Chapter XXIII: Education--How to Teach the Different Branches (2)

“10. We have seen that not all pupils have a like mental endurance. Some are mentally exhausted before others. The mental endurance of the same pupil also differs from day to day. Again, some delight in study one day and dislike it the next. But your ‘school week’ consists of five days and your ‘school day’ consists of six hours, no matter what the other conditions are. The pupil who is through studying must remain just as long as the one who is not. Thus you are largely obliged to enforce attendance and order on those pupils who are not in a mood for mental work at that time. This condition of things necessarily causes a constant friction between teachers and pupils. It makes a cruel, crabbed, despotic teacher and a ruthless, stubborn pupil. I believe this to be one of the reasons why so many of your professional teachers are so overbearing, cruel and despotic, caring so little for the rights, freedom and welfare of others. My profession has called me to many of your teachers’ associations, and I am sorry to say that, as a rule, I have invariably found these assemblies composed of very narrow-minded men and women. As a rule, they have very little idea of freedom, equity, and the psychological principles upon which all successful instruction must be based. They generally hoot at any truth that does not lie within their narrow path of a little impractical book-learning. But this is all natural and inevitable when we understand the circumstances which produce your public school-teacher. To begin with, the teacher must generally get his position by more or less scheming, and when he has secured it he becomes a kind of lord and master over his pupils. If he is a principal or superintendent, his assistant teachers are generally more or less at his mercy. The assistants know this and often flatter him in order to stand well in his estimation. The less learned patrons also look upon him as a distinguished personage. This subordination of his companions, the absolute authority he exercises over his pupils, his real or supposed learning, and other advantages make a kind of baron out of him, and generally cover him more or less with ‘cheap’ vanity and ostentation. It also makes him very intolerant, so that an assembly of principals and superintendents who pretend to lead the intellectual world, nearly always lack breadth and depth of learning. They often know more Greek and Latin than they know of human nature and the phenomena of the universe. Their narrow views seldom reach the depth of man’s psychical nature. They are nearly always dealing with immediate superficial results and scarcely ever think about the real, the fundamental, and the remote. They try to get rid of an effect without touching the cause.

“11. As the ability and aptitude of every pupil differs somewhat from that of every other pupil, your classification must necessarily always be more or less imperfect. A pupil that fits best in one class and grade this week may fit best in another class next week.

“12. It is a well-known fact that a person, whether young or old, loses interest in a book by reading or studying it over and over. The interest is keenest when we do not know what is to follow. Yet in your public schools, you largely compel your pupils to go through the same books again and again until they are completely disgusted with them. This is more machinelike than humanlike, and tends to kill interest in original and individual inquiry.

“13. The management of your public schools is largely under the control of politicians; and often unscrupulous, incompetent politicians, who know very little about the psychical needs of man, and who, not infrequently, care less for the interest and progress of the school than they do for their re-election. We also all know that man, in his rude beginnings and for ages after, is always blinded by zeal, enthusiasm and patriotism. They have strewn the road of progress with human skeletons; they have dyed the streams red with blood; they have erected countless temples of fanaticisms; they have invented countless instruments of torture; they have filled the land with slaves and paupers; they have soiled the robe of Liberty with multitudinous spots of intolerance; they have filled the mind with cruelty, bigotry and superstition, and they have fostered monopoly and stifled equity.

“14. The financial support of your public school rests on compulsory taxation, and is, therefore, ultimately backed by an army. It positively prohibits direct competition by taxing all private schools out of existence. For example: A Catholic or a Protestant, who desires to send his child to a private or parochial school, must pay double taxes. He is first forced by the state to pay taxes in proportion to the ‘value of his property’ for the financial support of the public school, and then, if he sends his children to a private or parochial school, he must pay tuition in proportion to the number of children sent. Thus you see that your state, on many points, is as intolerant now as it was in the dark ages. It permits no private competition; it recognizes no individuality on these important points.

