Another World Part 4

The laws are very severe against those who would ill-treat an animal, but there is now no need to put them in force.

We never punish by the imposition of tasks, our aim being to inculcate the love of study, and encourage the child to regard his work as a favour and a privilege. On the contrary we now punish the student rather by taking away the old than by imposing new school work; and this is so effected that the boy, though at first delighted, soon thirsts to resume his studies.

In many cases the pupil is not allowed even to know that he is punished,--_i.e._, why the discipline is changed,--lest he should become attached to a fault for which he has suffered and, as it were, paid dearly; lest, too, the excitement of eluding detection should make it pleasurable to transgress when the immediate pressure is removed, and he should thus become schooled in untruthfulness and deceit.

The character-divers generally effect the child's correction by gentleness, and eventually bringing him to loathe the bad and love the good. Time, labour, and attention are bestowed unsparingly, and, however small the germ, the evil tendency is never left until, when this is possible, it is completely eradicated. In certain cases, where the footprint of nature is too firmly impressed, the efforts are continued until other and opposing qualities have been developed, and the moral patient has acquired such control over himself as to be able, in moments of temptation and impulse, to dominate the disturbing propensity.

Even after the fault seems to have been eradicated, the patient is for some time subjected to various tests and temptations before he is p.r.o.nounced cured. We do not trust to superficial appearances.

Similar precautions were taken in the cure of adult offenders against the laws, but as soon as my plans had time to operate, offences by adults were of rare occurrence.

When a child gives evidence of remarkable genius, he is watched with more than jealous care, with a view to his superior refinement, and other qualities which we like to see in harmony. We do not like to see, as it were, a garment made partly of rich brocade and partly of common material.

The character-divers, too, are greatly a.s.sisted in their observations by an establishment attached to each school called "The Amus.e.m.e.nt Gallery,"

in which after a certain time the bent of the child, his versatility, capriciousness, constancy of purpose, and other qualities and defects are shown in his selection and continued or interrupted pursuit of any particular occupation or amus.e.m.e.nt.

It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of acting with judgment towards children.

From the smallest beginnings, incurable defects of mind and permanent disease of body will gather strength, grow and obtain the mastery, till they carry off the sufferer, or implant vices that, like evil spirits, will torture the victim during his life's career.

Nothing is spared in the education of the future man and mother of men.

In the child is seen the parent of other generations, one who, as he is well or ill-directed, will strengthen or weaken the great work of human happiness, bearing with him a blessing or a curse for the community.

Therefore whatever may be the pains or expenditure required in the cure of incipient faults, as of incipient disease, we know that society will be repaid more than a thousand-fold in the happiness of its members, in evil prevented and good propagated, in the numbers of men of talent and genius whose works, teeming with great results, will be thus saved to the State.

But for the character-divers the services of numbers of men of extraordinary genius would have been lost to the State, and our world's progress in science, inventions, and happiness r.e.t.a.r.ded for centuries.

Nay, perhaps the then comparative civilization would have been thrown back into barbarism, through the destructive play of bad pa.s.sions and disappointed hopes.

Numbers who, if their early faults had grown into confirmed vices, would later have led a life of crime, and become inhabitants of dungeons and emissaries of evil, now grew into men of great eminence. The germ of evil propensities was destroyed, the exuberant motive power of their nature regulated and turned to good, by means which the character-divers thoroughly understood.

Amongst faults, the germs of which occupied the attention of the Djarke, are the following:

Untruthfulness, dishonesty, discontent, pride, vanity, boasting, cunning, envy, deceit, whether prejudice, self-deceit, or the wish to deceive others; nervousness or fear, inducing reticence and concealment of faults, excess of modesty or the occasional tendency of persons of genius to underrate their own powers, inattention to studies, want of application, power to learn too easily, lack of retentive memory, exaggeration and boldness, bad temper, sullenness, disposition to quarrel, cowardice, cruelty, caprice as distinct from versatility, selfishness, greediness, laziness, and its various causes, and generally the germs of all faults and vicious propensities, which, if not cured at an early age, would grow into tenacious vices.

From the precautions taken in Montalluyah the schools have become real nurseries, where the pupil is endowed with knowledge adapted to his capacity and natural bent, strengthened and graced with valuable habits and stores of physical and intellectual power.

VII.

CHARACTER-DIVERS--_continued_.

"Respect those who would enable us to obtain the respect of others."

