Chapter XXIII: Education--How to Teach the Different Branches (1)

[_Continued._]

“From what you have told us about your eating and drinking, Mr. Midith, I have learned so many new ideas that I should like to have you give us an explanation of how you teach and inculcate cleanliness, and what sanitary regulations you have,” requested Viola.

“Very well,” said Mr. Midith. “In the first place, our conveniences for bathing are excellent, and we generally bathe at least once a day. In the parks we have, as I have already told you, large artificial lakes, which are supplied with water by a fountain, fed by the electric pump at the big-houses. These lakes are fenced so that children can not fall into them. During fine weather in summer, we generally bathe and swim in these shady lakes. Little children who have not yet learned to swim have a separate department with a shallow lake in which children cannot drown. In these shallow lakes children, under the instruction of older swimmers, learn to swim. This practice makes us all good swimmers. By example, we teach that bathing and swimming are healthy and useful, as well as delightful exercises after we have accustomed ourselves to them. When the weather is unfit for bathing in the lakes, we use the numerous bath-rooms in the big-houses. Each private apartment is also furnished with a wash-stand and hydrants containing both hot and cold water.

“All of us, men and women, young and old, wear our hair cut short. We think it is more healthful and freer for the head. The hair is also more easily kept clean and in order. We teach how to keep our finger and toe nails clean and trimmed by practicing it on our infants, little children, and on ourselves in the presence of our older children, who are beginning to be able to care for their own personal cleanliness. By cleaning and brushing our teeth in the morning and after each meal, we teach how to care, at least in part, for our teeth. We have learned that our teeth are organs of digestion, and, that if they are poor, digestion will be impaired. To preserve sound teeth, we must not bite any hard substances such as nuts, etc., that are liable to crack the enamel; we must also keep them clean, so as to prevent them from decaying. A dentist should frequently examine the teeth, and if he finds them unsound, we should have them cared for in time. How to care for the other organs of special sense, we teach in a similar manner, always practicing ourselves, and doing for our helpless children from infancy what we desire them to do in after-years. By these lessons, our children, as they grow in years, learn to do for themselves what they had done for them by others during infancy. The habits, by use, gradually become pleasurable. Thus, we always teach by example, keeping in mind that hygienic lessons which are good for children are also good for older persons, and what is not worth doing for adults is not worth doing for our children.”

“What about dress?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Some time ago you told us that your ladies wear no dresses. Will you now favor us with a description of your costume as worn by your ladies and gentlemen, and also how you teach your children the best manner of dressing?”

“From what I have already told you about dress,” continued Mr. Midith, “it is readily seen that we teach the wholesomeness of frequent changes. In dressing, like in everything else, we make health and comfort our guide. Those decorations and ornaments which put the body most completely in harmony with the phenomena of life and health are esteemed the highest by us.

“All the clothes we wear are easily washed and ‘done up.’ Our steam washers can do an immense amount of laundry work in a short time. After our day’s labor, we always change clothes. When at leisure, we are all dressed neat and clean, as well as tidy and comfortable. No one can, by the appearance of a person, tell the miner and engineer from the editor and clerk, nor the washerwoman from the music teacher. All are wealthy, educated and refined. One kind of labor is considered as honorable as another, provided it be productive labor, the only kind we now have. We have neither master nor servant, therefore, we have no distinction in dress. All have plenty to dress in the height of fashion.

“Our clothing is adapted to suit the seasons of the year. Our children are to the fullest extent so dressed that health and comfort take precedence over decoration, ornament and grotesque patterns. Hence any garment, which is clean, healthful, convenient and comfortable, grows more and more beautiful to our sight as our esthetic sense gradually and slowly unfolds by evolution.

“It is, of course, utterly impossible for me to tell you all about the various styles, patterns and suits which are worn by the ladies and gentlemen on Mars. A few general remarks at the beginning may, however, aid you in getting a better understanding of what is to follow in the more detailed description.

“The manufacture of cloth on Mars, as you will infer, is much in advance of that on earth. We manufacture, with abundance and with the greatest of ease, fabrics so beautiful and delicate that the people of earth would wonder how it were possible for the human hand to attain such skill. Your finest fabrics are but a coarse beginning as compared with those on Mars. Now you must remember, too, that we do not, like you, manufacture a grade of good goods and a grade of poor goods. In a world where every person has all he possibly wants, no one will ever wear _poor_ goods. But, on earth, where some are poor and some are rich, the poor people have to wear coarse and cheap goods, while the rich wear a better grade. Of course, we have different kinds of fabrics, best suited for the different kinds of occupations, etc., but they are always of the best quality for _that_ purpose.

