My Hobby

My hobby is stamp colleting. When I was still only a baby, my mother began to collect for me. Of course, she did not let me touch the stamps until I was old enough not to spoil them. I remember that it was on my fifteenth birthday that she first put them into my hands. They were in four fat books, but since that time I have added three more, so that now I have a bigger collection than any of my friends.

How do I get my stamps? I have never bought a single one from a shop -- so my collection has really cost me nothing. My father, who works in a big office, sometimes brings me home stamps from many countries of the world. And I have friends both here and in other lands who send me stamps in return for ones which I send to them.

Now that I am working for my living, I do not have as much time as before to spend on my stamps. But in the evenings, what can be better than to sit down at a table with my precious books, arranging new stamps in them, writing in the names of countries, or, if I am too tired, only looking through the stamps already in the books? Each stamp has a story to tell me of far countries and strange peoples. I see pictures of men and women, birds and animals that I have never seen. Kings and presidents pass before my eyes, and I can follow the history of nations -- I can see Hitler's
Germany spreading over Europe and then suddenly breaking into pieces; Pakistan is born before my eyes; countries rise and countries fall - and the whole time I remain comfortably in my armchair at home.

But my stamp collection does not make me think only of the past. Just as my mother collected for me, so I, too, am collecting for my future child. What better way will there be of interesting him in history, geography and languages, and of making these subjects live for him instead of being only things in school books? If I pass my hobby on to him, he will bless me for it as I have blessed my mother for her wise action.

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