[_Continued._]
“From what you have told us about your eating and drinking, Mr. Midith,
I have learned so many new ideas that I should like to have you give
us an explanation of how you teach and inculcate cleanliness, and what
sanitary regulations you have,” requested Viola.
“Very well,” said Mr. Midith. “In the first place, our conveniences for
bathing are excellent, and we generally bathe at least once a day. In
the parks we have, as I have already told you, large artificial lakes,
which are supplied with water by a fountain, fed by the electric pump
at the big-houses. These lakes are fenced so that children can not fall
into them. During fine weather in summer, we generally bathe and swim
in these shady lakes. Little children who have not yet learned to swim
have a separate department with a shallow lake in which children cannot
drown. In these shallow lakes children, under the instruction of older
swimmers, learn to swim. This practice makes us all good swimmers. By
example, we teach that bathing and swimming are healthy and useful,
as well as delightful exercises after we have accustomed ourselves to
them. When the weather is unfit for bathing in the lakes, we use the
numerous bath-rooms in the big-houses. Each private apartment is also
furnished with a wash-stand and hydrants containing both hot and cold
water.
“All of us, men and women, young and old, wear our hair cut short. We
think it is more healthful and freer for the head. The hair is also
more easily kept clean and in order. We teach how to keep our finger
and toe nails clean and trimmed by practicing it on our infants, little
children, and on ourselves in the presence of our older children, who
are beginning to be able to care for their own personal cleanliness.
By cleaning and brushing our teeth in the morning and after each
meal, we teach how to care, at least in part, for our teeth. We have
learned that our teeth are organs of digestion, and, that if they are
poor, digestion will be impaired. To preserve sound teeth, we must not
bite any hard substances such as nuts, etc., that are liable to crack
the enamel; we must also keep them clean, so as to prevent them from
decaying. A dentist should frequently examine the teeth, and if he
finds them unsound, we should have them cared for in time. How to care
for the other organs of special sense, we teach in a similar manner,
always practicing ourselves, and doing for our helpless children from
infancy what we desire them to do in after-years. By these lessons,
our children, as they grow in years, learn to do for themselves what
they had done for them by others during infancy. The habits, by use,
gradually become pleasurable. Thus, we always teach by example, keeping
in mind that hygienic lessons which are good for children are also good
for older persons, and what is not worth doing for adults is not worth
doing for our children.”
“What about dress?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Some time ago you told us that
your ladies wear no dresses. Will you now favor us with a description
of your costume as worn by your ladies and gentlemen, and also how you
teach your children the best manner of dressing?”
“From what I have already told you about dress,” continued Mr. Midith,
“it is readily seen that we teach the wholesomeness of frequent
changes. In dressing, like in everything else, we make health and
comfort our guide. Those decorations and ornaments which put the body
most completely in harmony with the phenomena of life and health are
esteemed the highest by us.
“All the clothes we wear are easily washed and ‘done up.’ Our steam
washers can do an immense amount of laundry work in a short time. After
our day’s labor, we always change clothes. When at leisure, we are all
dressed neat and clean, as well as tidy and comfortable. No one can, by
the appearance of a person, tell the miner and engineer from the editor
and clerk, nor the washerwoman from the music teacher. All are wealthy,
educated and refined. One kind of labor is considered as honorable as
another, provided it be productive labor, the only kind we now have. We
have neither master nor servant, therefore, we have no distinction in
dress. All have plenty to dress in the height of fashion.
“Our clothing is adapted to suit the seasons of the year. Our children
are to the fullest extent so dressed that health and comfort take
precedence over decoration, ornament and grotesque patterns. Hence any
garment, which is clean, healthful, convenient and comfortable, grows
more and more beautiful to our sight as our esthetic sense gradually
and slowly unfolds by evolution.