“On Mars every person gets his garments made to suit his individual taste. No one imitates another unless it suits his fancy. All of us are equal authority on style. We have no Ward McAllister to imitate nor have we any dressed in rags. On earth, where one is rich and therefore honored, and the other is poor and therefore scorned, you have what you call a ‘fashion,’ because all are endeavoring to imitate the _former_ as closely as possible, because every person, who is not utterly void of self-respect, delights in wearing the mark of honor and prosperity. Thus, all of you are striving to get as near ‘The Four Hundred’ and as far away from those dressed in rags as possible. This contest originates and maintains your ‘fashion.’ But, on Mars, everything is style, and nothing grows out of style.

“I may say here that a lady’s common summer costume generally consists of a plain, light felt hat; a loose sailor’s jacket, or shirt-waist; full, loose trousers or divided skirt, as your ladies sometimes call it, often narrowed to almost a close fit about midway between the knee and ankle; but the lower extremities of the pantaloons are often less narrow, fitting over a pair of shoes or boots with low heels, and large enough for a comfortable existence of the feet. These, together with the finest and most suitable undergarments, a few tasty decorations and her mirthful, healthy, handsome countenance, constitute a lady’s common costume when she is engaged in her ordinary occupation. In the winter she wears a fine, comfortable head-dress, a warm, short coat when out walking, bicycle riding, or when engaged in any other outdoor sport or exercise. When out riding in an open carriage she wears a long, heavy overcoat and other garments to correspond and suit the taste of the occasion.

“The gentlemen, for common use, also wear plain felt hats, somewhat larger than the ladies’; a ‘fancy’ shirt, with collar and cuffs of the same material attached; a neat, delicate necktie, and suits and underwear not unlike yours here.

“Of course, every lady, as well as every gentleman, has a large number of suits and other changes, made up in widely different styles to suit the occasion, as each individual sees fit. In a state of high culture and a well-developed esthetic sense, the mind appreciates variety, accompanied with health, convenience, comfort and beauty. Some suits and garments are for the fore part of the day, some for labor, some for leisure, some for the latter part of the day. Some are almost tights; such as, for some games, bicycle-riding, etc.; some are very loose and thin during hot weather; some for the public parlors, some for the halls, some for visiting, some for travel, some for each occupation; some for the private apartment, when alone; some for the private apartment, when one has company, etc.

“From what I have said about clothes, it, no doubt, becomes plain to you that, in a world and age in which people appreciate good health, love liberty, enjoy real comfort and esteem the greatest conveniences, there is no room for an unmanageable hat, tight shoes, tightly laced corsets, a plug hat, stiff shirtfronts and skirts of any kind, whether short or trailing. From historical knowledge you all know that in ‘olden times’ your men wore shirts and other flowing gowns, the same as your ladies still do. But your men, in your highest civilized countries at least, on account of having a little more freedom to act, have long outgrown the skirt and robe, except, perhaps, a few priests; and just so will your women outgrow them as they become a little more independent socially, industrially, financially and sexually. A good sign of the coming change is, that a few of your foremost ladies have already laid aside their skirts.

“Our dress, then, as you will infer from my description, is all made of the best and finest fabrics, of endless variety in style, scrupulously clean, handsomely made, perfectly comfortable, highly healthful, remarkably convenient yet extremely simple.

“I am well aware that some of your so-called fashionable ladies and your dudish gentlemen, who are not infrequently trying to hide their ill-health partly contracted from their unnatural dress, with paint, would sneer at our plain, tidy, comfortable costume, no matter how clean and healthful it be. But, I am certain, that our clean, plain, convenient dress would not seem so strange and ridiculous to you as your unnatural, pinching and, am sorry to say, too often soiled garments would appear to us. Just think how your ladies, who are forbidden by your one-sided society to solicit the love of their choice, must decorate and ornament themselves in gaudy costumes to attract attention in order to catch a husband, or be left without one in your cruel social and industrial world in which a single woman has but a slim chance of making a comfortable living. So much for dress.”

“How about exercise, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Do you consider it very essential to full development and good health, and, if so, how do you teach it?”

“We teach that healthful outdoor exercise is absolutely essential for the highest physical and mental development and for the maintenance of good health. We think it is one of the most invigorating forms of food a person can take; and we teach how to take it on the same principle as we teach other things. The adults practice it in the presence of the young, and the child naturally takes to it by imitation and pleasure under our favorable conditions.

“First, before our babies can walk, they are taken out in baby-carriages, tricycles made for carrying babies, electric carriages, motors and trains. When the weather is pleasant, they play in the outdoor nurseries; when unpleasant, they are in the house-nurseries and other parts of the ‘big-house.’ As soon as they are a little older, but still require a nurse with them, they are taken into the parks, lakes and fields. Our children are left without a nurse at a very young age. They choose their own games, their own exercises and their own amount of labor. As I have said before, we do not govern our children by physical force. All our buildings and other things are as much constructed and arranged with a view to suit and accommodate the wants and desires of the child as the wants and desires of the adult. Our railroads and motor-lines are all fenced, so that no danger can befall them there. We have no open wells and cisterns. The doors and gates are nearly all self-closing and noiseless. Lamps and matches are rarely used. Our principal aim is to provide a suitable school-house, and then let the child’s environment impress it with useful information.