“15. We have seen that the state allows no private competition in school affairs. It employs its own teachers. All of us also know, if we have ever given it a thought, that the church and state are quite separated in _theory_, but not so much so in _practice_. The teachers of your public school, who desire to retain their position, must sharply and closely follow the course of study adopted directly by the state, and indirectly by the church; and any teacher who deviates from that course, or who attempts to improve on it, from knowledge gained by his longer personal experience, is very liable to lose his position and be branded a heretic and a rebel. Thus you see that thousands of your best and most thoughtful public school teachers are prevented from teaching their best thoughts and their noblest sentiments. Under the head ‘How the transition from the old to the new order of things was accomplished,’ I shall tell you more about this last great evil.

“I have here enumerated fifteen vital defects, all of which are fundamentally opposed to the harmonious production of a just, kind, self-reliant, complete individual. Every one of these fifteen defects tend to make mere grown-up babies of your young ladies and gentlemen. But let us not flatter ourselves that these fifteen defects are all, for there are countless others even too numerous to suggest, a few of which will suffice to illustrate my meaning. You have too much booklearning as compared with your practical teaching. Your school-work is nearly always too difficult for young children of their mental capacity; it stunts the youthful mind. Your crowded school-rooms, in which your so-called ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls’ are often playing tricks, and in which some are talking and reciting, are no fit places for study. Under these conditions, the mind can not concentrate its powers on the subject to be studied, etc., etc. But let us now return to the general criticisms to this broader and deeper field of instruction.”

“But let me ask you, Mr. Midith, how would you get rid of these defects?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“The only way you can get rid of them is to outgrow them. First, the masses of your people have to learn that there are defects, and then they have to learn to appreciate _truth more_ and _partyism less_. A system of education is a growth and not a manufacture. I have given our system of education, which does not contain any of these defects and faults, and that is all the guidance I can offer on this point as well as on all others. But I am not yet through criticising. I have not yet entered the more general fields which I shall now endeavor to do.

“If the foregoing objections concerning your public schools are true, and I believe that all well-informed, unbiased persons will admit that, then your public schools are largely depriving your children of their individuality and self-reliance; the same as your military discipline largely deprived your men of their individuality and self-exertion during the military age. Your children, by being thus deprived of their individuality, independence and self-reliance, grow machine-like, and work only when they are set in motion by some parent, teacher, master, politician, clergyman, etc. Again, you largely instruct your children, either tacitly or avowedly, that manual labor is dishonorable. Many of your parents send their children to college until they are twenty or more years of age to get a little booklearning through a narrow, prescribed channel, under the influence of paternalism, which causes your young ladies and gentlemen to be little more than grown-up babies, without any practical experience and originality to grapple with the phenomena of life. As a rule, you stifle all independence and self-reliance in your child by paternalism and monopoly.

“By such a course of instruction the child learns little or no manual labor during the whole of its ‘so-called school age.’ Physically it lives an idle life, and mentally it learns often much more superstition than facts. Not infrequently one can see your mothers do all, or nearly all, the domestic drudgery, and let their grown-up daughters live an idle life right in the same house. But how can the daughter do her fair share of the work as long as she is taught to look upon manual labor with contempt. In this manner you make slaves of your children, because labor, if not learned while young, will forever be unpleasant and disagreeable. This compels your children, then, to be either social parasites or industrial slaves to labor. You provide no incentives for children to labor. A portion of your children are employed almost exclusively at physical labor, the other portion at mental.

“Your language is generally poor because your social conditions are such that good language is almost impossible. Your handwriting, as a rule, is very stiff, and often scarcely legible. Your ill-adjusted commercial system makes your mathematics so complicated that few even master the rudiments of your arithmetic.

“Your physiological lessons are, indeed, very deficient. Your selection of food is very crude; the quantity often scanty, and the manner of eating nearly always unnatural. Your bathing conveniences are very poor, the time all taken up with labor and the vitality expended in physical and mental efforts; so that few of the earth’s inhabitants can find pleasure in personal cleanliness. One meets everywhere thousands of persons with black and uncleaned teeth, untrimmed finger and toe nails, uncombed hair, offensive-smelling feet and a general odor of perspiration mingled with tobacco scent, etc. But all of these are unavoidable concomitants of your social, industrial and sexual conditions. Personal cleanliness pre-supposes wealth, convenience and leisure. As long as your poverty and toil last, personal cleanliness need not be looked for. You must remove the causes before you can expect favorable results. A servant, whether man or woman, who is compelled to toil for ten or fourteen hours a day for almost nothing, and then is often not allowed to enter the parlor or sit at table, cares little for personal cleanliness and personal charms.

