In spite of all the great books and philosophers, the world has yet to attain wisdom. The undeniable truth of this being that the world has yet to know peace; and wisdom is the foundation and the source of peace. I have also noted that until women and children are included in Philosophy, in The Great Conversation on the basis of equal value to men, wisdom will remain elusive to humankind.

There have been a very small number of books that have changed the course of history but, in the end, have not led us to wisdom. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book. It stands right there with the best of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in spite of its deceptive simplicity, a simplicity of real genius. Harper Lee did even better than these great writers, or any others such as Hawthorne, Melville, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Inge, Williams or Miller, in reaching my own heart and mind. I would be drummed out of any literature class for comparing Harper Lee with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But I don't mind. I think my comparison is a valid one.

A good book, like a good film, can become a close friend. As with Walden, To Kill a Mockingbird (the book and the film) has become one of my best and closest friends. As I love Thoreau, so I have come to love Harper Lee, little Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus, Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, Sheriff Tate… and Boo Radley.

A Pulitzer-winning novel is always deserving of special notice, so much so that they become the subjects of college and university seminars. But such a novel may not become a close friend. I maintain that Harper Lee's novel especially deserves our notice and friendship, that there are especially significant things of profound import in it that will serve us well in love and friendship, in wisdom, if they are fully understood and applied in our lives.

The genius of Harper Lee is substantially illustrated by being able to present the monumentally profound truths she was conveying in such a subtle way. The reader becomes absorbed in the simplicity of the story-telling format of the book, the simplicity of language and plot, and isn't really aware, at least not from the first reading of it, that these great truths are there. As with the genius of Emerson, the brilliance of many of these gems in TKM do not dazzle in all their brightness by the first reading, but come through by further readings; which is the evidence of a work of real genius. And the Pulitzer committee was fully aware of this, in spite of the fact that they occasionally hit the target and miss the real mark. Such was the case in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Pulitzer was given Harper Lee for all the “right” reasons. At least all the right reasons adults were capable of knowing. For example, every time I read that part of the novel or watch the scene in the film as the entire gallery of Negroes rises in silent tribute to Atticus, when Reverend Sykes tells little Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your Father's passin',” the sting of tears and the lump in my throat are the evidence of what the Pulitzer Committee found in To Kill A Mockingbird.

But I believe the real mark Harper was aiming at which causes that lump to form and brings tears of another source to my eyes was the story behind the story, as I attempt to make clear. And it is this story behind the story seen through the eyes of the children, most especially little Scout, which exposes a mad guardian angel: Boo Radley. And further, makes little Scout in turn the guardian angel of a madman.

It is a commonplace of uncommon genius to be unaware of its own genius. Like all great writers, Harper Lee was inspired to write better than she knew. Because of this, together with the fact that I am able to personally relate to the era and people of which and of whom she wrote and interact with their culture, speech, and manners, I felt I had a duty to attempt to explain some things that only the little girl in Harper Lee knew and to which the little boy in me could respond, the things that are essential in leading to factual knowledge, wisdom, and peace.

I am able, for example, as a point of strictly critical literary analysis, to appreciate and understand why Harper Lee had to say “waked up” rather than awakened or awoke in the last sentence of the novel and it had to be used in the film. It takes an appreciation of the genuine charm of Southern culture and people to understand why Samuel Clemens had to say “rose up” rather than rose or arose. In this context, it led Sam to say, “Some things are unlearnable.” And when it comes to some parts of Harper Lee's masterpiece, for some people some things are, in fact, unlearnable. However, I write in the hope that the most important things she writes of are learnable to most people.

I can relate from personal experience of people to little Scout's observation of Mrs. Grace Merriweather sipping gin out of Lydia E. Pinkham bottles. It was nothing unusual for, as Scout observes, “Mrs. Merriweather's mother did the same.” And when Scout's aunt Alexandra descends on the household in order to help Scout become a lady and she is asked by Atticus how she would like her auntie staying with them, she admits, “I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.”

