“How, then, do you teach the different branches, Mr. Midith, as the
pupils grow older?” asked Mr. Uwins.
“I have already explained how we learn our letter, how we learn to
print, draw and write.
“_Language._--We learn good language, because we hear it continually
spoken by our companions, who, in a system like ours, are all well
educated and good linguists. We learn to speak by speaking. In a large
family like ours, language is very good, and improves rapidly, because
there are always sure to be some good linguists who are unconsciously
and spontaneously teaching language and grammar to all the rest. Under
such conditions you can easily see that we hear scarcely any bad
language. We speak fluently and grammatically without particularly
studying technical grammar and rhetoric, which, of course, are nothing
but the language used by the best speakers and writers of the age in
which they live. That is the way we study and learn language, grammar
and rhetoric; with a higher development they grow continually more
simple. The conditions under our system brings about these favorable
and natural opportunities.
“Here, again, we have a vast advantage over you and your system. So
many of you are compelled, by want and the fear of want, to work
so hard and so long daily, that parents and children are obliged to
expend nearly all their vitality to secure the material necessaries of
life. Your families are small and many of them are living all alone
in the country. The language of parents, under such conditions, must
necessarily be very poor and their vocabulary very limited. Children
can learn very little good language from such parents. They hear much
more bad grammar at home than they get good grammar from the book and
school-house, in which it is indeed generally poor enough, too. It is
not an easy matter for one to lay aside, in later years, the ‘barnyard’
expressions which he has learned in his childhood and youth. A person
that never hears anything but good language, can not use poor language,
for language must be learned.”
“But we have many wealthy people who have all the time they want for
the study of language, how about them?” asked Mrs. Uwins.
“Those few of your wealthier classes, who hear better language and
grammar at home, and who have plenty of time to devote for its
acquisition, come in contact with so much bad language that they pick
up about as much bad as good language. In this manner there is an
immense amount of time and labor wasted here in the study of technical
grammar and rhetoric, which would be unnecessary under a properly
organized social condition.”
“How do you teach _writing_, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland.
“I have mentioned elsewhere how we learn to make our letters, and
how we keep our record in our time-book when we are yet very young.
Our next incentive for writing is our large daily newspaper, issued
by every community, as I have explained in my previous narrative. At
a very early age children are encouraged to write articles for the
paper. All of us, young and old (except infants), are contributors to
this paper; and all subjects of human inquiry are discussed. We enjoy
complete freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We allow no censor
over them. The children have a certain department of the paper allotted
to them; and the older people are much interested in the children’s
contributions, discussions and explanations. There is a wide, friendly,
open field for emulation in these newspaper columns. These newspaper
contributions are a great incentive for children, as well as adults, to
learn to write well, to express their thoughts concisely, elegantly,
forcibly and clearly. The editor makes such slight corrections as
he finds in the children’s manuscripts, which are returned to the
children, so that they can compare the printed column with the original
manuscript. In this easy, practical way, our children learn writing,
orthography, language, grammar, rhetoric, style and invention.
“Our next incentive to induce children to write is brought about by our
free and convenient system of motor travel. This travel creates a large
and wide acquaintance among children as well as among older persons.
This extensive acquaintance naturally brings about a great deal of
correspondence.
“Many of us are stenographers, and nearly all have a typewriter and a
phonograph, which are so improved and simplified now on Mars that you
would scarcely know them.
“You see in this way we have many incentives which will induce
children and adults of all ages to become proficient in handwriting,
typewriting and in composition.
“_Mathematics._--In the first place, let us not overlook the fact
that our financial, social and industrial organizations have vastly
simplified our mathematics. In weights and measures we have adopted
something like your metric system. In commercial transactions we have
no profit and loss; no stocks and bonds; no premiums and discounts; no
commission and brokerage; no stock investments; no insurance, taxes and
revenues; no interest, partial payments, true discount, bank discount,
exchange, equation of payments; no annual or compound interest; no
annuities; no partnership. This does away with nearly all the difficult
parts of arithmetic on which your children have to spend years of
unproductive and destructive labor.
“Our children learn to count as soon as they can talk. Every one with
whom they come in contact is their teacher. Figures and numbers are
taught as soon as the child begins to learn its letters. Children also
teach one another how to read and write figures and numbers, and how to
cipher. During favorable weather the slates in the nurseries and parks
are nearly always in use.
