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WINTER
2010
25
Some time ago, during the World War I year of 1916, an
American foreigner, window-shopping in the back street of what
is now the Beirut Municipality Building, known then as the
Glassware Souk or (
زازقلا قوس
) went into a shop and was wel-
comed by a ten-year-old boy.The American shopper struck up a
conversation with the young boy and was impressed by his out-
spokenness and eloquence. Upon asking the owner of the shop,
the boy’s father, which school he sent his son to, the American
learned that it was one of the local “Sheikh” schools to which the
Muslim community of Ras Beirut used to send their sons.The
shopper advised the shop owner to send his son to the then-pre-
paratory school of the Syrian Protestant College.The shop owner
went by that advice, and that is how my father, Salaheddin Omar
Yamout, joined the Preparatory School of the American Syrian
College. I do not know what exactly the name of the school was
then. It was definitely not the International College, now better
known as IC. A couple of years back, I was fortunate to obtain
my father’s transcript from IC (Fig. 1 below). No heading for the
name of the school appears.
Salaheddin Yamout Transcript Between 1919 & 1923
The interesting thing about this transcript are my father’s grades.
Highest in ethics and lowest in Turkish and French. It reveals
his character as a highly ethical Arab Nationalist, a family trait.
Also interesting is the nomenclature for the progression of class
grades. It starts from II Grade, III Grade, IF, IIF to IIIF. I guess
the F stands for “Freshman,” contrary to the present meaning of
Freshman as the first year of university.
My father would tell me that during those days, the principal
knew the names of all the students. He used to reminisce about
his association with his teacher, Farid Medawar. (One of his
daughters later became Mrs.Thomas Schuler.) Mr. Medawar was
my father’s ideal teacher, and in addition to teaching, he used to
organize a theatrical group at the school and instruct students in
the fundamentals of acting.
One of my father’s reminiscences involved a young boy’s prank
in class. It happened during one of the daytime recesses, after
the teacher and students had vacated the classroom in Bliss Hall.
One of the students, who belonged to the prominent Salam
family and was a brother of the late Saeb Salam, arranged with a
shepherd whose sheep were grazing on campus to have his ani-
mals herded into the classroom. So imagine the reaction of the
teacher when he came back to the class, opened the door to get
in, and rather than find students sitting in their seats waiting for
him, he was swarmed with a flock of sheep rushing to get out.
One thing that strikes me about this story, though, is the pres-
ence of a shepherd with his sheep on campus. Shows how much
the campus was an open place at that time. None of the security
issues that plague our times.
My father loved and knew by heart and used to sing to his last
days the song “Stop for the Hours Are Flying.” In those days, as
in ours, it used to end with “Ever live our AUB,” revealing the
affiliation of IC with AUB.
I have here with me, shown below, a picture of my father as a
15-year-old boy scout holding his patrol flag (dated 1921).
Salaheddin Yamout Boy Scout 1921
Rooted Deep in IC Soil