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It is impossible for Mexicans to produce the humblest thing without form or design. A donkey wears a load of palm leaves arranged on the either flank in great green sunbursts. Merchants hang candles by their wicks to make patterns in both line and color. Market coconuts show white new moonstrips above the dark, fibrous mass. Serapes are thrown with just the right line over the shoulders of ragged peons, muffling them to the eyes. Merchants in the market will compose their tomatoes, oranges, red seeds and even peanuts into little geometric piles. Bundles of husks will be tied in a manner suitable for suspension in an artist’s studio. To the traveler from the north, used to the treatment of cold, dead produce as cold, dead produce, this is a matter of perpetual wonder and delight.

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The most essential distinction between athletics and education lies in the institution’s own interest in the athlete as distinguished from its interest in its other students. Universities attract students in order to teach them what they do not already know; they recruit athletes only when they are already proficient. Students are educated for something which will be useful to them and to society after graduation; athletes are required to spend their time on activities the usefulness of which disappears upon graduation or soon thereafter. Universities exist to do what they can for students; athletes are required for what they can do for the universities. This makes the operation of the athletic program in which recruited players are used basically different from an educational interest of colleges and universities.

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There are many differences between the way American parents raise their children and the way the parents raise children in Saudi Arabia. In the U.S., fathers and mothers are equally responsible for raising their children. Both parents teach the children, play with them, and discipline them equally. Moreover, U.S. parents treat their children like adults and expect them to become both responsible and independent at a very young age. Many children of seven or eight have outside jobs to earn money, and most U.S. teenagers have at least part-time jobs that make them financially independent. In contrast, in my country, Saudi Arabia, parents have separate roles in raising their children, and they are expected to provide for all of their children’s needs until the children become adults. For example, it is the father’s responsibility to earn enough money to support his family completely, and it is also his duty to make all family decisions. The mother, however, is responsible for the everyday care of the children, and she is also expected to give the children her love and guidance in all things. The result of these differences is that American children, who became adults in childhood, often behave like children when they are adults, but Saudi Arabian children, who have passed through all the stages of childhood, are ready to behave like adults when they reach maturity.