“When they grow up to be a little older, they find delight in
studying mathematics during part of their leisure time. All the
higher mathematics--algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and
various other measurements--are well understood by nearly all our
men and women. You must not forget, that on account of the Marsites’
intellectual advancement they can learn mathematics with much less
labor than they could formerly, or than _you_ can _now_.
“We have a mathematical department in each family. This department
is in charge of one person, the ablest mathematician, who holds his
position by virtue of his superior ability or mathematical genius. He
is acknowledged teacher by all, simply because he is able to solve
difficult problems better than any other member of the family. This
teacher is in his department or school-room certain hours of the day,
and all who need assistance can go there and get it. We believe,
however, that no one should ask for assistance unless it is absolutely
necessary. Every one, we think, should solve his own problems, if
possible. It makes one original and independent, the most valuable and
important characteristic with which a person can be endowed. It often
happens that not a pupil is seen in the mathematical department for
days at a time. All work their own problems.”
“But, supposing, Mr. Midith, that there would be a young man or a young
woman, who would gradually become more proficient than the teacher,
what would happen then?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Would the new rival drive
the old teacher out?”
At this remark, Mr. Midith smiled and said: “The old teacher would be
too glad to resign his position to his rival as soon as the teacher
found that he could not assist his rival any more. Even with you, where
professors are elected by politicians and where positions are obtained
with difficulty, a professor of mathematics would not attempt to hold
his position, if he found that he could not teach his students any
longer.
“_Physiology._--The study of physiology, we make very simple, pleasant
and practical. We teach the location, structure and function of the
organs of the human body, both of the male and of the female. How a
particle of soil in our garden becomes a human tissue by being first
assimilated into a vegetable, grain or fruit; how we eat and digest the
vegetable, etc.; how the nutritious part of the food is thrown into the
circulation of the blood; and how it is then carried and built up into
an organ where it is needed, as an eye, a nail, a heart, a bone, or a
brain.
“We teach that life is the first thing we receive, the most precious
fortune we own, and the last prize we can lose. Life, then, is the
standard by which all our _acts_ should be measured. Every act that
conduces to the fullness of it is relatively _right_; and every act
that detracts from the fullness of it is relatively _wrong_. All
other things must be subservient to life and health, because without
life and health we can not enjoy the greatest happiness, the _end_
of all. To care for our body, then, is the first and most important
undertaking. To have this well done by a highly complex being, we must
have a thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology, a knowledge of
the laws of life and health and the laws of reproduction. Our aim in
physiological education should be to put all our wishes, all our wants,
all our desires, and all our passions in tune with the laws of our
highest being.
“_Eating._--We teach our children by example _what_ to eat and drink
and _how_ to eat and drink. We ourselves put into practice what we wish
our children to do and what we believe to be most healthful in the way
of eating and drinking.
“For instance, the unperverted taste of the inferior animal when it
has a sufficient supply and choice of food is an almost unerring guide
in making the proper selection of the _kind_ of food it requires. If we
should eat poison instead of bread, the selection would be so fatal to
life that we would soon die. If we should select such food that cannot
be digested and assimilated, even if it is not poisonous, we would soon
have to starve. That kind of food, then, which sustains life best,
as compared with the efforts required for its production, should be
selected.
“We are vegetarians, living exclusively on vegetables, grains and
fruits, with the exception of dairy products and eggs. When I first
arrived on earth it seemed perhaps as repugnant to me to see people
eating steak as it would seem to you to see a cannibal eating human
flesh. We shrink from a carcass the same as we shrink from a corpse.”
“But, Mr. Midith, do you believe that man could get along _here_
without a meat diet?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Do you believe that
vegetables, etc., are sufficiently nourishing to sustain the burdens of
hard labor imposed upon us here?”
“I am sure I know nothing to the contrary, Mrs. Uwins,” replied Mr.