“As our children grow older, they begin to do light work, both in the house and outdoors, which serves as part of the physical exercise necessary for full development and vigorous health. This daily work we generally keep up as long as we live. Not that we are obliged to do so on account of poverty, but, because by long, delightful practice our daily labor has become pleasurable exercise. The work is easy, the day is very short, and the exercise of it, we believe, conduces to the fullness of life. _Work_, as we have seen under these conditions, gradually changes into _play_. Your people here despise and condemn labor so, because your working-day is so long, your labor so hard, your conveniences so few, your pay so small, and your bosses so cruel and dictatorial. That is, your manual and industrial school-houses are not well-furnished. You have careless, incompetent directors and teachers in these branches of instruction.

“During our leisure hours, which are, of course, very numerous, men, women and children go out walking, bicycle riding, swimming, playing outdoor games, and ride on carriages, motors and trains. When the weather is unpleasant, we take our exercise in our large halls and parlors. The upper story of our main building is covered with glass. This enables our children and ourselves to get all the sunshine we want during our clear, cold winter weather. A ride or walk around this great hall is more than a quarter of a mile. In taking exercise, as in everything else, we make our feelings the guide of how long we ought to continue. As soon as we feel fatigued we cease our exercise, whether it be work or play.

“You see there is a great difference here between our system and yours. You have a large class of people; in fact, nearly all who have to over-exercise by manual labor--have to work themselves stiff and deformed. Then you have another class who take scarcely any outdoor exercise--your city ladies, etc. It seems that you do not appreciate a robust lady. You teach her that she must remain quietly at home until her suitor comes to take her out; and he, perhaps, has his other girl out. Your society forbids your maidens to take a bicycle or a carriage to go after their suitors, except on occasional sham leap-year parties. The majority of your married city ladies, under the burdens of husband and children, are entirely unable to take sufficient outdoor exercise; and even if they had the time and opportunity, they would have no other place for it than a smoky city and a muddy sidewalk.”

“That is very true!” exclaimed Mrs. Uwins. “Overwork on the one hand, and want of healthful outdoor exercise on the other, are playing sad havoc with health here. We see very few graceful forms and healthy looking faces as we pass along the streets of our cities and towns.

“This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask you some time ago,” continued Mrs. Uwins, “and that is, How do you teach regularity of habits? For you undoubtedly are orderly, prompt, and regular in your habits. Health requires regular intervals of alternate activity and rest, which vary with age and other conditions.”

“Yes, we attach a great deal of importance to order, promptness and regular habits. We teach them to our children by practicing them ourselves. We are regular with our set meals, our work, our leisure, our exercises, our studies, our bathing, our dressing, our games, our rising, and our retiring. We have learned, by sad experience, the same lessons that you are now learning; the lessons that regular periods of rest and sleep are absolutely necessary to good vigorous health, and as we aim to make all our conduct conform to the phenomena of life and health, it is certain that we have acquired regular orderly habits of life.

“You see our social and industrial system allows us plenty of leisure time for sports, during the day; we need not steal it from our night’s rest, like you do at your night dances and parties, at which a large number dance, drink, and not infrequently debauch all night and work hard all next day. No one could induce us to do that. About eight or nine o’clock in the evening, we all retire to rest in our own private apartments, and soon after everything is as quiet and silent as death. We, no doubt, would be called cowards by you for not daring to infringe on our health by a night’s carousal, the same as you would be called cowards by your savages for not daring to do what a cannibal delights in doing. When I first learned of your irregular night’s habits, they seemed perfectly cruel and barbarous to me. How men, and some women, too, were all night long under the influence of liquor; how they exercised themselves into perspiration; how all human decency wilted in them; how women sold themselves in order to make a living; how they were betrayed and deceived when life and ambition were nearly extinct; how children, hungry and half-dressed, were lying all around sleeping. When I saw all these violations, besides countless others, my astonishment of meeting so many faces bearing the marks of disease and dissipation gradually vanished. I thought it so strange that men and women could not see the injurious effects of such a night’s career, or that they could be so careless and indifferent to health.

“It was in the foregoing field of contemplation that I first noticed most clearly the utter viciousness of your social and physiological school, your feebleness and impracticability of your methods of teaching, and of your boasted civilization and institutions of learning. To me they seemed a mere mockery. Your so-called superior rarely ever did himself what he preached. Your lessons nearly always consisted of words only.

“There are numerous other topics of physiology that we teach in a similar manner as the foregoing.

“All apartments of our dwellings are abundantly ventilated and lighted, either naturally or artificially, by the straight or refracted sunbeam.”