“It is, of course, utterly impossible for me to tell you all about the
various styles, patterns and suits which are worn by the ladies and
gentlemen on Mars. A few general remarks at the beginning may, however,
aid you in getting a better understanding of what is to follow in the
more detailed description.
“The manufacture of cloth on Mars, as you will infer, is much in
advance of that on earth. We manufacture, with abundance and with the
greatest of ease, fabrics so beautiful and delicate that the people of
earth would wonder how it were possible for the human hand to attain
such skill. Your finest fabrics are but a coarse beginning as compared
with those on Mars. Now you must remember, too, that we do not, like
you, manufacture a grade of good goods and a grade of poor goods. In
a world where every person has all he possibly wants, no one will
ever wear _poor_ goods. But, on earth, where some are poor and some
are rich, the poor people have to wear coarse and cheap goods, while
the rich wear a better grade. Of course, we have different kinds of
fabrics, best suited for the different kinds of occupations, etc., but
they are always of the best quality for _that_ purpose.
“On Mars every person gets his garments made to suit his individual
taste. No one imitates another unless it suits his fancy. All of us are
equal authority on style. We have no Ward McAllister to imitate nor
have we any dressed in rags. On earth, where one is rich and therefore
honored, and the other is poor and therefore scorned, you have what you
call a ‘fashion,’ because all are endeavoring to imitate the _former_
as closely as possible, because every person, who is not utterly void
of self-respect, delights in wearing the mark of honor and prosperity.
Thus, all of you are striving to get as near ‘The Four Hundred’ and
as far away from those dressed in rags as possible. This contest
originates and maintains your ‘fashion.’ But, on Mars, everything is
style, and nothing grows out of style.
“I may say here that a lady’s common summer costume generally consists
of a plain, light felt hat; a loose sailor’s jacket, or shirt-waist;
full, loose trousers or divided skirt, as your ladies sometimes call
it, often narrowed to almost a close fit about midway between the knee
and ankle; but the lower extremities of the pantaloons are often less
narrow, fitting over a pair of shoes or boots with low heels, and large
enough for a comfortable existence of the feet. These, together with
the finest and most suitable undergarments, a few tasty decorations and
her mirthful, healthy, handsome countenance, constitute a lady’s common
costume when she is engaged in her ordinary occupation. In the winter
she wears a fine, comfortable head-dress, a warm, short coat when out
walking, bicycle riding, or when engaged in any other outdoor sport or
exercise. When out riding in an open carriage she wears a long, heavy
overcoat and other garments to correspond and suit the taste of the
occasion.
“The gentlemen, for common use, also wear plain felt hats, somewhat
larger than the ladies’; a ‘fancy’ shirt, with collar and cuffs of
the same material attached; a neat, delicate necktie, and suits and
underwear not unlike yours here.
“Of course, every lady, as well as every gentleman, has a large number
of suits and other changes, made up in widely different styles to suit
the occasion, as each individual sees fit. In a state of high culture
and a well-developed esthetic sense, the mind appreciates variety,
accompanied with health, convenience, comfort and beauty. Some suits
and garments are for the fore part of the day, some for labor, some for
leisure, some for the latter part of the day. Some are almost tights;
such as, for some games, bicycle-riding, etc.; some are very loose and
thin during hot weather; some for the public parlors, some for the
halls, some for visiting, some for travel, some for each occupation;
some for the private apartment, when alone; some for the private
apartment, when one has company, etc.
“From what I have said about clothes, it, no doubt, becomes plain to
you that, in a world and age in which people appreciate good health,
love liberty, enjoy real comfort and esteem the greatest conveniences,
there is no room for an unmanageable hat, tight shoes, tightly laced
corsets, a plug hat, stiff shirtfronts and skirts of any kind, whether
short or trailing. From historical knowledge you all know that in
‘olden times’ your men wore shirts and other flowing gowns, the same
as your ladies still do. But your men, in your highest civilized
countries at least, on account of having a little more freedom to act,
have long outgrown the skirt and robe, except, perhaps, a few priests;
and just so will your women outgrow them as they become a little more
independent socially, industrially, financially and sexually. A good
sign of the coming change is, that a few of your foremost ladies have
already laid aside their skirts.