Midith. “Your horse works hard, your cow gives milk, your sheep grows
wool, and they all live and grow strong on a vegetable diet. Why should
not man do the same? The dentition (teeth) of man, too, according to
the testimony of some of your most reliable scientific authorities, is
vegetarian. It may be shown that a vegetable diet gives great endurance
and strength in man. For example, your bark-gatherers of South America,
who carry upon their backs, in a rough country, a burden of over two
hundred pounds for a distance of thirty miles or more per day, live
exclusively on bananas. The Roman soldiers endured the hardest work on
a vegetable diet. The hardworking Spaniards live on black bread, onions
and melons. The Chinese live almost exclusively on rice, and can endure
much harder work than a negro fed on fat meat.
“There is one other important reason why we are vegetarians. In our
opinion, a flesh diet is degenerating, as well as unwholesome. May it
not be possible that a human body, built up on the flesh and blood of a
carnivorous brute, cannot be expected to contain within itself genuine
purity, love and kindness toward others?
“We have also discontinued the use of all intoxicating liquor as a
beverage. Experience, not ‘prohibition,’ gradually convinced us that it
not only tears down, but never builds up. That the apparent elevated
feeling is always followed by a corresponding depression. That an
immense amount of unproductive labor has to be expended annually in
producing it. That its use caused an untold amount of misery; and that
the apparent pleasure of its use is only a slavish desire--an abnormal,
physiological derangement--a diseased condition of the system which is
continually moving in the direction of _delirium tremens_ in which it
will end, if the use is sufficiently excessive and prolonged.
“In your present stage of intellectual development, the evils resulting
from the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage are very apparent.
Liquor is an incentive to crime because it stupefies the better
feelings. It fills your prisons with criminals, who have been urged on
to their dark deeds when under its influence. It deprives countless
homes of their joy and brightness. It makes a slave of millions of
women and children, who are ruled by a lion of terror. It makes slaves
of the drinkers themselves. It wrecks constitutions and furnishes
victims for countless premature graves. It squanders wealth, kills
useful industry, suppresses kindness, invades purity and stifles
thought. It causes filth, jealousy, idleness, poverty and pauperism.
The evil effects of its use react on the drinker and reflect on his
companions. By the presence of a drunkard, the street and society are
turned into a saloon and the home is converted into a dungeon. The
drinker’s breath even pollutes the very atmosphere his companions are
compelled to breathe.
“We have also long ago discontinued the use of tobacco. We found, as
our medical science advanced, that it had a bad, physiological effect
on the user’s system. Besides this, we found that it produced many
social evils. To chew and snuff, say nothing about smoking, is very
filthy. I here sometimes see a man spit tobacco juice on the floor, and
sometimes, when the wind is high, he even misses the floor and hits
his companion. Very frequently one meets a person here who uses the
theater, parlor, postoffice, railroad car and sidewalk as a spittoon.
Sometimes his lips, whiskers and mustache are all loaded and fringed
with tobacco juice. These loathsome sights are never practiced, nor
voluntarily endured by highly cultured individuals.
“Your smoking is also a habit that greatly prevents an orderly social
adjustment; for if a smoker, on account of his companions, is prevented
from smoking, the smoker himself becomes a slave to his desire. If he
smokes in the presence of his companions, he very likely makes slaves
of his companions by polluting, with tobacco smoke, the air which his
companions are compelled to breathe. And if the smoker and non-smoker
do not associate, that tends to divide society into classes, which
produces pernicious social effects. All these abnormal habits are
unhealthy, wasteful and dangerous on account of fire, etc., filthy,
causes offensive breath, and are generally disgusting to others; for
these and other reasons we have long discontinued them. I am quite
certain that our ladies, who are free and independent, would not
tolerate men who indulged in such filthy, offensive habits as the use
of stimulants and narcotics produce. Our ancestors, generations ago,
came to the conclusion that a healthy body and mind that cannot do its
part without being animated by a stimulant or stupefied by a narcotic,
is better off in the grave than out of it.
“Thus we gradually select, by long observation and experience, that
kind of food and drink which we believe to be most wholesome and
nourishing, and which infringe least upon the rights of others; for no
one can enjoy the greatest happiness who is surrounded by companions
who are miserable. Such are a few of the practical lessons that we
teach by example concerning _what_ to eat and drink.