Regardless her tender years, Scout is no fool. So when the reader encounters my remarks about the innocence of childhood, I am not talking about children’s innocence of the foibles of life that come with the territory of childhood, or a lack of the common sense observations on the part of children regarding adults. As Scout remarks of adults by trying to comfort Dill at one place in the book, “They don't get around to doin' what they say they're gonna do half the time.”

Children maintain their marvelous innocent wisdom in spite of such things, in spite of their keen observation of adults that early begins to acquaint children with unfairness, injustice, and the typical hypocrisies practiced by adults; and taught to children as they grow.

A truly great book, because it is inspired, is in turn an inspiration to thinking people. It causes such people to analyze many things to which such a book relates. There are lessons to be learned from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Of great encouragement to me was the comment of a gracious lady eighty years of age who recently told me that my remarks on To Kill a Mockingbird had given her some new insights, and thanked me. This is high praise and I felt rightly humbled by it. And I once more took stock of the truth of the phrase: You are never too old to learn. But as we talked, we shared the fact that longevity is no guarantee of wisdom any more than it is a guarantee of continued marriage, only an opportunity. And at no point in life can we fold our hands and say “That's all there is.”

Those fathers who are blessed as I am with daughters learn things about women not learnable in any other fashion. The intriguing little creatures are, undoubtedly, unquestionably, from another planet. I am so taken by little Scout because she is so very much like my little girls Diana and Karen. They grew up; but daughters, unlike sons, never grow up to fathers. They always remain a father's little girls. But because they were little aliens, I often found myself torn between cuddling my girls and treating them with the courteous detachment described of Atticus. I don't believe a man ever learns quite how to act with or around his little girls. Not surprising since they come from another planet.

And as did my little girls, my little angels, of me Scout required a great deal of understanding from Atticus. Harper Lee did a terrific job as a woman trying to make Atticus appear understanding. But since men will never be able to think as women about some things and vice versa she has Maudie in frustration exclaiming to Atticus at one point, “Atticus, you're never going to raise those children!”

Harper Lee did portray Atticus as a father any little girl might envy any child having as a father; particularly in a home missing a mother, and we should face the fact that there are some things only mothers can do. Harper Lee has Scout make the observation at one point that her father “tried to do something that only women can do.” Scout was correct; there are some things that only women can do. But Harper Lee did not intend this as a criticism of men; she understood very well her own limitations as a woman when it comes to things only a man can do.

Things are difficult enough for children when a parent dies and the other is left alone to do the job, as was Atticus. But divorce is quite another thing, and easy divorce together with children born out of wedlock has done more damage to children by far than anything else in American society! Children are not thrown into turmoil of allegiance between a dead parent and a living one; children are not left wondering as with divorce what terrible thing they did that drove their parents apart. And their natural fathers, compared to stepfathers, are not nearly as inclined to molest their little girls and boys as too often happens because of divorce and the resulting stepfathers and other strangers brought into the lives of children.

But in respect to things that only women can do, this is by no means to say that there are not things only men can do. And Harper Lee gives due recognition to this. It takes two parents to really do the job. I know this. But my girls always seemed to need a father in a very special way that could never be found in a mother. Harper Lee makes this clear. The biological facts of a mother and father concerned with differing roles and needs are there of course; but there is far more to it than this, things of a nearly mystical significance in regard to little girls and their fathers.

One of the results of the way a little girl can really get into a father's heart differently than boys is that fathers have an especially difficult time in disciplining girls. I was basic with my boys. No slack. But the girls? As a man, I knew my little girls were prey, and boys and men the predators. Naturally, this made me far more protective of my little girls. The boys rightly perceived the girls got special treatment and consideration from me. I was afraid for my girls more than for my boys.

Tragically, we have evolved into a society that approves, even encourages, early sexual activity. And no matter how you may love your children, despite the fact that such early sexual activity is destructive to girls especially, no lone parent can overcome such insanity of an entire nation's approving this destruction of our little girls and the babies resulting from this insanity.