“Mr. Midith, how do you teach history?” asked Mr. Uwins. “I believe that _we_ are wasting much valuable time in studying comparatively worthless history,” continued Mr. Uwins. “We largely teach dates, battles, names of rulers, explorers, discoverers, names of religious denominations to which they belonged, the size, weight, and temperament of kings and queens, the ones whom they married, how many divorces they obtained, how many cattle they owned, how many years the king survived the queen, the composition of their crown, etc.

“All this is of comparatively little value and soon forgotten, because it does not depend on principle. It does not ‘conduce to the fullness of life.’ It does not make our homes brighter and happier. It does not elevate the people. It does not improve our intellect. In my opinion, it is immeasurably more useful and important for us to know how to enlarge the power of prevision--‘power of looking into the future’--by which we are enabled to avoid or remove the stumbling blocks of the future, so as to leave the road of progress in the future less bloody than we have left it in the past. To know that it is a plausible presumption that the late Civil War in the United States augmented, in one form or another, the aggregate slavery, is worth much more than a thousand trivialities of chronological history. An acquaintance of these principles enables us to avoid conflicts in the future, but no amount of chronological matter will.”

“Our idea of history, Mr. Uwins, is almost similar to yours. We have long ceased to study and commit to memory such trivialities of history as you have just mentioned. We endeavor to develop historical principles, which enable us to unlock the future by the experience of the past. The philosophical part of history is the valuable portion. The science of history did not develop as rapidly with us as nearly all other sciences, and I find the same to be true with you also. But we have now some very excellent historical productions; productions by the side of which Mr. Buckle’s history appears to be in its infancy.”

“How do you teach the higher sciences?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“We have a laboratory which is in charge of an expert chemist. In this laboratory we keep a full supply of apparatus, drugs and chemicals; we can get all the practice and information we desire. We also have a scientific department well supplied with philosophical apparatus of all kinds. This department is in charge of able scientists who will give you all desired information. We have an inventor’s shop fitted up with all necessaries. In astronomy, our apparatus is grand and almost perfect. Biology, zoology, psychology, etc., we learn by practical experience, by individual inquiry, by reading, by lectures, and in countless other ways.

“We must here keep in mind that not all instruction furnishes the mind with useful information. For example: If we were taught that fire does not burn, such teaching would be worse than no teaching; because it stores the mind with falsehood which requires evidence to remove before we can get at the truth of the case. So in all other cases where falsehood and superstition are taught as truth. That knowledge only which adjusts us more and more in accord with the facts of the universe is worth learning. We should strive only for the acquisition of that intelligence which makes us better, and, therefore, happier men, women and children; all other knowledge is not worth learning.

“I now wish to compare a few of your educational lessons with ours; but, before I proceed, let me again tell you that I do not mean to cast any reflections on your mode of living, on your manner of eating, on your style of dress, nor on your methods of teaching. I am fully convinced that you, the same as all other beings, are doing the best you have learned. I am also further convinced that we deserve no particular praise for our somewhat advanced stages of intellectual culture. All sentient beings are creatures of circumstances, over which they have no control. None of us can act beyond the sphere of our highest endowments. We must either act _within_ this limit or be quiescent. Our personal and ancestral environment impresses us with intelligence, and that organized intelligence is the motive force that impels all of _us_ and all of _you_ to act in accordance as we are connected with the chain of antecedents to our present being. A longer lapse of time and more favorable conditions have made us what we are, and, no doubt, the same conditions, as they come to pass on earth, will bring you where we are now on Mars. So please bear in mind that all the comments I shall make concerning your affairs and institutions are made from a sincere motive, and not with a view of casting reflections.

“It is, no doubt, natural and good for the advancement of humanity on all planets that we all find greater delight in having our good qualities pointed out than we do in being reminded of our faults; but we must know our faults before we can consciously correct them, and with this view, I shall endeavor to make what I consider some of your faults, as conspicuous as possible, and I invite you to do the same with me.

“Your system of education is too much confined to a cheerless building, which you call a school-house. That these public school-houses are unnatural, cheerless places, may be evidenced by the fact that scarcely any of your adults and parents ever visit them; for, if they were natural and agreeable, they certainly would. The management of your so-called school is too much in the hands of scheming politicians. You employ, as a rule, cruel, incompetent teachers. You resort to physical force--first, to support the public school by compulsory taxation; and, secondly, to procure the pupil’s attendance, both of which are, in our view, injurious, unjust and despotic. In a good system of education, the school-room is perfectly free, natural and co-extensive with the sphere of man’s activity. In a successful school every one is teacher and pupil at the same time. Now, in making these criticisms, let us begin at the foundation; let us look for the causes.

