DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.
I was ushered into the office of the Minister of Education and was
introduced to a charming lady who filled that position with signal
ability. "I am told that you are from the United States of America."
she said with a winning smile, "and I hope that you will have a
pleasant time while you remain with us." She spoke perfect English and
informed me that it was the language of Eurasia, but that it differed
from English used in other countries in one way. "We write the words
the way they sound and eliminate all useless letters, saving a great
deal of time and paper." She informed me that in no school throughout
the country, save one, were the dead, or foreign, languages taught, and
in that one only for the purpose of correct translation in the interest
of science, for practical education is what people need. "We have one
great university for orphan children and those without a name, and from
it all the departments of the government are supplied with secretaries,
clerks, typewriters and messengers, and as they are physically,
mentally and morally trained for the duties of life, they are highly
prized in the matrimonial market. All our common schools have a
gymnasium and swimming tank annexed to the study room; the gymnasium
being divided into two compartments, one for boys and one for girls,
with a door from each communicating with the study room and also with
the swimming tank." The tank was only four feet deep so as to remove as
much as possible the chance for a child being drowned, and no little
children were allowed in the tank without two or more boys and girls of
fourteen years of age being present.
The doors leading into the tank room were kept under lock and key and
were only opened once a day and that at the noon hour. The youngest
children, up to the age of twelve years, when they had learned their
lessons both in the forenoon and afternoon went into the gymnasium to
play, and by those means the children are physically well developed and
knowing how to swim are not liable to become frightened if thrown into
the water and know what to do to save others from drowning. They are
taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, typewriting,
typesetting and practical geometry, so as to draw lines, angles and
circles and find their volumes and areas, but algebra, astronomy,
grammar, geology, physiology, biology and metaphysics are reserved for
the high schools, where every boy and girl is sent when they are
fifteen years of age and kept there for three years at the expense of
the government. The high school is located in the district reserve as
near the center of the district as conditions will permit in the
vicinity of the court house and the Governor's residence and has
adjoining it not less than one thousand acres, according to the
population of the district, so as to make it as self-sustaining as
possible and to teach the students agriculture, horticulture and the
care and management of stock and poultry.
"We have a foundry, machine shop, woolen mill, cotton mill and chemical
works at every high school, and while both sexes are taught farming and
gardening the boys are taught mechanical trades and the girls knitting,
spinning, weaving, cooking, housekeeping and nursing, so as to know how
to take care of the sick and injured, and at the age of eighteen years
the boys are drafted into the army and serve three years, building
railways, levees, canals, irrigation ditches, docks, warehouses and
other public buildings, and the girls are sent to the chemical
factories, woolen mills, cotton mills, paper mills, flax mills, sugar
mills and tobacco factories. No exceptions are made from service; all
must serve. Both boys and girls are dressed in military uniform and are
drilled two hours in rifle practice, firing ten shots at an imitation
enemy in a military suit, stuffed with straw, in different positions,
from one hundred to one thousand yards distance, every Sunday weather
permitting and in actual war one brigade of girls is assigned to every
division of the army to carry off the wounded and nurse them and to
assist in the defense whenever it is necessary, and also to garrison
and hold the lines of communication and their presence in the field has
been so inspiring to our boys that they never have turned their backs
to the enemy."