“Your style of dress is probably one of your most pernicious habits. Just think of your women’s hair all twisted and rolled so tightly that it causes headache. Think what labor it requires, and what filth it collects. Compare your lady’s uncomfortable hat with our lady’s plain felt hat. Think of your lady’s high or low collar; the former almost prevents her from turning her head, the latter subjects her to colds and diseases. Think of her dress, petticoats and skirts, which flop around her limbs impeding her walk; how they prevent her from passing over a muddy road or crossing; how they sweep the sidewalks and roads during a dry, dusty period. Think what an immense amount of labor it requires to keep garments of such a ridiculous, inconvenient costume clean, and then they are nearly always more or less dusty and soiled. Compare them with our lady’s jacket and neatly made pantaloons. There is no impediment in walking; no skirts to sweep the dust and mud; no dress to hold up when passing over a crossing; no sails to impede her progress when she is walking against the wind. Our ladies, as well as gentlemen, can run, walk, cross, ride a bicycle, get through the mud, or climb a fence and tree.

“Again, think of your woman’s tight corsets with which she fences herself in so tightly that she can scarcely breathe. Her thorax compressed; her lungs so crowded that she soon becomes exhausted, when exercising, from deficient respiration. Consider the exposure of her lower limbs, protected by scarcely anything but a few fluttering skirts. Consider her tight high-heeled shoes with her feet covered with corns, warts and bunions; and then think what a helpless, dependent creature such a costume makes of your woman; how it contorts her natural form, and how it impairs her health and physiological function.

“Now think of your gentleman’s attire. Of his uncomfortable plug hat into which he forces his head; of his high stiff collar; his inflexible cuffs and shirt-front; his high-heeled boots with little room for his toes; his roasting himself in a coat and vest on a hot day, because he induces his female companions to think that it is not _fashionable_ to look on shirt-sleeves.

“Do not forget to think of your little helpless children, wearing short dresses and having their lower limbs exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather. How they are often so dressed that they can scarcely move about in their work and play. How their parents frequently forbid them to play in their ‘best clothes,’ just as if the clothes are more valuable than the children’s health; and last of all, think of the amount of paint and powder you must use on the faces of both men and women to hide the sickly color caused by the numerous violations of the laws of life and health in your style of dressing and in your other modes of living. Thousands of comparatively poor victims are, on certain occasions, endeavoring to sprout a puny artificial rose on their fallen cheeks and faltering lips, but such roses always wilt before they are fairly unfolded. They lack internal vigor.

“But allow me to say again that you must not think that I ridicule your conduct, nor that we like beauty and grace less than you do. We believe, however, that beauty and grace can not be obtained to any considerable extent by face powder, paint and injurious fashionable dressing. By a longer lapse of time, our artistic taste has slowly adjusted itself more and more in harmony with natural, healthful appearances. We, by living as nearly as we can in tune with the phenomena of life and health, solicit nature to develop a strong, healthy body, a bold, vigorous mind, a graceful form, pleasant, cheerful features, round, roseate cheeks, purple lips, bright eyes and an elastic step.

“The robe of health, cheerfulness, and bodily and mental attainments is a more dressy garment than any other we can wear, and we, therefore, make every act of our life count to obtain this envied garment in the most natural and ornamental style. For ages we believed and acted like you are now doing, tried to obtain it by deceiving nature with paint and injurious fashion, but, by long and patient observation and experiment, and by millions of wrecked constitutions and premature deaths, we, at last, learned that our expectation of deceiving nature was completely futile. This beautiful, costly robe of nature which adorns the body from within outward can be purchased only at the store of Truth, for every violation of truth taints its beauty.”