“In the first place, your social, industrial and sexual conditions of nearly all your parents, and especially of your mothers, are so pitiful that it is scarcely possible for them to bring forth descendants with a kind, pleasant disposition. The parental silence, crabbedness, toil, care and ill-temper concomitant with your present conditions, are generally stamped on the child’s countenance and grafted in its constitution long before it is born. The people of earth quarrel and fight too much among yourselves, with your neighbors, and with nations to produce and rear a gentle, non-aggressive, peace-loving child. You must remember that all social beings are teachers, either for good or for bad. The home and daily social intercourse are the most effective school. Just as the adult is, nearly so will the child be. If the adult is jealous, aggressive, ignorant, superstitious, dishonest, intemperate, and rude in his conduct, so will the child be. Hence our principal object in education should be to educate _ourselves_.

“After birth, especially during the first stages of infancy, your care and attention given to the mother and child is almost always inadequate and improper. The care, toil, anxiety, ill-health, your pernicious sex-relations, and very frequently the poverty of your mothers generally affect for ill the maternal nourishment given to the child. By this early lesson, the child, through the instrumentality of its food, becomes partly like its mother from the effects of its mother’s bad condition. Thus its pernicious education begins at an age when the child is yet unconscious of its surroundings. Your practice of rocking a child is also a bad lesson.

“When your child gets a little older, I notice that nearly all your parents teach their babies, in an unconscious way, to become cry-babies and bawlers; this assertion may seem strange to many of you, but it is nevertheless a fact.

“I have noticed in my travels thousands of children, some younger and some older, that would set up a cry as soon as the mother would appear in their presence or sit down, and no doubt all of you have seen the same. You see the cry-baby has discovered that its mother or some one else will take it up as soon as it sets up a cry. With this cry-weapon, it has been successful so often that it will constantly employ it as a means to gain its end, and every such successful effort makes the cry louder and longer and more frequent, if necessary.

“But the foregoing lesson is by no means the worst one I have seen your parents and nurses teach your children during infancy. I have met a number of cases where a child completely tyrannized over the mother, and over the whole family; that it would first _cry_ and bawl in order to be taken, then to have the taker walk the floor with it, and then, in a few extreme cases, have the taker _run_ instead of _walk_ the floor. I have also seen where a mere infant was so well trained by mischievous instruction that it would set up a fierce cry whenever the walking mother or nurse would come anywhere near a chair or sofa, upon which she would apparently seat herself. I have, furthermore, seen hundreds of children here on earth whose training has been so unnatural that they would not retire without the mother or nurse lying down with them, soothing them to sleep, or without rocking them to sleep. All these cry-babies enforce their mandates by a cry or bawl; and the more the cry-baby is successful the more it will employ this weapon, which can be wielded with so much success among those who are not much familiar with human nature and with human welfare. Our children scarcely ever cry. We do not teach them to cry. We give them the very best of care and attention, but let them know from the beginning that they can not only not accomplish anything by crying, but that they, by crying, bring upon themselves the displeasure of all their companions. We never take a child or infant because it cries. And if it should begin to cry while in our lap, we would immediately put it down and not take it again until it puts on a _smiling_ face. Thus, you see, we teach our infants and children from the earliest beginning to employ pleasant, agreeable means to accomplish their purposes, while your infants and children, with your vicious methods of teaching, accomplish their objects by setting up a cry or bawl, and sometimes this cry includes the greater part of the day and night.”

“But what would you do with a crying baby if you had strangers in the house?” asked Viola.

“Why, I would do the same as I would if there were no stranger. I would always employ those known means that would produce the best results, whether strangers or no strangers. As I have stated before, if a child receives the proper training from infancy, it rarely ever cries. The greatest cry-baby, I think, can be cured from the annoying habit of crying by proper training and kind treatment in a few months’ time, but not by your method of training. I have often noticed in your private families, who have strangers or guests with them, that the mother would try every means but the right one to keep her child from crying, so as not to annoy her guests or boarders; but the more she tried the greater was her failure; the more she amused and humored the child the more it cried for amusement. Thus her companions become the victims of a nuisance caused by the mother’s inadequate knowledge of human nature. Children, as well as adults, should be free to make their own amusements. The intent of those who produce this vast army of cry-babies and ill-tempered children is, no doubt, as good as that of the Inquisitor and witch-killer was; but for all that it is a lamentable defect.

“Again, let us not forget that the pernicious effect of this cry-lesson does not end here. There is a still deeper and more fatal evil connected with it. To illustrate: Crying involves an expenditure of vitality, not only on the crier, but also on those who make an effort to silence the crier, and on all who are annoyed by it.

“Once more: A child that has fallen, or has hurt itself otherwise, in a way for which nothing can be done to alleviate the pain, should not be picked up or be soothed by parents and adults. It should be made to understand that it came to grief by its own acts--by a violation of a natural law. If under these conditions, it receives sympathy from others, it will soon cry for it. The sufferer, if sympathy is lavished upon it, will begin to infer that the injury was brought about by a personal agency controlled and influenced by the sympathizers. The child should learn as early as possible that the so-called laws of nature are constant and uniform, and do not bend to suit its whims, but that its conduct must conform to the laws. The latter course will tend to make a child intelligent and look for causes, while the former makes it superstitious and ignorant.