As parents, you can sit your little girl or boy down and tell them: Early sex is wrong! But society is telling them it is perfectly normal, natural, and if it feels good, do it no matter what your mom and dad say! And these days, since parents have no way of legally enforcing discipline and responsibility, your child may very well do as they want without fear of repercussions or any consequences.

It has always been the peculiar madness of kings to consider themselves wise by virtue of position. Quite often the delusion of position becomes, in such thinking, the equal of wisdom. But lunatic kings are well known to populate history. The leadership of America indulges this kind of lunacy. In too many cases, some among the leadership of America have proven they do not cherish our children. This leadership would continue in the insanity that children can be encouraged in early sexual relationships without consequence.

Too many men would like to maintain the status quo of it being a man's world, a world without the equal influence and value of women or the emphasis on cherishing children. This has created some peculiar thinking on the part of little girls. At one point in the novel, Scout starts using the words “hell” and “damn.” She thinks this will motivate her father to allow her to stop going to school. She has been having some real problems in school and tells Atticus she is picking up such language from this source. Hearing such words from Scout, Uncle Jack says to her, “You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?” To which Scout replies, “Not particularly.”

Scout is only about seven years old at this point in the novel. Lacking a mother, she is influenced more by her father, Jem, and Dill than by girls and women, and at this time in her life isn't particularly impressed by the role of ladies in her world. In fact, Scout describes her attitude about becoming a lady in the following words when her aunt comes to visit with this express mission of transforming Scout in mind, “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away.”

Harper Lee does a magnificent job in pointing out some of the failures of the schools in attempts at “innovative designs” in teaching and learning, beginning way back in the 30s. Little Scout reacts to this by wanting to get out of going to school. As she views the situation, she “doesn't think the state of Alabama really intends her to go through twelve years of unrelieved boredom.”

Scout thinks events like Burris Ewell's squishing the cooties from his filthy, unwashed hair between his fingers and threatening their first grade teacher and calling her a sl-- might make school mildly entertaining. But she rightly perceives her school obviously isn't an institution genuinely intended for teaching children; but as a place of incarceration and to learn words like “hell” and “damn,” words only excused and acceptable in polite society from pulpits.

Scout fights and is always ready with her fists. Lacking a mother to settle disputes with Jem, she and her brother are quick to fight. She splits the skin of a knuckle on a cousin who calls her father a “n----- lover” and a disgrace to the family because of his defending Tom Robinson in court.

At one point early in the book, Scout describes her relationship with Dill in the following manner: He had asked me earlier in the summer to marry him, then he promptly forgot about it. He staked me out, marked as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, and then he neglected me. I beat him up twice, but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem. Which only proves some lessons of childhood do not always carry over into adulthood.

Scout lived in dread of being called, “Only a girl.” She realized she was a girl… but not just “Only” a girl. It took a lot for Scout without the support of a mother to sort things out to the point where she had the feminine wisdom of a little girl only eight years old to become the little lady who would refuse to lead Boo Radley to his home by the hand, to make him, for his sake, offer her his arm as a gentleman to a lady.

The film does not tell you of a madman's whispered plea to little Scout “Will you take me home?” The film doesn't go into the thought processes of little Scout's realizing that while she could lead Boo by the hand like a child through their house and out to their porch where the Sheriff and her father are discussing the situation surrounding the killing of the evil Ewell, once she took him home in view of neighbors she has to insist on Boo offering his arm to her and on their walking together like a lady and gentleman; the gentleman escorting the lady.

Harper Lee focuses on children. But filmmakers knew an epic four hours or more in length about children wouldn't be saleable. And it would take a film of that length to even begin to do justice to the whole story. A film concentrating on sex and violence at epic length; Yes. Children; No.

And it would take a film of epic length to achieve what Harper Lee did in her novel culminating with Scout walking Boo home in such a fashion. Perhaps Harper Lee herself didn't fully realize she had achieved the zenith of the romance of wisdom in describing this the way she did? I wonder if anyone ever commented on this to her? Whether or not, I have to believe this was the effect she was aiming for all along, consciously or not.