“Mr. Midith, you have not yet told us anything about your particular sports and amusements,” said Viola. “You have so much time to spend in that way that you ought to be almost perfect in all sports and amusements.”

“Well,” said Mr. Midith, “if you desire me to tell you something about them, I shall give you a brief review of _some_ of them; I say _some_ because they are so numerous and complex and varied that I can only touch upon a few of the simplest ones.

“But before we proceed let us take into consideration that the nature and kind of man’s sports and amusements vary in different persons; also with age, sex, state of health and mental and physical culture and development.

“For example, you notice here on earth that one person delights in playing cards; another in playing ball; another in singing; another in traveling; another in fishing, etc.

“The little child finds amusement in the tin rattle; the boy in marbles and ball; the little girl in the doll; the robust person in vigorous exercise; the invalid in rest and quiet; the savage in scalping and other torture; the cultured in promoting his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others.

“The moans and cries of the dying victim are highly amusing to the ear of the savage who burns him at the stake; but to the ear of the more civilized person, they are so shocking that he would faint at the sound of them. Only a comparatively few years ago your most refined men and women of the Roman empire looked with delight and amusement on the gladiatorial combats which reddened the arena of the spacious amphitheatre with human blood. To-day, even to _your_ most refined men and women, the same sights and sports would be perfectly horrifying. They could not be hired to witness them. I notice that your civilized American boys still delight in dog-fights and flinging stones at your innocent little song-birds as they are singing their sweet songs. The Marsian boy would think that horrible. By long, kind treatment our song birds have all become even much tamer than your domestic animals; they have nothing to fear from the human hand. I notice still further that many of your so-called civilized Americans still delight in prizefights, bull-fights, sportive hunting and fishing, horseracing, etc. All of these sights would be almost as shocking to a Marsite as a gladiatorial combat would be to a highly-refined and keenly-considerate lady of your present time.

“By the foregoing, then, we see that each stage of intellectual culture has its peculiar sports and amusements. What is delightful amusement to one is dreadful horror to another. Hence as Mars is much in advance of the earth, our sports and amusements must be much in advance of yours, must be in harmony with our feelings and institutions.

“There is one other point of which I must remind you before you can clearly understand me on the subject of sports and amusements; and that point is, that nearly all _your labor_ is very disagreeable and toilsome, while our _labor_ itself, as you have seen, is little less than sport and amusement. From this you see that our whole life, as measured by our standard of sportive taste, is little else than a series of continuous sports and games of amusements. Let us now look at a few of them, beginning with the private apartments of the big-house.

“In the private apartment, when alone, we read, write, study, paint, draw, study music, listen to phonographic books, and do countless other things for amusement, of which I can not tell you now, for you are not familiar with them, because they do not yet exist on earth. After all this, we often desire the company of a little child only. If so, we invite one. Children are nearly always fond of such invitations, because when an adult desires the company of a child in that way, he will always amuse and delightfully instruct it. When we desire the private company of adults, either man or woman, we invite some agreeable companion or companions who are willing to become our private guests. In company with these we study, sing, paint, converse, laugh and joke, tell our experience, play all kinds of appropriate games, and do all such other things as we find mutually agreeable and pleasant.

“For amusement, in the public parts of the big-house, we visit and amuse ourselves in the different parlors, eat in the restaurant, sport with the children and babies in the nurseries, attend grand operas, lectures, scientific demonstrations, promenade and cycle in the large exercise hall, listen to charming concerts, and play countless games, for which both ladies and gentlemen are attired in appropriate, convenient costumes.

“Our outdoor sports and amusements are so numerous, varied and complex that I can tell you only a few of them, for, in a world like that of the earth, where the vast masses are compelled to expend nearly all their vitality for the mere acquisition of their scanty material subsistence, refined and complex sports and amusements can not well be understood, nor can they have a conspicuous place in man’s daily activity under such conditions.

