to another?

What I have mentioned may contain a summary of those causes, which begin with the lack of basic upbringing in the home and end with the impotence of the governing apparatus to stop the tumbling wheel.

But those causes, for all their variety, are no more than the manifestations of a single reality — symptoms which the thinking man finds no difficulty in tracing back to their root.

For the badness of home upbringing — or, in most fami-lies, its very absence — cannot be attributed to ignorance... in its general sense.

The same is true of the schools' and universities' neglect of their first duty, the forming of the good citizen, and their contenting themselves with turning out "the educated," bearers of ornamented diplomas, and "the cultured," bearers of... empty titles!

And by this measure may be judged the work of all the other institutions that are supposed to form that citizen — that human being!

Morals, since Aristotle, have been the pillar of knowledge — in its general sense, too. No man may lay claim to it who possesses nothing of character — of great character!

And so, Madam, you see clearly that painful reality — I mean the root of the causes by which morals among us go tum-bling down their perilous slopes.

It is illiteracy in its two hideous forms: the illiteracy of the letter, which ravages tens of thousands, nay millions, of our peoples; and the illiteracy of the mind, which paralyzes the activity of the aware elite of our generations.

The second is the graver danger for peoples who have

emerged suddenly into the lights of the twentieth century after living for long-drawn centuries in the shell of history.

For wiping out the illiteracy of the letter is an easy task: a few years suffice for people — all the people — to become readers and writers... as happened in Mexico some years ago.

But the illiteracy of the mind, with which our educated, and the cultured generally, are stricken, is graver in its effect and harder to fight, because it is the illiteracy of the elite — that small number on whom we count for guidance and leadership.

This illiteracy cripples man's human powers, annuls his vital energies, and corrupts his humane inclinations. Indeed, thanks to the conceit with which half-knowledge puffs him up, it turns the man — and the woman — into two palsied limbs in a society that stands in need of the effort of every working man and working woman, such as our Arab societies!

Except, of course, for deprav-ity and refinement in its pursuit, to which the man gives himself even should he become a "summit" among the summits of society; and except for allurement and the fashion shows, to which the woman gives herself even should she attain the rank of "university graduate" or be blessed with the sanctity of motherhood!

3 — As for the serious ways of averting this danger, they are the very ways which the causes, or the occasioning factors, themselves suggest. Long ago the logicians said: the answer is contained in the question.

Perhaps a joining of efforts, exerted by all the responsible parties indicated above, would suffice to avert the collapse

to which our rising generations are exposed.

And there remain the school — and the university — in my view the two chief responsible parties, for it is in them that the forming of the good citizen, man and woman, is finally completed. Nay, it is in them that the fathers and mothers are perfected, and all the responsible educators — writers, journalists, deputies, and rulers alike!

Let us say frankly that our hope of reform does not turn toward the home, now that we have learned that our homes are empty of fathers and mothers, though they be peopled with begetters, male and female.

Nor does our hope turn toward the masters of the other "stations" through which we pass after the school and the university, or before them — the press, the theater, the cinema... — because of the absence of any sense of responsibility among those masters, who have preferred the life of "trade" to the life of "mission."

Nor, in the nature of things, may we set our hopes on the governing apparatus... for it is a picture reflecting the reality of the people and the level of the community's morals.

And so all our hopes are fixed, as you see, Madam, and our hearts, trembling for our rising generations, turn toward the middle link of that long chain — I mean the school and the university; for in them we form the fathers and the mothers, and in them likewise we form the educators, men and women, and the guides, men and women. And with these and those we shall avert this danger that threatens our youth as it threatens our very being and the future of our nation.