It seems to me the deepest part of Harper Lee’s heart went into this part of the book, that at this point in her novel she exposed her innermost desire and yearning as a woman for the purity and nobility of the real love and romance of the wisdom of childhood. She not only wanted this for little Scout, she wanted it for all little girls and for all the women such little girls would become; just as she wanted to make it plain that little girls like Scout, exercising the skill of being girls, were necessary for boys like Jem to grow into men like Atticus. And I don't doubt those on the Pulitzer committee were moved by the way Harper closed her novel in such a fashion. But it isn't the kind of thing men like to talk about or even admit to recognizing.

Children like Scout epitomize the love and romance of wisdom. And it attracts the monsters that prey on children like Scout, monsters in the form of men like the evil Ewell that would destroy such innocence because they hate it so! It clearly and indelibly exposes these cowardly, bullying monsters for what they are! My comments about this culminating part of the novel should not be taken as denigrating the film; rightly acclaimed a great film. When I was asked to do a book signing of this critique of at Russo’s Books because of the novel being featured through the Bakersfield reading program I willingly agreed. But this brought to mind the fact most knew of the novel only through the film version, and had the scriptwriters and editors known it was destined to be named one of the most influential films of all time they would have paid much more attention to what they were doing and not allowed some of the poorly done scenes and glaring inaccuracies and contradictions to slip by them.

However, lacking prescience those responsible for the final cut of the film did not pay attention to these details and it suffered accordingly. But the timing of the film brought it much critical acclaim despite its weaknesses, and was it not for Lawrence of Arabia might have won the award for best picture. There is no discounting the film deserving the praise heaped upon it and the honored place it now holds. But the film is far short of the real story Harper Lee told in her novel, and in my opinion is the reason she never wrote again though TKM now holds the position held by many as the best novel of the twentieth century.

Like all great theater, books, art, and films, the film version of TKM due to the many artistic achievements in it makes certain demands on viewers. But my criticism of the film still stands. It exaggerates the adult view to the minimizing, and at times ignoring, that of the real emphasis and importance of the book. To this extent, the film can rightly be called superficial compared to the book itself. But this just criticism does not take away from the greatness, the value of the film in its own right.

Having said that, I still emphasize the fact that to have only seen the film is to miss the real import and significance of the book, an import and significance that moves me to place it right alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. For example, the film does not address the following except in the most superficial way: At what point in a little girl's life does she begin to realize as Scout did that there might be some skill involved in being a girl? And more, when she begins to realize that she wishes to be a lady instead of “Not particularly?”

As Eliza Doolittle pointed out in My Fair Lady, if you treat a flower girl like a Duchess, you give her the opportunity to respond and act like a Duchess. And as Scout was to discover, it often takes a little lady, a little Duchess, to make a gentleman.

When Jem begins to enter the age of adolescence, he is increasingly aware of his responsibility to Scout as the older brother. Harper Lee does a wonderful job of describing this transition and Scout's quite normal resentment of the change in Jem, of the change in their relationship as brother and sister. In contrast to Jem's earlier accusing Scout of acting more like a girl all the time is Jem beginning to tell her to act more like a girl, something very confusing to Scout and quite understandably a source of resentment.

It was bad enough to be lacking the “talent” to compete with Jem and Dill after the children's unexpectedly surreptitious observation of Mr. Avery's “awesome performance” when emptying his bladder; but Scout had to begin to accept some of the other facts of life that had “condemned her” to being only a girl. But Scout is learning. And there are those like Maudie and Calpurnia to help her during this transitional period, to help her begin to understand and appreciate “there might be some skill involved in being a girl.”

Little did Scout realize, nor could she, how greatly boys and men are in such desperate need of the skill involved in her being a girl. She is beginning to acquire a dim understanding of this, however, when she thinks to herself that Atticus needs her presence, help and advice: “Why, he couldn't get along a day without me,” she thinks to herself at one point. Atticus has made his love for his little girl so plain to her that she feels important and needed by him. That, gentle reader, is successful parenting!

