Cervantes' fun-poking book is still read and laughed over by people throughout the whole world. Today, if you were to drive from Granada to Toledo or Madrid, you would pass through Don Quixote's country, La Mancha, and you would see windmills and the shepherds leading their sheep and goats, with all the countryside looking much as Cervantes described it through Don Quixote's eyes.
Wherever you stopped for the night, you would see a great walking-around, which begins at 7 o'clock. Every family comes out to join in this evening custom which is called "paseo." Of course the children come too, dressed in their best clothes. But boys and girls do not walk together. Two or three girls will walk by, arm-in-arm, and several boys will walk by, talking together and looking at the girls from the corner of their eyes. In the smaller places, all the older boys walk together in one direction while all the older girls walk arm-in-arm in the opposite direction, or else on the other side of the street.
Just as boys and girls don't walk together in the paseo, they don't often play games together either—at least not after they are old enough to go to school. Before school days start, all children play singing and dancing games something like our "London Bridge." They play tag and a favorite game called "Hit the Pot." They put a tin can or an old clay pot on the end of a long stick and blindfold the child who is "It." The others then run around with the stick while "It" tries to knock off the can with another stick. But when they are six years old, all little boys and girls must go to school, and—except in small villages where there are only a few children to study with one teacher—they go to separate schools, so they stop playing together then, too.
Little girls jump rope, play with jacks and dolls. Or they play singing games which act out the parts of kings and queens and princesses. Little boys are most interested in games with balls, like jai alai or football.
The favorite game of most little boys in Spain is "Torero." In this game they pretend they are bullfighters, who are called "toreros." Every boy in Spain dreams of growing up to be the greatest bullfighter in the world. Bullfighting is one of the most exciting things in life to every Spaniard.
Every big city has a great bullring, a round building with many steps of seats and no roof, called the "Plaza de Toros." "Toro" is the bull. The bulls are especially bred for the ring, because no ordinary cow or bull would be able to take part in this colorful pageant. Almost every Sunday afternoon throughout the year, and at holiday times, there is a "corrida" or bullfight, and everybody goes to see the toreros fight the bulls.
Bullfighters in Spain are the same heroes to Spanish boys and girls that baseball players are to American youngsters. This is the reason why you'll see all the little Spanish boys playing Torero. One pretends he is the toro and wears a basket over his head as he charges at the one pretending he is the torero with a red cape and wooden sword.
Although Spanish children like to play, they are also very serious about schoolwork, because they know that if Spain is to be a wise member of the family of nations, she needs educated citizens. During the Civil War it was very hard for young people to get an education, and some of the schools and universities were destroyed by bombs or fires. Now the universities have been rebuilt, and more schools are being built every year.