"Most decidedly, sir! How could you doubt that for a moment? If
parents are obliged to maintain their children with food and the
'necessaries of life,' why should they not be compelled to look after
the nurturing of their minds?"
"Why, because the one is a moral obligation, whereas, if I rightly
understand you, school education has been made compulsory by the
law; and this would appear to me to be an infringement of individual
liberty, and of the rights of parents."
"You did understand me rightly, so far as the law is concerned;
but permit me, sir, to point out to you that you have taken a very
one-sided view of the question of compulsion. You will probably admit
that for any properly managed society to exist, every member of the
same has to sacrifice a portion of his individual liberty in the
interests of the whole of which he forms part. In many cases such
sacrifices are borne without any reluctance or opposition; then,
namely, when they are visibly and amply compensated by the many
advantages involved in our living in a well-regulated society. With
regard to the much-vaunted rights of parents, it should never be
lost sight of that the children have their rights as well; aye, from
the moment they enter upon this world; and one of these rights is
that they, born in civilized society, where ignorance is excluded
as a foreign element, must be somehow enabled to appropriate some
culture to themselves. If now the parents abuse their rights by sheer
force it becomes the duty of the state to intervene on behalf of the
weaker, and, by legal exactions, protect the children in their future
welfare. This is, at the same time, in the interests of the state;
for the experience of preceding centuries, when compulsory education
was not universally recognised, has taught us again and again that
the jails of Europe were mostly filled with those that could neither
read nor write."
"One more question permit me. Has not the introduction of compulsory
education been accompanied by great, almost insuperable obstacles?"
"That these obstacles were at least not insuperable you may easily
gather from the fact that, even in the nineteenth century, the
compulsory measure existed in some parts of Germany, and met with no
opposition. Of course, on its application to other countries, some
difficulties had at first to be surmounted; for all novelties meet with
opposition somewhere, and all changes are fraught with more or less
evil somehow. At first the measure had to be occasionally enforced
by the arm of the law, but a very few years sufficed for the legal
clause to grow into a popular habit; and the present generation,
grown up under its beneficent influence, is so deeply convinced of
the indispensability of some elementary knowledge in every member of
society, that the law might be safely repealed without fear that any
school would lose a single pupil." [8]
Bacon's arguments were by no means lost upon me; nay, it seemed now
almost strange and inexplicable to me that in an age when the word
"progress" proceeded and was re-echoed from lip to lip, so absolute
a sine quâ non of progress could have found opponents. But then I
remembered at the same time that the word progress admitted of more
acceptations than one. I was about to inquire of Bacon in what sense
the term was taken in the twenty-first century, when my eye fell upon
another row of buildings far greater in extent than those constituting
the National Library. I was informed by my guide that we had arrived
at the National Museum. "Here," said he, "are preserved some glorious
works of art and all the most remarkable objects of nature."
"I easily understand," said I, "that even the ordinary tourist would
require a couple of days to gratify his morbid curiosity in this
enceinte; but could I not see some small department at least of all
these sightworthy productions?"
"Well," answered Miss Phantasia, "let us see the collection in the
Genealogical Museum;
that is my hobby," continued she, as she stopped before one of the
edifices.
Could I trust my ears! A young lady's favourite study was genealogy;
old parchments, coats-of-arms, and heraldry her hobbies! However, I
could but follow her, and as I did so, and arrived at our destination,
I saw none of her "hobbies" at all; from one single centre, spreading
into innumerable directions and ramifications, I observed a collection
of skeletons; several of them were indeed old acquaintances, such as
the elephant, the mammoth, the mastodont, the rhinoceros, the horse,
the hippotherium, the anchitherium, the palaeotherium, the lophiodon,
etc., etc.; but a far greater number apparently represented the
remains of creatures altogether unknown to me; they were arranged,
not only according to their general dates of discovery, but also on
the basis of organic relationship, so that those forms nearest to each
other showed the nearest approach in outward appearance, whereas the
extreme forms on both sides bore the most astonishing contrast.
It now became clear to me in what sense our fair companion had used
the qualification of genealogical, not as referring to the noble
trees of families but to indicate the various ways by which the animal
species that have at one time lived on this earth had developed one
from the other. Miss Phantasia appeared to attach great value to
this genealogical collection; but still I could not help remarking
to her that this process of exhibiting the fossils of animal species
did by no means prove what it was intended to do; "for," said I,
"up to the present day there are to be found on our globe, and alive,
all sorts of mutually related forms and intermediate varieties."
"Ah, well!" exclaimed the bright-eyed, lively damsel, "you would think
differently if you were acquainted with all the new discoveries of
our age." [9]
Perfectly agreeing with Miss Phantasia, so far as my ignorance went,
I thought I had better drop the subject altogether; still I ventured to
ask her one more question: Did this museum at the same time contain
the ancestors of the human race? In reply she pointed to a row of
veiled figures in the background of the hall; but as she took my hand
to conduct me thither, Bacon stepped between us, and said, "Let not my
fair friend tempt you; you would not be able to see anything in that
dark corner over there; the evening is falling. Go you to your hotel;
we too are homeward bound."
Indeed, the evening was falling, but only in the building; for
as soon as we got outside, we found ourselves apparently in broad
daylight. I looked about me for gas-flames and lamp-posts, but I
could discover nothing of the kind. At last I looked up to the sky,
and then I saw far above the houses a dazzling light, somewhat like
the sun, spreading his rays in all directions, and several more of
these "suns" at considerable distances from one another.
"Don't you even know the