“Some mothers tell me that my way of treating and teaching infants and children in these cases is cruel, cold and distant. But the real trouble is that these mothers and others do not see their _own_ cruelty and indifference. The cruelties and negligence these mothers practice on their children are perfectly shocking to me. They are cruelties which their poor children must carry with them all their lives. Let me see if I can make my meaning clear to you. Crying, especially when accompanied with anger, is a violent strain on the nervous system; it also causes a physiological waste, which must be repaired by additional food. Now this additional food tends to impair digestion, and the impaired digestion affects circulation--the function of the heart. Thus, the violent exertion of crying, which is nearly all brought about by your vicious training and teaching, produces nervousness, weakness and general ill-health. Nearly all your children one meets are affected more or less in this manner; and children who are affected thus would continue to be fretful for a while, no matter how favorable the conditions would be made; yes, even if they were taken in the society of Mars. It seems so strange to me that parents can not see these plain facts; but, as a rule, they do not see them here, and seem to care less about discovering them. Thus many of your parents make imbeciles of their children and they do not know it; and if this is not cruelty and coldness, I am sure I do not know what is.

“Allow me to inform you of one other very vicious practice in your nursery. Long-continued superfluous paternalism and parental assistance, like many of your parents and other adults unwisely lavish upon offspring, even at the present age of your world, greatly and perniciously _lengthen_ the period of infancy in an _individual_. Many of your young men and women are, on this account, little more than grown-up babies, having scarcely any self-reliance and originality. Thus is the period of infancy lengthened in an individual; and such superfluous paternalism and assistance lavished upon offspring as a _race_ during countless ages, is, in the opinion of the Marsites, one of the causes of the lengthened period of infancy and helplessness which we find existing in the offspring of the different species of organisms, as we ascend in the scale of the animal kingdom. But, as mankind rise to a certain point of intelligence, they direct their course of action by conscious wisdom acquired by long-continued ancestral and personal experience, instead of following only the thoughtless, primitive instinct.

“Thus we see that the period of infancy is continually lengthened by a rise of intelligence up to a _certain point_, and that from this maximum period it slowly begins to shorten, as the higher parental wisdom and truer affections make the child constantly more self-reliant by throwing it, under favorable conditions and at an earlier age, more and more on its own resources and independence, by which all the child’s faculties are harmoniously unfolded by an earlier independent course of action. This higher and broader wisdom of the adult has, in the course of time, greatly shortened the period of infancy on Mars.

“A Marsian child, as we have already seen, has a healthy and vigorous pre-natal (before birth) growth, to begin with. After birth it is never over-burdened with manual labor; inactivity, dissipation, constraint, and paternalism never stunt the full development of body and mind, and poverty leaves no regretful marks on its after-life, while your children on earth, as a rule, are, on the one hand, largely over-burdened with toilsome labor and a vicious pre-natal existence, and, on the other hand, inactivity, dissipation, constraint, paternalism and poverty nearly always prevent the full and harmonious unfoldment of their faculties, and this tends to lengthen the period of infancy and helplessness.

“There is still one other lesson, which, of all the countless bad lessons you teach, is perhaps the worst one. I mean, of course, the flogging of children. To begin with, under right conditions, it is not only useless, but actually harmful in all its consequences. It irritates both parent and child. It makes a tyrant of the stronger and a slave of the weaker. It teaches a child to be cruel, because one who is reared in an atmosphere of cruelty can not help being cruel himself. This instruction dwarfs and often withers the higher feelings of affection and amiability.

“For my part, I do not see how a parent or friend can gather around the bedside of his sick or dying child whom he has misused. How he can, during its dying hour, gently press these poor, tiny fingers with that hand, which, more than once, cruelly struck it. How he can look into those longing, wide-open, staring eyes from which he has often caused the tears to flow. How, after such despotism, such kicks and cuffs, he can draw nearer to those arms which are so imploringly stretched out toward him in its agony, when the last tremor gently steals over the voiceless lips of that suffering, dying child. How he can impress a parting kiss on those open, pallid lips, which he has often cruelly hushed. How he can gaze on those pale sunken cheeks that were once so round and rosy. How he can smooth the forehead which is now covered with cold perspiration with that same hand which not long before outraged it with violence. How he can remove the pressure from the heaving bosom, gasping for breath. How he can, in the last moment of its life, embrace one whom he has treated more like a slave than like an equal. How he can summon sufficient courage to cast the last look at the now poor, pale, withered, lifeless handful of dust that was once aglow with life and health. How he can repress the tears of regret and repentance when bitter recollections of abuse, negligence, and violence committed on that harmless, innocent, lifeless little prattler, come crowding thick and fast into his memory.