“Our dress, then, as you will infer from my description, is all made of
the best and finest fabrics, of endless variety in style, scrupulously
clean, handsomely made, perfectly comfortable, highly healthful,
remarkably convenient yet extremely simple.
“I am well aware that some of your so-called fashionable ladies and
your dudish gentlemen, who are not infrequently trying to hide their
ill-health partly contracted from their unnatural dress, with paint,
would sneer at our plain, tidy, comfortable costume, no matter how
clean and healthful it be. But, I am certain, that our clean, plain,
convenient dress would not seem so strange and ridiculous to you
as your unnatural, pinching and, am sorry to say, too often soiled
garments would appear to us. Just think how your ladies, who are
forbidden by your one-sided society to solicit the love of their
choice, must decorate and ornament themselves in gaudy costumes to
attract attention in order to catch a husband, or be left without one
in your cruel social and industrial world in which a single woman has
but a slim chance of making a comfortable living. So much for dress.”
“How about exercise, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Do you consider it
very essential to full development and good health, and, if so, how do
you teach it?”
“We teach that healthful outdoor exercise is absolutely essential for
the highest physical and mental development and for the maintenance of
good health. We think it is one of the most invigorating forms of food
a person can take; and we teach how to take it on the same principle as
we teach other things. The adults practice it in the presence of the
young, and the child naturally takes to it by imitation and pleasure
under our favorable conditions.
“First, before our babies can walk, they are taken out in
baby-carriages, tricycles made for carrying babies, electric carriages,
motors and trains. When the weather is pleasant, they play in the
outdoor nurseries; when unpleasant, they are in the house-nurseries and
other parts of the ‘big-house.’ As soon as they are a little older,
but still require a nurse with them, they are taken into the parks,
lakes and fields. Our children are left without a nurse at a very young
age. They choose their own games, their own exercises and their own
amount of labor. As I have said before, we do not govern our children
by physical force. All our buildings and other things are as much
constructed and arranged with a view to suit and accommodate the wants
and desires of the child as the wants and desires of the adult. Our
railroads and motor-lines are all fenced, so that no danger can befall
them there. We have no open wells and cisterns. The doors and gates are
nearly all self-closing and noiseless. Lamps and matches are rarely
used. Our principal aim is to provide a suitable school-house, and then
let the child’s environment impress it with useful information.
“As our children grow older, they begin to do light work, both in the
house and outdoors, which serves as part of the physical exercise
necessary for full development and vigorous health. This daily work we
generally keep up as long as we live. Not that we are obliged to do
so on account of poverty, but, because by long, delightful practice
our daily labor has become pleasurable exercise. The work is easy, the
day is very short, and the exercise of it, we believe, conduces to
the fullness of life. _Work_, as we have seen under these conditions,
gradually changes into _play_. Your people here despise and condemn
labor so, because your working-day is so long, your labor so hard, your
conveniences so few, your pay so small, and your bosses so cruel and
dictatorial. That is, your manual and industrial school-houses are not
well-furnished. You have careless, incompetent directors and teachers
in these branches of instruction.
“During our leisure hours, which are, of course, very numerous, men,
women and children go out walking, bicycle riding, swimming, playing
outdoor games, and ride on carriages, motors and trains. When the
weather is unpleasant, we take our exercise in our large halls and
parlors. The upper story of our main building is covered with glass.
This enables our children and ourselves to get all the sunshine we
want during our clear, cold winter weather. A ride or walk around this
great hall is more than a quarter of a mile. In taking exercise, as in
everything else, we make our feelings the guide of how long we ought to
continue. As soon as we feel fatigued we cease our exercise, whether it
be work or play.