In former times the education of our children, even of the most gifted, was entrusted to preceptors who occupied less than secondary positions.

We did not respect or love them much; nay, they were not unfrequently treated with indignity, and yet it was expected that our children would respect and love them and the learning they professed to teach.

All, whether men or women, entrusted with the education of the young are now honoured in Montalluyah, and are high in the State as persons charged to bring about great and valuable results.

The aid given me by the character-divers and preceptors in carrying out my plans was incalculable. Their sagacity selected disciples apt for the duties I required; men with vast powers impelled by good. These men propagated my doctrines, and vigilantly watched their observance, and a new vigorous generation soon sprang up, educated to obey my laws, and further to increase and multiply their beneficent effects.

These moral physicians were chosen at first from men of great sagacity, gentleness, and powers of observation, and of polished manners.[1]

[Footnote 1: In Montalluyah children are supposed to acquire so much by imitation, that the candidate for the office of Djarke and others must possess refined manners; and even the quality of speaking with elegance and accuracy is considered necessary both in them and in the Zicche. The art of speaking and writing with correctness is imperceptibly acquired from the language of the preceptors and other models with whom the boy comes in frequent contact. Grammar, with the exception of a few leading rules, is not needed, and the boy's brain is saved much dry and fruitless labour.]

Young men of special apt.i.tude were soon educated to the office, and it was then that character-divers of marvellous powers sprang up, whose knowledge of the human mind, and skill in diving into the hidden currents of character, became so great that no incipient quality, or defect however minute, could escape their observation.

There is a man whom the sagacity of Vyora discovered, whose wondrous power in his art is the admiration of Montalluyah. The good he has done and the greatness of his work in searching out and developing hidden qualities and genius in children, who to the unskilled eye gave no promise, is celebrated in pictures, in sculpture, and in song, and his portrait is repeated in the highly finished and artistic mosaic pavement of our palaces and dwellings.

We delight to enrich our houses and public places with subjects which daily inspire great and pleasureable thoughts.

The subjects of the tesselated pavements include wise kings, inventors, and discoverers, character-divers and preceptors, physicians, great electricians and chemists; astronomers, men skilfully learned in the power of the sun; men versed in the knowledge of the human mind; eminent painters, sculptors, and architects; men skilled in the properties of birds, beasts, fish, and other living things. Moral qualities are greatly estimated; and we have many portraits of women famous for their virtues, gentleness, and superiority; even of servants distinguished for remarkable cleanliness and other qualities. Every house has its tesselated pavement, more or less elaborate, but always beautifully executed, for all our artists are great, and occupy high positions.

Where a young man evinced qualities which, when tested, showed that he would make but a second-rate artist, the character-divers demonstrated that these youths possessed natural tendencies better fitting them for some other pursuit.

I have in my thoughts at this moment a favourite subject of the artistic pavement;--a man--Zolea by name--who as a boy was inattentive to his studies, while his talent for sketching from nature[1] was so remarkable, that even during school hours, with his eye seemingly on his book, he would occupy himself in sketching those around him. Every one, except the character-divers, thought that Nature intended this boy for a great artist. These demonstrated that as an artist he would never attain a high position; and after observing how he occupied himself in play-hours, and subjecting him to numerous tests, so completely cured him of his want of application and other defects, that he became the wisest and greatest among our kings. He aided me much in the devising and carrying out many things for the well-being of our planet.

[Footnote 1: All students, even beginners, sketch from nature, no other sketching is allowed.]

Had I not been the son of a king I should probably have been educated as a harpist; for even as a child I showed great disposition for the harp, and composed both words and music for my favourite instrument; but my father's chief councillor, a man of great sagacity, saw in me the germ of intellectual powers far beyond those required for the most perfect execution of the harp, and, counselled by this sage, I was led to other studies by judicious treatment, to the doubting surprise of my early tutors.

I will now give you some account of one of the great works begun and ended in my reign.

This work, called 'The Wonder' of my Planet, was by our poets often spoken of as resembling my polity in the strength of its foundation, and in beauty, grandeur, and stability, as a work which, like my laws, they said had saved a world from destruction, and would endure for ever!

VIII.

THE STAR CITY.

"The City of delights. The beloved of the Angels."

The power of the sun in my world is great, and the heat and light are excessive. The great heat being, however, tempered by cooling, refres.h.i.+ng winds, and gus.h.i.+ng waters, is to our const.i.tutions generally agreeable, except at the period called the extreme season.