principal demanded "better," and kept pressing and striving with her teachers and pupils to raise the general level, until success in her school reached 98 percent — we might almost say 100 percent. Hence the fame of the "Adel National School" spread abroad, and students flocked to it
from every part of Iraq with remarkable eagerness...
I have said that the school began in 1932 in Mrs. Adel's house with a body of eight pupils; in the second year she rented a house for the school and the (coeducational) enrollment rose to forty-six. Growth went forward at a steadily quickening pace, and the school met with such brilliant success that Mrs. Adel was encouraged to build a modern school equipped with luxuriant gardens and games of every kind, and a model kindergarten besides the elementary school; this was accomplished in the most complete manner in 1945.
Last year the school presented 83 boys and girls for the ministerial examination, and all of them passed without exception; this year it intends to present 93, and success is expected for all of them as well!
It was a gracious gesture on the part of His Excellency Kadhim al-Solh, our ambassador in Iraq, when he surprised everyone by decorating Mrs. Adel with the Lebanese Order of Education, in appreciation of her distinguished services in the field of upbringing and instruction. And the final stage of the silver-jubilee festival was a turn through a sumptuous buffet, in which was displayed a generosity worthy of Hatim — or rather, of Adel.
Our congratulations to Mrs. Zahoura Adel and to her husband Dr. Anis Adel on the great victory that has crowned their long struggle, and our best wishes to the Adel National School for ever-growing progress and prosperity, in fulfillment of its lofty educational mission.
A play performed by the Palestinian boy and girl students, "We Shall Return," which brought the audience to tears, for it tells the story of wounded Palestine.
The Lebanese dabke, which the boy and girl students performed with a mastery that astonished the audience