are many and various across the Arab lands. This is what makes the classical language necessary — on condition that the author select easy words that convey meanings suited to the child's understanding. And this is a craft whose difficulty no one knows who has not tried it and struggled to master it.
Third: the author must be well versed in psychology, so as to treat his subject in a manner that charms the child and draws his attention without complication or affectation; he must not flounder about in intricacy and padding and explanation, nor load the little book with instructive matter in the belief that the more sermons and morals a book contains, the greater its worth. It behooves the author, too, to remember always to write for children with the mentality of children, and to keep the matter at the level of the child's mind — I mean simple, easy, and clear. In the measure that these conditions are fulfilled, children's literature draws near to the highest aim.
Fourth: it is not enough that these conditions be fulfilled, unless the writing is accompanied by colored, original pictures that speak to the child's imagination, so that he takes their help in grasping the meaning of the text. The approved method, before the child has learned to read, is for the mother or the teacher to read from the little book while the child looks at the picture on the facing page: his hearing and his understanding delight in the words, while his eye and his imagination follow the picture. And when he learns to read, and can do without all help, and begins to read on his own, pleasure joins with profit in the forming of his character and the widening of his understanding.
On this foundation we can create for our children the literature they lack. We are in the age of speed and striving, and whoever hesitates on the course is cast onto the edge of the road, and watches the processions of the advanced peoples pass swiftly before him while he sits crippled and helpless — because he neglected the education of the children of his today and the men of his tomorrow.
Then Zaghar sat down at the edge of the field and gazed long at his wife as she opened the way for the water, waiting for the coming of the policeman and the village headman, who appeared from afar making toward him.
The waters of the Dedemköy canal are a deep crimson red — red with the color of the blood of Mehmed of Dedemköy and his brother Mustafa. And the horizon that bounds the Konya plain is yellow in color — the color of the skin of Zaghar Mehmed. And in the prison there was a shepherd from Dedemköy who had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment on hearsay evidence that he had stolen a ewe because his master had not paid him a year's wages. The shepherd was accustomed to sing a Dedemköy song to his fellow prisoners, who would gather around him in a spot not far from Zaghar Mehmed's cell. The shepherd would close his eyes, throw back his head, and chant:
"Death comes and hovers before our house, And the two brides wail and cry like the bleating of sheep. Do not wash our bodies; let our blood run; Leave our friends to lament, And our enemies to watch and stare."
And because Zaghar Mehmed could not bear to listen to that song, the shepherd was accustomed to fall silent whenever his figure appeared in the distance.
and my only son comes toward me carrying a little monkey in his hands. "What is this?" I asked him, teasing. "It's God," he answered without hesitation! ..
And why, upon my life, do we find the churches empty? Because modern war has accustomed us to incendiary bombs, and we no longer fear the fires of hell! Was it fear of hell, then, that used to bring people to church every Sunday morning? No ... the essential factor that brought people to church was nothing but boredom. In the past, the church was the one social meeting place in which the poor among men and the rich alike could find solace. And the parson, with his weekly sermon, gave consolation to anxious hearts; in these days, the owners of those anxious hearts flock instead to the psychologists! Shall we, I wonder, be granted a return one day to organized religion? No — not as our forefathers knew it. The churches will become museums for the historians, and the Bible, too, will become a literary refuge for the scholars. There is one message that can endure, and fit itself to this atomic age, and it is this: the kingdom of heaven is within you.
And now the sun has gone down behind the trees of the garden. Tea calls us into the house. After tea one must turn to reading books, and looking through the evening papers; then supper, and the remainder of the night spent listening to classical music. Here I feel my eyelids growing heavy .. I feel a blissful peace ... I shall go to my bed, to greet tomorrow another day ...
And so my day passes ... and in the course of it I have done, as you see, nothing worth mentioning.