But it was Scout's very skill as a girl that helped make her father the kind of man and father he was, the kind of skill that would make Jem want to be the very same kind of gentleman their father was, that would make Jem far prouder of his father as a gentleman than of his father's talent for shooting. It was this skill in being a girl that Scout was learning that encouraged Atticus to continue being a gentleman and would cause Jem to admire and respect his father and want to be exactly like him. It was this skill as a girl that would cause little Scout to both understand Sheriff Tate's verdict regarding Boo, and refuse to lead Boo home by the hand. And it would be this skill as a girl that would defuse and disperse a lynch mob.

It does seem at times that the world itself seems a lynch mob that can only be dispersed by the saving faith of the innocent wisdom of children. If the world would only cherish its children, it wouldn't behave like a lynch mob! When those men in the mob were confronted by the best that humankind holds promise of being in the form of a little innocent girl, each individual comprising the mob had to look at himself as an individual, and once having done so conscience had no choice but to bow to that innocence, an innocence in which fairness and justice rule with wisdom and where the Beast has no place of concealment; this monster is exposed and laid bare to those all-knowing pure eyes found reflecting the wisdom of an innocent little girl.

If the wisdom of childhood had ruled in that court and jury box, Tom Robinson would have been restored to his wife and children. But Scout had saved her father from being harmed; she had saved Tom Robinson from being lynched. At that, it took the goodness of her brother Jem insisting on standing by his father to give Scout a chance to innocently confront the mob. But Jem alone could not have prevented violence. Only the skill of a little girl could do that. This is one of the things that separate girls and boys into what should be honored as the compatibility of differences.

Harper Lee knew with her feminine wisdom that men make war, while women attempt to make homes. Women do not bear children with the idea of sacrificing them on the altar of the wars that men make. If it had only been Jem and Dill there with Atticus to confront the mob this would not have worked. The all-male makeup of such a mob would only have acerbated the situation. Harper Lee understood this. As a woman, she knew it would take the skill of a little girl, little Scout, to defuse the situation because “there are some things that only women can do.” Or, in this case, only a little girl could do.

This whole scene illustrates one of the most profound characteristics of wisdom. It is one thing to speak of wisdom being comprised of love, compassion, and an instinctive hatred of evil. Atticus and Jem are incorporating all the aspects of wisdom in confronting the lynch mob. But one thing is lacking: The wisdom of that other half of humankind, women, without which wisdom is incomplete.

It is that part of wisdom, the instinctive hatred of evil that little Scout so well represents in a way that only an innocent little girl can, that accomplishes confronting the mob peacefully and successfully. Atticus and Jem know full well the evil the mob represented. But little Scout is innocent of this. As a consequence, her knowledge and confrontation of the evil is totally, purely innocent! And victorious! This is wisdom in action; this is wisdom at its best!

Once the mob confronts itself as individuals in the face of such representative innocent knowledge and instinctive hatred of evil as little Scout so well exemplifies, the mob will look into its heart on an individual basis and forsake its psychotic lunacy and return to sanity. The melding of knowledge and wisdom is accomplished, and peace is the result.

But the world lacking wisdom, neither Scout, nor Jem, nor Atticus could save Tom Robinson from a caste system and perverted judicial system of evil constructed stone by stone and brick by brick through the determined and dedicated labors of evil men. In fact, women were not even permitted at the time to serve on juries in Alabama and some other states.

In the case of Tom Robinson, it was a system that forced even good people into a no-win situation. If the jury found Tom Robinson innocent, it would be calling two Caucasians liars against the word of a Negro. Unthinkable! The good people of that jury would be ostracized from their own society! And only madmen (and children) are capable of confronting the kind of “sanity” that leaves good people in this insane no-win position.

The system of the 30s that condemned Tom Robinson hasn't really changed all that much. And until good people get together to confront it, it isn't likely to change much. At least, it won't change as long as good people are too busy to be involved in confronting injustice, too busy to be politically active; and as a result, too busy to be free.

When that good man Sheriff Tate rendered his verdict that the evil Bob Ewell fell on his knife, that it would be a sin to tell the truth, then abruptly leaves, Atticus looks at Scout and says to her (this in the book, not in the film), “Scout, Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?”

