and the deaf...

And her heart beat with joy, for her dream had begun to come true...

Her studies in Boston, in the United States, proved a chain of useful and delightful experiences — she lived a full year in a boarding school for the blind, ate with them and slept, and during the two summers went to camps in the open air with the deaf-mutes. These memories left countless delicious pictures in her glowing imagination...

Japan's care for the blind: On her way back to Lebanon she stopped in the Far East and visited the schools for the blind in Japan, and was astonished at the surpassing care the physically handicapped receive there, the like of which has not been recorded in any other Eastern country — they have, for example, sixty schools for the blind alone, and no blind or mute person is to be glimpsed in the streets, as is the case in the other Eastern countries...

The Lebanese Society for the Relief of the Blind: She returned to Lebanon driven by an overwhelming eagerness to begin at once applying the practical theories that filled her head — and did not find the institution that should have received her and welcomed her and the benefit of her specialization... For the school for the blind, which the "Lebanese Society for the Relief of the Blind," under the presidency of Dr. Philip Touma, had been laboring to build — that school at al-Warwar was not yet fully equipped...

Lebanon's First Lady behind the project: Widad Baroudi well knew the zeal of the honorary president, Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun, and her fruitful concern for the blind — she had many a time taken part in person in spiritual or poetry readings to entertain them, and contributed effectively to collecting donations to erect their institute and equip it with the most modern equipment... So Widad approached the First Lady of Lebanon, and obtained from her and from the Society a promise that the school for the blind would open at the beginning of this coming October, and that she herself would be charged with the direction of the school...

The first spark: During Widad's interview with Mrs. Chamoun, the First Lady gave her a letter she had received from one of the mothers, asking her help in the matter of her deaf-mute child. The photograph enclosed with it bespoke beauty and intelligence... Widad was seized by the boy's innocent eyes, and did not delay in visiting the mother and talking with her and with her son... And how quickly the little one took his place in her heart... The mother informed her that she had friends whose three children were deaf-mutes like her son, and implored

her to save them... or to help them as far