“You see there is a great difference here between our system and
yours. You have a large class of people; in fact, nearly all who have
to over-exercise by manual labor--have to work themselves stiff and
deformed. Then you have another class who take scarcely any outdoor
exercise--your city ladies, etc. It seems that you do not appreciate a
robust lady. You teach her that she must remain quietly at home until
her suitor comes to take her out; and he, perhaps, has his other girl
out. Your society forbids your maidens to take a bicycle or a carriage
to go after their suitors, except on occasional sham leap-year parties.
The majority of your married city ladies, under the burdens of husband
and children, are entirely unable to take sufficient outdoor exercise;
and even if they had the time and opportunity, they would have no other
place for it than a smoky city and a muddy sidewalk.”
“That is very true!” exclaimed Mrs. Uwins. “Overwork on the one hand,
and want of healthful outdoor exercise on the other, are playing sad
havoc with health here. We see very few graceful forms and healthy
looking faces as we pass along the streets of our cities and towns.
“This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask you some time ago,”
continued Mrs. Uwins, “and that is, How do you teach regularity of
habits? For you undoubtedly are orderly, prompt, and regular in your
habits. Health requires regular intervals of alternate activity and
rest, which vary with age and other conditions.”
“Yes, we attach a great deal of importance to order, promptness and
regular habits. We teach them to our children by practicing them
ourselves. We are regular with our set meals, our work, our leisure,
our exercises, our studies, our bathing, our dressing, our games, our
rising, and our retiring. We have learned, by sad experience, the same
lessons that you are now learning; the lessons that regular periods of
rest and sleep are absolutely necessary to good vigorous health, and
as we aim to make all our conduct conform to the phenomena of life and
health, it is certain that we have acquired regular orderly habits of
life.
“You see our social and industrial system allows us plenty of leisure
time for sports, during the day; we need not steal it from our night’s
rest, like you do at your night dances and parties, at which a large
number dance, drink, and not infrequently debauch all night and work
hard all next day. No one could induce us to do that. About eight or
nine o’clock in the evening, we all retire to rest in our own private
apartments, and soon after everything is as quiet and silent as death.
We, no doubt, would be called cowards by you for not daring to infringe
on our health by a night’s carousal, the same as you would be called
cowards by your savages for not daring to do what a cannibal delights
in doing. When I first learned of your irregular night’s habits, they
seemed perfectly cruel and barbarous to me. How men, and some women,
too, were all night long under the influence of liquor; how they
exercised themselves into perspiration; how all human decency wilted
in them; how women sold themselves in order to make a living; how
they were betrayed and deceived when life and ambition were nearly
extinct; how children, hungry and half-dressed, were lying all around
sleeping. When I saw all these violations, besides countless others, my
astonishment of meeting so many faces bearing the marks of disease and
dissipation gradually vanished. I thought it so strange that men and
women could not see the injurious effects of such a night’s career, or
that they could be so careless and indifferent to health.
“It was in the foregoing field of contemplation that I first noticed
most clearly the utter viciousness of your social and physiological
school, your feebleness and impracticability of your methods of
teaching, and of your boasted civilization and institutions of
learning. To me they seemed a mere mockery. Your so-called superior
rarely ever did himself what he preached. Your lessons nearly always
consisted of words only.
“There are numerous other topics of physiology that we teach in a
similar manner as the foregoing.
“All apartments of our dwellings are abundantly ventilated and lighted,
either naturally or artificially, by the straight or refracted sunbeam.”
“Mr. Midith, how do you teach history?” asked Mr. Uwins. “I believe
that _we_ are wasting much valuable time in studying comparatively
worthless history,” continued Mr. Uwins. “We largely teach dates,
battles, names of rulers, explorers, discoverers, names of religious
denominations to which they belonged, the size, weight, and temperament
of kings and queens, the ones whom they married, how many divorces they
obtained, how many cattle they owned, how many years the king survived
the queen, the composition of their crown, etc.