“Our simplest outdoor exercise for amusement is walking, either alone or in company with a companion or companions. On a fine day or evening our granite walks are usually dotted with men, women and children walking for amusement. We take these outdoor promenades most any place. In the garden we stroll to admire the endless variety of flowers, the luxuriant vegetation, which is everywhere cultivated with the greatest success and perfection. From the garden, perhaps, we rove to the orchard, among the laden fruit trees, bearing the delicious fruit on their boughs and having the green, closely-cut lawn beneath. Sometimes our sportive walks extend from community to community, admiring all the rich, varied and diversified things we meet, for the Marsites have long discovered that variety of color, form, etc., is pleasing to the sight. In every community we find a large variety of new forms and arrangements in the park, in the conservatory (or green-house), in the gardens, in the orchards, on the walks, and, in fact, everywhere. In the winter we take our leisure walks in the grand conservatory, which extends from one community to the other, and in which the flowers, plants, fruit and trees are growing as luxuriantly as they do in a tropical climate, even when the snow is a foot deep on the outside. Every step, as we go forward from community to community, presents new scenes in colors and forms. Thus a number of companions often go from community to community, stopping for rest or for night whenever they get tired. You see, we can stop as cheap at any ‘big-house’ as we can at our own. During these walking expeditions our baggage always follows us on the motor cars.

“From what I have just said you must not infer that we always or even _generally_ find the greatest amusement in walking instead of riding. Our granite boulevards are nearly always lined with vehicles, bicycles, electric carriages, etc.; some of these carriages are so delicate that they carry only one person, while others carry from two to forty persons. On these various vehicles, excursion parties travel for long distances. If we want to go faster we go on the motor; if still faster, we take our fast trains, which have on board all the comforts and conveniences that the mechanical genius of man has been able to apply and utilize.

“I must not here forget to tell you about the sports and amusements we have in our splendid parks. Here men, women and children sport and amuse themselves in countless ways. Some are sitting in the shade on our commodious park settees; some are admiring flowers and plants; some promenade; some study; some play. Numerous grounds for the playing of different games are permanently laid out in these parks, and skillful players, men and women, dressed in fine costumes for the occasion, are engaged in playing these games. Besides these grounds for particular games, a countless variety of machinery and apparatus for sportive plays and amusements are always found on our green, odoriferous parks; and during our pleasure excursions as we go from community to community, we continually meet a still greater variety of playgrounds, apparatus and amusements.

“Nearly every person also annually visits a number of Fanos and the indescribable Modano, the capitol of Mars. In these magnificent structures, of which I have told you, is a never-ceasing exhibit of all the Marsian artistic, scientific and industrial labors, both ancient and modern. It is a perpetual ‘World’s Fair,’ always ready to accommodate every visitor in the grandest style. It is not like your ‘World’s Fair,’ the buildings of which are temporarily constructed, and which are in session only a few months, and during that time the crowd is so large, the resting conveniences so few and poor that a spectator soon becomes too fatigued to enjoy the sights; but we must not forget here that the Marsian conveniences at the Modano were once no better, and, probably, your posterity will even do better than we are doing at present on Mars.

“Then we have our _natural_ scenery to visit. Our extensive natural parks in the mountainous region of Mars. These natural parks are alive with docile birds and beasts; they contain mountains and valleys, streams and fountains, rugged cliffs and beautiful clear lakes, volcanoes and snow-capped mountain peaks; to the tops of some of these mountain peaks we have built motor-lines, so that, in a few minutes, we can ascend to the world of perpetual snow and ice.”

“But do you not sometimes during your visits to the mountain peaks get snowbound?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Oh, no,” said Air. Midith with a smile. “We never get snowbound. All our granite walks, boulevards, motor-lines and railroads never have any snow and ice on them. They are all so made that the granite floor can be heated by electric currents, so that the snow and ice, which, during a snowstorm, falls and drifts onto it, is immediately melted. This is the way we keep our walks and roads open on Mars. It is a convenient and effective way of shoveling snow.

“From the foregoing hints and suggestions, you can readily see that the greater portion of our time is taken for sports and amusements, and that we find them everywhere, from the private apartment to the colossal Modano and the lofty snow-capped mountain.”