her friends to her honestly and impartially — that is, without prejudice against them. And let us try to win her friends as friends of our own, and accompany them to the cinema or to parties...

Claire — How shall we accompany her, when she believes we are of an old generation while she is of a present, free-striding generation that understands things more deeply than we do? Besides, my daughter is convinced that we two differ in our view of the demands of life, even though she trusts me.

Hanana — That means your daughter still takes her compan-ions, not you, her mother, as her valid authority. Let me give you another example: my sister's daughter goes out with "foreign" companions and comes home every evening to accuse her mother: "You don't understand a thing about life — you know nobody but Papa — you don't go anywhere, you don't come anywhere, so how are you going to understand me?" The mother treated the foreign girls' hold on our girl's mind by preparing a full program for her every day: cinema, visits, games, dresses... and so, little by little, she was drawn away from an atmosphere that has no tie whatever to our own, and brought into our own society.

Sabiha: That is a wise method.

Claire — Sport is important for the girl at this age: the sea, tennis...

Sabiha — But the girl should live her own life; that is, she herself

should choose the pastime that suits her.

Claire — What matters most is that she admire her mother, so that the mother may watch over her in the choosing.

Sabiha — The essential thing is that we not teach our daughters by preaching and exhortation; rather we must try to be an exam-ple, or a good model, for real life.

Claire — We must also be moderate, father and mother alike, in our treatment of the girl, for her age does not allow her to search out the truth.

Sabiha — Let her take the truth from us, rather than imagine it or take it wrongly from others.

Edvick — What is your opinion of these magazines that our daughters devour, and which set certain truths before them in cheap, vulgar ideas?

Hanana — No harm; let the girl read the truth in whatever form and shape it comes.

Olga — I agree with Hanana.

Sabiha — Neither magazines nor friends will turn the girl away from resorting to her mother in her search for honesty about the truth — provided the mother proves to her daughter that she is truly worthy of her trust: that she does not fritter away her time and all her attention among the hairdresser, the dressmaker, and the nouveautés shops.

Edvick — Our children grumble that we hold over them the debt of having brought them up.

Claire — Children must under-

stand that moving with the fashion is one thing, and moving in morals is quite another.

Hanana — Yes indeed; principles remain principles from the time man first existed until the end of this world.

Sabiha — That is why I propose that my daughter be conscious of the purpose of her going, for example, to the sea — which I myself was denied. The purpose is more than the display of the body; the sea is sport and a benefit to the spirit... And we must make our girl feel that she is free.

Edvick — Let her be free, but without excess.

And I come back to ask: is reading harmful at this age?

Claire — Reading is important for children, for it occupies their leisure hours.

Olga — In my opinion the girl should be left to read everything, and we should discuss with her what she has read.

Hanana — And I too suggest that the mother supervise this reading.

Sabiha: What supervision? Reading has slipped out of our hands, because the publishing houses are commercial concerns that care for nothing but material profit — far more than for raising the level of our reader's thinking.

Edvick — There is no guid-ance at all.

Sabiha — We lack books for the young, and libraries, and clubs. And the government is responsible for this negligence.