“All this is of comparatively little value and soon forgotten, because
it does not depend on principle. It does not ‘conduce to the fullness
of life.’ It does not make our homes brighter and happier. It does not
elevate the people. It does not improve our intellect. In my opinion,
it is immeasurably more useful and important for us to know how to
enlarge the power of prevision--‘power of looking into the future’--by
which we are enabled to avoid or remove the stumbling blocks of the
future, so as to leave the road of progress in the future less bloody
than we have left it in the past. To know that it is a plausible
presumption that the late Civil War in the United States augmented,
in one form or another, the aggregate slavery, is worth much more than
a thousand trivialities of chronological history. An acquaintance of
these principles enables us to avoid conflicts in the future, but no
amount of chronological matter will.”
“Our idea of history, Mr. Uwins, is almost similar to yours. We
have long ceased to study and commit to memory such trivialities of
history as you have just mentioned. We endeavor to develop historical
principles, which enable us to unlock the future by the experience of
the past. The philosophical part of history is the valuable portion.
The science of history did not develop as rapidly with us as nearly all
other sciences, and I find the same to be true with you also. But we
have now some very excellent historical productions; productions by the
side of which Mr. Buckle’s history appears to be in its infancy.”
“How do you teach the higher sciences?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“We have a laboratory which is in charge of an expert chemist. In this
laboratory we keep a full supply of apparatus, drugs and chemicals;
we can get all the practice and information we desire. We also have a
scientific department well supplied with philosophical apparatus of
all kinds. This department is in charge of able scientists who will
give you all desired information. We have an inventor’s shop fitted up
with all necessaries. In astronomy, our apparatus is grand and almost
perfect. Biology, zoology, psychology, etc., we learn by practical
experience, by individual inquiry, by reading, by lectures, and in
countless other ways.
“We must here keep in mind that not all instruction furnishes the mind
with useful information. For example: If we were taught that fire
does not burn, such teaching would be worse than no teaching; because
it stores the mind with falsehood which requires evidence to remove
before we can get at the truth of the case. So in all other cases where
falsehood and superstition are taught as truth. That knowledge only
which adjusts us more and more in accord with the facts of the universe
is worth learning. We should strive only for the acquisition of that
intelligence which makes us better, and, therefore, happier men, women
and children; all other knowledge is not worth learning.
“I now wish to compare a few of your educational lessons with ours;
but, before I proceed, let me again tell you that I do not mean to
cast any reflections on your mode of living, on your manner of eating,
on your style of dress, nor on your methods of teaching. I am fully
convinced that you, the same as all other beings, are doing the best
you have learned. I am also further convinced that we deserve no
particular praise for our somewhat advanced stages of intellectual
culture. All sentient beings are creatures of circumstances, over
which they have no control. None of us can act beyond the sphere of
our highest endowments. We must either act _within_ this limit or be
quiescent. Our personal and ancestral environment impresses us with
intelligence, and that organized intelligence is the motive force that
impels all of _us_ and all of _you_ to act in accordance as we are
connected with the chain of antecedents to our present being. A longer
lapse of time and more favorable conditions have made us what we are,
and, no doubt, the same conditions, as they come to pass on earth, will
bring you where we are now on Mars. So please bear in mind that all the
comments I shall make concerning your affairs and institutions are made
from a sincere motive, and not with a view of casting reflections.
“It is, no doubt, natural and good for the advancement of humanity
on all planets that we all find greater delight in having our good
qualities pointed out than we do in being reminded of our faults; but
we must know our faults before we can consciously correct them, and
with this view, I shall endeavor to make what I consider some of your
faults, as conspicuous as possible, and I invite you to do the same
with me.
