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.