Dr. Salwa Nassar

Dr. Charles Malik

Dr. Salwa Nassar sets out her plan in a letter to Dr. Charles Malik

This tune that Dr. Salwa Nassar strikes up for us today, in pursuit of a scientific renaissance in Lebanon, is not a new one. Our foremost woman scientist has never ceased, these twelve years, to repeat it in the ears of the responsible officials on every occa-sion, only to be met with a smile of apology for the lack of funds...

Yesterday came Dr. Charles Malik's statement on Lebanon's foreign policy, strong as a thun-derbolt; the dams and obstacles collapsed, faces lit up with hope, and it became plain to those con-cerned that the longed-for renais-sance was about to be realized.

And The Woman's Voice, which has walked beside its friend the scientist through all twelve years, repeating her tune with enthusiasm and sincerity, is stirred with pride and gladness

to be, alone among the papers, the resounding trumpet of this vital national project, which the Doctor presents here in her letter addressed to His Excellency Dr. Malik — but for whose mighty efforts Lebanon would not have such wide-open windows, through which good comes pouring to make of this small country a beacon of construction and prosperity in the procession of world civilization...

The Editors

Sir, Your Excellency Dr. Charles Malik,

A nation, like the individual man, emerges, takes pride in itself, and proves itself by its fruitful activity in the fields of knowledge. These qualities are among the attributes necessary to every sound nation, and to the continuance of its existence in dignity and independence. It is well known that we live today in the age of the atom, amid an advanced, progressive civilization whose substance is physics, electrical engineering, and mathematics. What, then, is Lebanon's position in these fields? What is its share of giving, in return for what it gains from the progress achieved? How long will Lebanon remain, in the domain of the sciences, a dependent and a parasite, living on the produc-tion of others? And why should it not stand among the states that contribute their share, to the measure of its capacity?

The first cause of this back-

wardness, Your Excellency the Minister, is the absence of any awareness of this great national problem, and a failure to acknowl-edge the importance of scientific activities in the life of the nation. Organized scientific training on the national level has become an urgent necessity, and the neglect of our repeated appeals for effective measures to improve the position of the sciences in Lebanon is a discouraging thing, and one that no longer has any justification.

In the past, Your Excellency Dr. Malik, the first obstacle behind which the government took shelter, rather than listen to us and grant our requests, was the lack of funds. Now, however, that obstacle has been brought low, after your frank and historic statement, in which