“Your system of education is too much confined to a cheerless building,
which you call a school-house. That these public school-houses are
unnatural, cheerless places, may be evidenced by the fact that scarcely
any of your adults and parents ever visit them; for, if they were
natural and agreeable, they certainly would. The management of your
so-called school is too much in the hands of scheming politicians. You
employ, as a rule, cruel, incompetent teachers. You resort to physical
force--first, to support the public school by compulsory taxation; and,
secondly, to procure the pupil’s attendance, both of which are, in our
view, injurious, unjust and despotic. In a good system of education,
the school-room is perfectly free, natural and co-extensive with the
sphere of man’s activity. In a successful school every one is teacher
and pupil at the same time. Now, in making these criticisms, let us
begin at the foundation; let us look for the causes.
“In the first place, your social, industrial and sexual conditions of
nearly all your parents, and especially of your mothers, are so pitiful
that it is scarcely possible for them to bring forth descendants with
a kind, pleasant disposition. The parental silence, crabbedness,
toil, care and ill-temper concomitant with your present conditions,
are generally stamped on the child’s countenance and grafted in its
constitution long before it is born. The people of earth quarrel and
fight too much among yourselves, with your neighbors, and with nations
to produce and rear a gentle, non-aggressive, peace-loving child. You
must remember that all social beings are teachers, either for good or
for bad. The home and daily social intercourse are the most effective
school. Just as the adult is, nearly so will the child be. If the
adult is jealous, aggressive, ignorant, superstitious, dishonest,
intemperate, and rude in his conduct, so will the child be. Hence our
principal object in education should be to educate _ourselves_.
“After birth, especially during the first stages of infancy, your care
and attention given to the mother and child is almost always inadequate
and improper. The care, toil, anxiety, ill-health, your pernicious
sex-relations, and very frequently the poverty of your mothers
generally affect for ill the maternal nourishment given to the child.
By this early lesson, the child, through the instrumentality of its
food, becomes partly like its mother from the effects of its mother’s
bad condition. Thus its pernicious education begins at an age when the
child is yet unconscious of its surroundings. Your practice of rocking
a child is also a bad lesson.
“When your child gets a little older, I notice that nearly all
your parents teach their babies, in an unconscious way, to become
cry-babies and bawlers; this assertion may seem strange to many of you,
but it is nevertheless a fact.
“I have noticed in my travels thousands of children, some younger and
some older, that would set up a cry as soon as the mother would appear
in their presence or sit down, and no doubt all of you have seen the
same. You see the cry-baby has discovered that its mother or some one
else will take it up as soon as it sets up a cry. With this cry-weapon,
it has been successful so often that it will constantly employ it as a
means to gain its end, and every such successful effort makes the cry
louder and longer and more frequent, if necessary.
“But the foregoing lesson is by no means the worst one I have seen your
parents and nurses teach your children during infancy. I have met a
number of cases where a child completely tyrannized over the mother,
and over the whole family; that it would first _cry_ and bawl in order
to be taken, then to have the taker walk the floor with it, and then,
in a few extreme cases, have the taker _run_ instead of _walk_ the
floor. I have also seen where a mere infant was so well trained by
mischievous instruction that it would set up a fierce cry whenever the
walking mother or nurse would come anywhere near a chair or sofa, upon
which she would apparently seat herself. I have, furthermore, seen
hundreds of children here on earth whose training has been so unnatural
that they would not retire without the mother or nurse lying down
with them, soothing them to sleep, or without rocking them to sleep.
All these cry-babies enforce their mandates by a cry or bawl; and the
more the cry-baby is successful the more it will employ this weapon,
which can be wielded with so much success among those who are not
much familiar with human nature and with human welfare. Our children
scarcely ever cry. We do not teach them to cry. We give them the very
best of care and attention, but let them know from the beginning that
they can not only not accomplish anything by crying, but that they, by
crying, bring upon themselves the displeasure of all their companions.