Scout runs to him and hugs him and kisses him with all her might. She says to her father, “Mr. Tate was right.” When Atticus asks her what she means she replies, “Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?”

As parents, we are never really sure of what our children understand of adult thinking. Little Scout is only eight years old now; but she remembers what her father had said two years before about it being a sin to shoot a mockingbird. Another loving and responsible adult in the children’s lives, Miss Maudie, reinforced this. And Scout is able to make the connection between this and the way fairness and justice could be best served in the case of the madman who has saved her and Jem's lives.

The main concern of a loving father was that his children would misunderstand; how they might perceive the excusing of what amounted to vigilante justice in the case of Boo Radley killing the evil Ewell in order to save them. But Scout does understand. To tell the town that Boo had actually plunged the knife into the evil Ewell would, indeed, be a sin as Sheriff Tate had said, and a sin he refused to have on his conscience. And children know far more of actual sin than do adults. It takes the innocence of a child to really recognize sin for what it is with an instinctive hatred of it recognizing the evil of it; and in the two cases of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley the hateful sin of killing a mockingbird.

A madman had balanced the scales of justice and Scout understands this as only a child is capable of understanding it. Atticus had nothing to fear on this score. There would be no taint of hypocrisy to come back to haunt him in his relationship with his little girl. And it must have reassured him further to know his little girl had every bit, and more, the sense of fairness and justice he had himself.

An obvious conundrum presents itself in spite of this. Jem and Scout will be able to understand the necessity of not telling about Boo. But the case of Tom Robinson remains. That a madman served the cause of justice is something children can understand and accept. But for adults, it remains vigilante justice. The law required telling of Boo killing Ewell in order to save the children, and the Sheriff and Atticus are civilized representatives of the law.

But these outstanding civilized representatives of the law could not save Tom Robinson. And they could not prevent the evil Ewell from stalking and murdering the children. Only a madman could do this and not be hauled before the bar of “justice” for doing so. However, given the option of having all the ladies in Maycomb knocking on Boo's door and bringing him angel food cakes, Sheriff Tate and Atticus had only one choice: To ignore the law, to, in fact, become lawbreakers themselves!

Scout understands and accepts what was done in the case of Boo. She will never be able to understand and accept what happened in the case of Tom Robinson! We will applaud the vigilante with the fast gun who comes in and cleans up the town. But we refuse to face the fact that it is perverted laws too often based on ignorance and prejudice that make such a thing necessary! And as long as the vigilante remains necessary and is applauded, so long will the world lack wisdom. So long will Scout be unable to understand what happened to Tom Robinson!

I need to repeat something in order to make a point. Please bear with me:

When the jury in the novel, because of ingrained, ignorant prejudice, finds Tom Robinson guilty of a crime he so very obviously did not commit, Dill and Jem cry. Scout would have cried if she had been just a little older. She was just old enough to realize a great injustice had been perpetrated, but still young enough to not understand and cry about it. She would learn to cry about such things later.

And when Jem asks his father how the jury could have done such a thing, his father tells him in words affirming the observation by Mr. Raymond to the children about injustice, “I don't know ... when they do it - seems only children weep.”

It is, once more, the wisdom of the child that Harper Lee brings out so clearly, so vividly.

The point I want to emphasize from the above is how brutal it is to betray the innocent wisdom of a child. To betray in such ways that a child does, eventually, lose the wisdom and ability to weep over unfairness and injustice. And I could weep thinking of how little Scout will be forced when she grows up to deal with the difference between what happened to Boo Radley and what happened to Tom Robinson.

As a man I have to confess that had I not had daughters I would never have paid that much attention to the lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird, I wouldn't be nearly as sensitive to the lessons men need to learn from children and women. But when it comes to trying to convince most women to take an active role in being examples of the lessons Harper Lee teaches in spite of the attempts of men to “keep women in their place,” a place of lesser value than men, in most cases I find myself preaching to an empty auditorium.

