very often we feel sluggish and heavy after we eat. And how I wished, brother, that you had been with me that night as well, to hear Miss Santek speak in a delightful manner on the importance of the science of nutrition and of foods, and on how to balance the choice of foodstuffs so that the body stays active and well-proportioned — and so that the teeth, and the life, remain in those faces you asked about.

Then have you forgotten, brother, the hours you spent and the great sums you laid out on the furnishing of the house — and when you had finished, you kept pursing your lips, not knowing why? Once you said, with a lump in your heart: Today I visited the house of a Swiss director and noticed that everything in his house was utterly simple, yet exquisite, comfortable, beautiful; the soul finds rest in it, and the visitor feels tranquility and calm. On our house I have spent a great deal, but... You did not finish; perplexity and dissatisfaction stayed on your face.

Had you seen the two scenes acted on the College's platform — the first on "the orderly house and the disorderly" in its furnishings, and their effect upon a person's spirit; the second on the problems of the village house and how to solve them by teaching one of the branches of home economics, given by the College's students together with the Rural Training Center at Jibrail — had you seen those two scenes, brother, you would have known the reason for your perplexity and your dissatisfaction in furnishing our house. For this calls for art, and art calls for study, training, and taste.

And your grumbling, your sighing, your many shouts in the faces of our father and mother, threatening that you would leave the house — and why? Because you know that all the members of our family bring in money, but with no keeping of accounts, neither of income nor of outlay; each spends as he pleases, and we are forever drowning in debt. Had you heard — or rather, had we all heard — Mrs. Hawkins that night on family economy and its importance, perhaps we would have understood the cause of our backwardness, and perhaps we would have thought of delivering ourselves from the debts heaped upon us. And why? Because our house has no budget, and there is no understanding among the members of our family; we live "free," each as he pleases — when the truth is that we live in the bondage of chaos, and there is no bondage worse!

Before long, brother, you will be head of a household, and you will have a child; and how I wished you had seen the play whose dialogue turned on family ties and the raising of the child. I ask you: do you not know more about riding bicycles than you know about raising a child? And do you not know more about "rock and roll" than you know about the human bonds that join a man to his life's companion, so that the two may be partners in the true sense?

And on Saturday I wished from the depths of my heart that you had joined me in listening to those short addresses, all of them turning on home economics, from specialists who have served, and still serve, this field. In an engaging style Miss Suad Wakim spoke on home economics and its relation to education. She was followed by Miss Zahiyah Dughan on the art of teaching home economics in the Middle East; then Miss Irene Teagarden on the teaching of home economics in Lebanon and how far its teaching has advanced in the secondary schools and the colleges; and finally Dr. Perouhi Najarian on scientific research in home economics.

At this conference we also heard men like yourself speak. Dr. Olter spoke on man's role in the field of home economics — and this man, brother, took part in planning the conference as well. And Dr. Habib Kurani spoke with earnest devotion on the role of home economics in the rural districts, insisting that no homeland can be reformed unless we reform our homes, whether in city or in village. And how, brother, is this home to be set right if the woman does not know the foundations on which to build it?

And Mr. Hasib Mroueh closed with "home economics in social service."

And now, brother, what do you say of home economics? Is it important in the life of the individual, or is it "blather-ology," as you used to believe? Or will you say, with that man — one of the two hundred who attended the conference — who whispered in his neighbor's ear after watching one of the dramatic scenes: "Truly, he who builds a home builds a world"? And his neighbor answered him: "True — and we must know how to build this home, and that takes long time and deep study, if we are to have homes that come from our very selves."

Does home economics need conferences, or shall we stop? No — we shall go on, and we shall not stop, and you will be with us in the end, because this home is yours and mine, and we must know how to build it. Let our thoughts take wing, and let our souls rise to the loftiest meanings of life.