“It may be that the earthly inhabitants can see how all these things can easily be done; but for a Marsite they would seem almost impossible. Here, then, a mundane being can do what would seem utterly impossible for a Marsite to do.

“But the evil training of your youths does not end here. For example: Nearly all your parents, teachers, preachers and other persons take the part of a child complaining against the conduct of another child. This is one of the most unholy lessons you can teach. Let me illustrate my meaning more clearly. A number of children are playing outdoors. One strikes or otherwise offends another. The offended one will begin to bawl in order to attract the attention of the mother in the house, or it will go to the mother to state its actual or imaginary grievances. The mother, who, as a rule, knows very little about human nature, immediately loses her temper and plays general havoc with the real or supposed offender; first, by asking him a series of questions which tend to make a liar out of the child, and secondly, by beating the offender, which act makes a worse despot out of the mother than the offending child was. But remember that this is not all the harmful results brought about by your method on this point. If, during the inquiry, the child believes it can escape further punishment by telling a falsehood, nine times out of ten it is tempted to do so, in order to get out of its predicament. Thus it becomes plain that the mother’s course of action offers a premium on lying.”

“But what would you do with such an offender?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Would you let one child pound and abuse another without interfering? Would you let your neighbor’s child kick and beat your own?”

“Let me explain, Rev. Dudley,” said Mr. Midith. “My reply to the first part of your interrogatory is that I would change the _conditions_ which produce such offenders. Then you ask, ‘Would you let one child pound and otherwise abuse another child, perhaps a younger one, without interfering?’ My reply to that is, that your very interfering made the _one_ child a ‘pounder,’ as you call him, and the other one a whining complainer. If your adults would not resort to ‘pounding,’ your children would not. Your children are only imitating your example. What a prominent part in the mind of the child the rod plays in domestic life is demonstrated by the fact that whenever your children play house, the child who represents the father or mother is generally applying the switch to the others. From what I have seen, I believe that your children are not half as cruel in many respects as your adults are.

“If you would never give any encouragement or attention to a complaining tattler, there would be no such tattlers and complainers. It is the encouragement and success with which the complainer meets at your hands which make him a complainer, and the greater his success the more frequently he will resort to it.

“A child, in order to become the completest person, must, from the beginning, be left free to adjust its own social affairs. All parental and governmental interference and paternalism is a hindrance in the process of attaining the highest social plane.

“Many of your parents also require their children to get the parent’s permission whenever the child desires to go any place. This method of training likewise tends to make schemers and fibbers. A child who is desiring to go some place will, if it deems it necessary to get the parent’s consent, fabricate most any story to gain its point. Perhaps most of your parents now living know that from personal experience.

“Our children go when and where they please. They are capable and experienced because they have been taught in the school of self-reliance from infancy. We, as adults, have fitted our social conditions so that our self-reliant child can easily grapple with any emergency that it might meet. We keep no places below the dignity of a child’s presence. Our children never tell fibs because we offer no premium on a lie. We never scold nor flog them. They know this, and do, therefore, never hesitate to say what they did and what they want. We treat them as children that must grow in wisdom by a wider experience. They never tattle or complain of their companion’s conduct because we never pay any attention to their complaints. We have no cry-babies and our children are always models of affection to all, because they receive the kindest possible treatment and the widest possible freedom consistent with their physical powers.

“Thus for want of a little more psychological knowledge, your people generally make a cry-baby and an infantile tyrant out of the baby and child, a drudge out of the mother and nurse, and slaves out of those who are annoyed by the cries, confusion and noise made by the mother and child. By this pernicious instruction, you are annually more than wasting millions of days of destructive labor, which greatly lengthens your day’s labor and detracts greatly from the happiness of all concerned.”

“But are you not digressing from your subject?” asked Rev. Dudley. “I understood you to say, Mr. Midith, that you were going to compare our school with yours. You have been all this while speaking of home training instead of school education. I should like to have you show us some defects in our public school system. It has stood the criticisms of generations and I believe that it is almost perfect.”

“You remember, Rev. Dudley, that I stated at the outset that any school or system of education that does not include the home training is too narrow and unnatural,” said Mr. Midith. “I am aware that I have so far not spoken in particular of your _public schools_, as you call them. I am well aware of the fact that most of your people, I may say nearly all of them, have implicit faith in the work of your public schools, and this pride is very likely relatively well-founded. Every stage of intellectual culture is accompanied by a certain system of education and training; and very likely your present public school, with your social, industrial and sexual relations so sadly out of tune, is as good as can acceptably be received by the masses. It, very probably, just about fits with the other conditions and institutions of your present age. All that any of us can do, in any world, is to think our best thoughts and use the best means which they bring about. Therefore, I shall, at least for the present, not attempt to deny but that your public school system, as established in the United States, is _relatively_ good.