“_How to eat._--In eating, we notice that the instinctive desire of
the lower animals prompts them always to eat the most desirable food
first. This, then, must be the most healthful method of eating; if it
were not, nature, by the survival of the fittest, would have forced the
animals to reverse their habits of eating, the same as she forces them
to live chaste lives.
“We endeavor to establish a healthy, trustworthy appetite in our
children by always keeping an abundance of all kinds of our eatable
food before them, by giving them complete freedom in the choice of
their food and in the time of eating, always letting them eat the
most desirable food first. Under these conditions variety, abundance
and freedom admirably adjust the appetite in harmony with life and
health. There is another point which we should consider well. Excessive
labor, to which the vast majority of your people here on earth are
doomed for life, implies an excessive digestion and assimilation; for
the excessive waste of the body, caused by the excessive physical
labor, must be repaired by an excessive quantity of food. By this the
function of all the internal organs becomes excessive on account of the
excessive physical labor. This is one reason why so many of your people
are afflicted with burdensome ailments; why so many have brokendown
constitutions, and why so many die premature deaths. Nearly all of your
people seem to be old when they are yet young.”
“You say you allow your children complete freedom in the choice of
their food, always permitting them to eat the most desirable food
first,” said Rev. Dudley. “Do you think a child would ever eat
potatoes, if it could get all the pie and cake it wants?”
“Yes, I am sure it would eat something besides pie and cake,” replied
Mr. Midith. “You are here laboring under one fundamental mistake, Rev.
Dudley. Judging from your words, you are no doubt under the impression
that a person naturally prefers one kind of food to some other kind;
but that is an error. It is true that some people like one kind of
food and some another. You will find some people who think that a horse
naturally likes oats better than hay; but this is not true. Let us
illustrate:
“A horse, say in a pasture, that is at liberty to go to a load of oats
and to a load of hay at any time, beginning as a colt, eats hay with as
much relish as oats, and never eats too much of either. It will never
eat all the oats and leave all the hay; but a horse that has had hay
only for a long time, or that has been kept away from feed too long,
will, as a rule, seem to prefer oats, and will also very likely eat to
excess when left free. Perhaps the effects of overeating may at first
not be apparent; but nevertheless they may be there, and if repeated
frequently, will soon become apparent.
“Just so with a person. One who dines at a table that contains all
he desires in variety, in quantity and in quality, has no particular
preference for any one kind of food, and he will seldom, if ever, eat
to excess. His appetite has not been perverted by want nor by arbitrary
constraint. Hence our dietetical lessons are the simplest possible.
Provide plenty of everything and allow the eater complete freedom and
choice, beginning with infancy.
“Now, the conditions here on earth are much different. Let us
contemplate them for a few moments. In the first place, a large
majority of your families, under your vicious economic system, can
afford few of your so-called dainties on their tables. The consequence
is that the children, and adults, too, are hankering after eatables
which are too costly for them to buy regularly; so that, when they
do occasionally buy them, their appetite is so perverted by long
abstinence that it is no reliable guide, and overeating is almost
invariably the result. Your Christmas and other noted dinners have such
an evil effect, too.
“When we notice a child eating that is compelled to eat and drink the
lesser desirable food first--for instance, ‘potatoes,’ instead of
‘pie’--its manner of eating is entirely different from what it would
be if it had always had an abundance of all kinds of food it wanted,
and if it were left free to make its own choice in regard to what it
would eat first and what last. You will generally notice that when a
parent tells a child, which you frequently see here, that it must eat
those potatoes or that bread before it will get the so-called delicious
dessert, pie, cookies, etc., it will cram its mouth so full of potato,
in order to get them out of the way, that it almost chokes. It hurries
the bulkier food down at an unusually rapid rate, so that it may
begin at its choice food. This manner of eating prevents a thorough
mastication. The food is also swallowed before it is well mixed with
saliva. Under this constraint, all the functions of the child are
unnatural and imperfect. Your fashion forces your adults to the same
unnatural course of eating as the parent forces the child. Hence so
many dyspeptics.