The Equal Rights Amendment was a doomed effort, a failed experiment in equality because women had it wrong. They should have concentrated on the children first. Until children become the priority of America, nothing else is going to work. Which only proves it isn't men alone that are the problem.

There is no royal path to knowledge. And most certainly not to wisdom. In spite of the efforts of pundits and Brookings, SRI, etc., no think-tank has come up with the equation Knowledge plus Wisdom equals Peace (k+w=p). The think tanks too often excel in stating the obvious and muddying the waters, in missing the forest for the trees. The reason for this failure of such vaunted institutions is, in fact, obvious: They don't consider, or concentrate on, women and children as of equal value to men. For such institutions, it is business as usual by not including women in The Great Conversation.

We desperately need the skill of all the little Scouts in being girls; we need to give all little girls the chance to learn and develop this skill, to give all children the chance to develop all the skills of childhood. For example, there is no more precious line in To Kill a Mockingbird than the one Harper Lee uses to describe Jem's concern for Scout during her first day at school. It is his little sister's first recess and Jem is checking on her to see how she is doing. Harper Lee has little Scout describe it in these words, “Jem cut me from the covey of first-graders in the schoolyard.”

Only a woman could and would describe this action of Jem by such a precious phrase in such a precious way. Harper Lee had obviously acquired the skill of being a girl. And this is so very evident from this special line in the book, together with her sensitivity to all the things little Scout represents of the best of girlhood and its civilizing impact in bringing out the best of boyhood.

Every little girl needs to be cut from the covey by one who loves and cares for her, and demonstrates it by doing so. Little girls are designed of God to bring out the best in boys and men, to cause them to cut little girls from the covey when they need to be. It is a demonstrative form of cherishing.

When a man chooses a wife, he is to cut her from the covey and cherish her. But the woman had better have learned the necessary skill of being a girl while she is a child or it isn't going to happen. I’m a man, but I have learned and know at least this much about women. But there is an important fact to be considered in this: The women who do not want any responsibility in the decision-making process. It is a convenient way to make sure men always get the blame when things go wrong. This was the problem with the ERA. Women wanted to save their cake and to eat it too.

And the ERA did point out a fatal flaw in the thinking of people, both men and women, throughout the whole of history; and one which is crucial to my point that the world has always been lacking in wisdom: The fact that the issue is not equal or civil rights; it is an issue of Equal Value!

Why should any group be asking, even demanding, equal rights when no amount of legislation will make such groups equal in fact; something that Lincoln himself recognized. Such a thing demands a change in hearts and minds, something no amount of laws attempting to force such a thing will accomplish; but, on the contrary, often counterproductively acerbates the situation and contributes to further hardening of hearts and minds!

It isn't that just laws are not needed for the sake of equality and justice; only a fool would deny this. Quite obviously such laws are absolutely essential. But what is needed is the making of children such a priority in our nation that we will raise a generation of children in protected and cherished innocence, and in such a manner that the ugliness of bigotry and prejudice will find no soil in which to take root! Then, and only then, will wisdom assert itself by our concentrating the effort of an entire nation on making children the priority they must become in order to accomplish the ideal of eliminating the hatreds of bigotry and prejudice infecting America and the world!

As to wanting to save their cake and eat it too, men are no different from women in this respect, and there is always the message of To Kill a Mockingbird to confront. As a man, there is always my former life to confront no matter how I try to bury it. And I may get away from this during the day when the sun is shining, but when I lay my head on my pillow in the darkness it is still there. It is at such a time I think of what little Dill said when Scout asks him, “Why do you reckon Boo Radley's never run off?” Dill replies, “Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to.”

The record of humankind is one of blaming God, regardless of the religion or beliefs, for our own lack of wisdom and failing to confront and overcome evil, to blame God and others rather than taking personal responsibility for the evil in the world. The world has never had the wisdom to overcome the case of Tom Robinson. As I said, Scout could accept the wisdom of not telling about Boo Radley being the mad guardian angel of the children. It would, indeed, have been “sort of like shootin' a mockingbird.”