“What I want to show you, if I can, is that your public school system is by no means faultless, and that all those who are unprejudiced and believe in progress should not feel satisfied until all its faults and blemishes are removed, for progress consists of the process of removing faults and errors; but before we can consciously and deliberately remove a fault or an error, we must find it; and as you have requested me to point out the faults and errors of your public school system, I shall, at least in part, endeavor to comply with your request. I say in part, for I believe that it would require too much time for us to point out all the faults and demerits if it were measured by a Marsian standard of right and wrong, or even if it were judged by the standard of your own best thinkers.”

“Oh, it may be that our public schools contain a slight defect here and there, but I can not see them, and I believe they are quite difficult to find, too,” said Rev. Dudley.

“Let us see, then, whether we can point out a few defects.

“1. As a rule, you demand your children, little and big, formally to attend your public schools for six hours a day. During these six hours you demand or force them to be quiet and silent; and as a child for its full development requires constant activity in all directions, these demands are an infraction against the laws of youthful life and health.

“2. To create a desire for inquiry should be the chief aim in the acquisition of an education; and the development of this desire you greatly frustrate or positively prevent by demanding your children in your public schools to study just such branches at just such times. From personal experience you well know that we do not always desire to do the same thing at the same time. No one can, therefore, prescribe an agreeable and useful course of study for another. You as adults would, no doubt, fiercely remonstrate against the enforcement of such an order, yet you impose it on your children with impunity and with an air of apparent duty.

“3. Children who have been kept quiet and silent, like you keep them in your so-called school-rooms for a disagreeable length of time, become, when set at liberty, rude, boisterous and noisy. That is the reason why your school-grounds, when the pupils during recess are at play, are such loud, rude, disgusting places. The artificially pent-up vitality is overflowing its banks. Thus by the very method by which you intend to make your children kind, cultivated and refined, you actually make them cruel, uncultivated and boisterous. Now let us not forget that all these defects lie at the very _foundation_ of your public school system and are entirely invisible to all superficial observers.

“4. When _many_ pupils like you have in your school buildings are, after recess, demanded to come into the school-room immediately after the ringing of the bell, or other signal, they, for want of time and convenience of cleaning their shoes, rush in regardless of dust and mud. This conduct and habit make children very indifferent and careless of personal order and cleanliness.

“5. Your public school-rooms also cause your children to grow disorderly and indifferent for want of proper conveniences. Many of your schools require pupils to use paper for all their written work, but schools provide no waste baskets or other receptacles for the waste paper. As a natural consequence the waste paper is generally dropped on the floor. This tends to create a habit of disorder and carelessness, just the opposite of what you endeavor to impart.

“6. Perhaps as much as three-fourths of all your studying in your school-room and colleges is largely done for the direct object of recitation, examination and for obtaining diplomas. The evidence in support of this proposition is that one seldom meets a pupil in your public schools who cares enough for the intrinsic worth of knowledge that he will study when no lessons are assigned. A pupil who has a desire for knowledge and studies for the pleasure the intrinsic value of it gives, would study even better when no lessons are assigned, for then he is free to choose his own branches. Your graduations have also a very evil effect. They tend to impress on the graduates the idea that they have finished their education and need, therefore, no further inquiry. It appears very clear to me that a vast majority of your graduates would have a much better education in their maturer years if they had not been affected by the graduation process. Thus you see that the assignment of lessons, examinations, graduations and diplomas all tend to blight self-inquiry, the only highway by which one can reach the highest and noblest attainments.

“7. Your recitation and the showing process, which, as a rule, you recommend so highly, instill into the mind of the pupil the idea and habit that they can do nothing without the assistance of parent and teacher. Thus the child is gradually taught to make no personal effort without the telling and showing processes, and the consequence is, that it kills nearly all originality and self-reliance in the child.

“8. Your compulsory attendance, whether enforced by parents or state, tends to make fibbers and schemers out of many pupils who desire to be excused before school lets out, or who desire to be excused by parent or state. It is natural that after a pupil’s mental faculties are exhausted for the time being, it can not continue to pursue its studies without great bodily and mental injury. Under these conditions the child’s healthful instinct generally prompts it to cease studying, after which it begins its ‘mischievous pranks’ as you call them. It is a well known fact that all minds are not endowed with like power of endurance, yet your public schools, as a rule, make no provision for such difference of mental endurance. You compel all to attend school for six hours daily. Thus your compulsion tends to make fibbers and miscreants; it injures the child’s health, prevents the spontaneous development of its faculties and sets it against learning.

“9. Probably about one-fourth of the pupils attending school are what you call ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls.’ They have little or no desire to attend school and to study the assigned lessons and branches at such a time and for such a length of time. They greatly annoy those who do have a taste for study, and their compulsory attendance constantly causes an increased repugnance for the school-room and for all the work connected with it. They become thoroughly disgusted with all learning. Thus, instead of creating a pleasurable desire for learning, you do not even let it sprout by giving them a little freedom and opportunity.