“Now let us notice the difference in the course of the child’s action
when it is left free to make its own choice what to eat first. This
freedom of the child will produce an entirely different course of
eating. You will notice, in the first place, that under abundance
and freedom the child will show no particular preference for any one
kind of food; and, secondly, it will, like the inferior animals,
invariably eat the most desirable food first. Your child, when free,
would perhaps begin with pie, because pie with you, as a rule, is
not as plentiful as potatoes and bread are. In this state of freedom
it takes plenty of time for chewing and mixing the food with saliva,
because it sees nothing before it which it likes better and which it
wants to get after finishing the pie. Perhaps it plays half the time
with its knife and fork, enjoying freedom and the pleasure of eating.
After it has finished pie, etc., it begins at potatoes, etc. All this
time it eats leisurely, instead of gluttonously, as before. In this
natural order of selecting food we gain one other important--perhaps
the most important--point, which is, that the child is always coming to
something that it likes somewhat less well, which will cause it to stop
eating just when it has enough.
“There are quite a number of other practices and habits in the manner
of eating and drinking here on earth which the Marsites would consider
pernicious.
“So many of you eat too fast. Your vicious system of business often
allows you scarcely time to eat a meal decently. Instead of masticating
the food long enough to moisten it thoroughly with saliva, which is
absolutely essential to good digestion, it is often rinsed down with
tea and coffee, which is not infrequently taken with every other
mouthful of food. This frequent rinsing, or drinking when eating, is
very injurious to good digestion. Drinks, such as tea and coffee,
appear to me to have a tendency to originate and establish this habit
of frequent drinking during the meal. Experience seems to prove that
fresh water is the healthiest drink that can be taken, and very few of
us use anything else for drinking.
“Delightful feelings during meal times are conducive to good
digestion. We, therefore, particularly cultivate delightful
conversation during meal times, and make everything appear as happy and
enticing as possible. A person is generally cranky when he is hungry
and weary. Our tables are always tastily and abundantly laid. Clean
linen, finished dishes, flavored food, exquisitely arranged table
bouquets, easy chairs and clean, courteous waiters are found in our
dining-rooms. We keep an abundance of food, which is prepared by expert
cooks; but we do not believe, like you do, in wasting about as much, if
not more, of good food than is eaten, which, I believe, is often the
case in your ‘first-class hotels’ and in your ‘upper’ society.
“From the foregoing explanation you can clearly see that all the
social and industrial features are so intimately connected with
and dependent upon one another that a person can not even follow a
healthful course of eating and drinking under a viciously arranged
social and industrial organization. Without an abundant supply of all
kinds of food, we continually hanker for the scarce varieties, and
when we occasionally obtain a supply of them, our appetite has been
perverted by long abstinence, and overeating is invariably the result.
Our economic system produces abundance of varieties of food; you have
a scarcity of many articles. A good social system puts no constraint
on the child nor on the adult as to the manner of eating, so that the
appetite will always be a safe guide. Our day’s labor is so short and
our restaurant eating conveniences so perfect that we eat whenever our
system calls for it. Your work between meals is so hard and so long
that you generally become unduly fatigued, which impairs digestion.
Again, we have always plenty of leisure time for eating, while many
of you have almost to run and eat. Once more: At table, in our large,
comfortable dining-hall, or in our elegantly furnished restaurant, we
are always surrounded by mirthful company, both ladies and gentlemen,
who appreciate one another’s company, because they are perfectly free
and independent of each other, and can select as companions whom
they please, while the vast majority of you have to eat in a small,
hot kitchen, or in a small, ill-ventilated dining-room, very often
surrounded by rude, filthy, ravenous children, and an overworked, pouty
husband and wife. I have more than once noticed in your families that
not a word was said nor a smile visible during the whole meal time.
Such conditions are not very conducive to good digestion and perfect
assimilation.
“From the foregoing remarks you will learn that we teach to be natural
in our habits of eating and drinking; you are artificial. We develop a
healthy appetite by free use; you pervert it by constraint. You make
prevalent fashion your guide; we take health for it. Your artificial
system tends to cause poverty and disease; our natural system tends
to produce health and abundance. Before you can hope to give valuable
dietetical instructions you must improve your school-house in that
direction. Not until you can supply an abundance of everything for all
and give your child free scope to follow its unperverted appetite,
can you hope to produce good results in this line of instruction, and
all your efforts should be directed in these channels. Your Greek and
Latin will never do it; and your paternalism will bring you continually
further and further away from the end which you are seeking.”