But the case of Tom Robinson remained. And still remains. It always has. What Scout could never be asked to understand was what constituted the real difference between Boo Radley and Tom Robinson? We can credit that jury and the society it represented in the case of Tom Robinson with sanity or we must charge them with insanity. You don't try to explain this to a child whose own wisdom cannot possibly credit those responsible for the death, actually the murder of Tom Robinson being the action of sane and civilized people. To a child, such a thing is obviously uncivilized and insane!

Boo Radley: The madman who acted with sanity because his kind of insanity made children his priority. And children must become the priority of our nation. Until this is done, the case of Tom Robinson remains unresolved and insane. Not just for Scout and Jem, not just for 1935 in Maycomb, Alabama, but throughout the entire world throughout all of history, and throughout the world today.

If Americans are more concerned and interested in only the materialism of life than children, if Americans continue to believe it is God's job and not theirs to protect children, so long will the case of Tom Robinson remain unresolved, so long will the little Scouts be unable to make sense of it all. And so long will the evil Ewells be the cause of injustice for the Tom Robinsons and continue to be the stalkers, molesters and murderers of children.

Boo Radley was mad. But he loved the children. It is the coldest winter night in memory and has actually snowed during the day. This was such a rare thing Scout thought it was the end of the world, having never seen snow before.

Miss Maudie's house catches fire, and while it burns the children are standing outside in the freezing cold because of the threat to their own house. Boo, unnoticed by anyone, slips out of his dark tomb and places a blanket around the shoulders of little Scout as she stands numb and shivering from the extreme, below-freezing temperature. She was totally unaware of his doing so, and it isn't until they were all safely back inside their own house that Atticus notices the blanket and they all realize the source.

Like you, I watch the pictures of the suffering of those children forced to flee from the atrocities being committed in places like Kosovo. I watch pictures of the starving, suffering children in Africa and elsewhere, and, like you, I cannot help being grateful to God that they are not my children. But don't you wish there were some Boo Radleys, mad guardian angels, to put blankets over the shivering shoulders of those children?

But the children were Boo's self-assumed responsibility and priority. And if all adults were as insane as Boo Radley, those children we see suffering wouldn't be in such a case. However, whether in Kosovo, Africa, America, or any other place in the world children will continue to suffer so long as adults continue to make their beliefs and prejudices, the acquisition of material things the priority rather than the children.

Incredibly, in just this century, in just my own lifetime there have been two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, wars in the Middle East and in Iraq still on-going, atrocities are being committed in Moslem nations, Europe and elsewhere that have not been witnessed since the Stalin/Hitler era!

India and Pakistan are rattling their nuclear sabers. China and North Korea are expanding their military capabilities and Japan is understandably very worried about this. There is the constant threat in the Middle East between Jews and Moslems. Africa and Indonesia are fractured with unrest. In all of this, the very real danger of #92 of the periodic table looms large as physicist Michio Kaku, among many others, warns in his book Visions.

Do we face extinction as a species simply because we failed to acquire the wisdom of making children the priority of nations? The warning is implicit and brooks no dispute: No nation that fails to cherish its young has a future as a nation! Nor does a world that refuses to do so.

I know this much: Boo had it right. Those who consider themselves sane and still allow children to suffer do not. We are going to have to do better than this if we are not going to destroy ourselves!

The insanity of war will continue as long as people throughout the world continue in selfish ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice to teach children to believe they are better than others are on the basis of race, religion, or politics, to hate those who are different from themselves, as long as people put their racial, religious, and political ideologies above the welfare of children: All children!

When little Dill runs away from home it is because his folks were indifferent to him; it was because they didn't show him they genuinely cared about him. They bought him the toys and told him: Now, go play and leave us alone! Indifference to our children can result in their becoming monsters, a curse rather than a blessing.

If people wonder that children feel this keenly and act accordingly, it only proves they don't give any thought to the problem. And it is a problem of immense magnitude! As a society, we have proven to our children that we are indifferent to them. We have bought them the toys and told them “Go play and leave us alone!”

We are going to have to change! We are going to have to prove to our children we do care about them!