We never take a child or infant because it cries. And if it should
begin to cry while in our lap, we would immediately put it down and
not take it again until it puts on a _smiling_ face. Thus, you see, we
teach our infants and children from the earliest beginning to employ
pleasant, agreeable means to accomplish their purposes, while your
infants and children, with your vicious methods of teaching, accomplish
their objects by setting up a cry or bawl, and sometimes this cry
includes the greater part of the day and night.”
“But what would you do with a crying baby if you had strangers in the
house?” asked Viola.
“Why, I would do the same as I would if there were no stranger. I
would always employ those known means that would produce the best
results, whether strangers or no strangers. As I have stated before,
if a child receives the proper training from infancy, it rarely ever
cries. The greatest cry-baby, I think, can be cured from the annoying
habit of crying by proper training and kind treatment in a few months’
time, but not by your method of training. I have often noticed in your
private families, who have strangers or guests with them, that the
mother would try every means but the right one to keep her child from
crying, so as not to annoy her guests or boarders; but the more she
tried the greater was her failure; the more she amused and humored
the child the more it cried for amusement. Thus her companions become
the victims of a nuisance caused by the mother’s inadequate knowledge
of human nature. Children, as well as adults, should be free to make
their own amusements. The intent of those who produce this vast army
of cry-babies and ill-tempered children is, no doubt, as good as that
of the Inquisitor and witch-killer was; but for all that it is a
lamentable defect.
“Again, let us not forget that the pernicious effect of this cry-lesson
does not end here. There is a still deeper and more fatal evil
connected with it. To illustrate: Crying involves an expenditure of
vitality, not only on the crier, but also on those who make an effort
to silence the crier, and on all who are annoyed by it.
“Once more: A child that has fallen, or has hurt itself otherwise, in
a way for which nothing can be done to alleviate the pain, should not
be picked up or be soothed by parents and adults. It should be made to
understand that it came to grief by its own acts--by a violation of
a natural law. If under these conditions, it receives sympathy from
others, it will soon cry for it. The sufferer, if sympathy is lavished
upon it, will begin to infer that the injury was brought about by a
personal agency controlled and influenced by the sympathizers. The
child should learn as early as possible that the so-called laws of
nature are constant and uniform, and do not bend to suit its whims,
but that its conduct must conform to the laws. The latter course will
tend to make a child intelligent and look for causes, while the former
makes it superstitious and ignorant.
“Some mothers tell me that my way of treating and teaching infants
and children in these cases is cruel, cold and distant. But the real
trouble is that these mothers and others do not see their _own_ cruelty
and indifference. The cruelties and negligence these mothers practice
on their children are perfectly shocking to me. They are cruelties
which their poor children must carry with them all their lives. Let
me see if I can make my meaning clear to you. Crying, especially when
accompanied with anger, is a violent strain on the nervous system; it
also causes a physiological waste, which must be repaired by additional
food. Now this additional food tends to impair digestion, and the
impaired digestion affects circulation--the function of the heart.
Thus, the violent exertion of crying, which is nearly all brought about
by your vicious training and teaching, produces nervousness, weakness
and general ill-health. Nearly all your children one meets are affected
more or less in this manner; and children who are affected thus would
continue to be fretful for a while, no matter how favorable the
conditions would be made; yes, even if they were taken in the society
of Mars. It seems so strange to me that parents can not see these plain
facts; but, as a rule, they do not see them here, and seem to care less
about discovering them. Thus many of your parents make imbeciles of
their children and they do not know it; and if this is not cruelty and
coldness, I am sure I do not know what is.
“Allow me to inform you of one other very vicious practice in your
nursery. Long-continued superfluous paternalism and parental
assistance, like many of your parents and other adults unwisely lavish
upon offspring, even at the present age of your world, greatly and
perniciously _lengthen_ the period of infancy in an _individual_. Many
of your young men and women are, on this account, little more than
grown-up babies, having scarcely any self-reliance and originality.
Thus is the period of infancy lengthened in an individual; and such
superfluous paternalism and assistance lavished upon offspring as a
_race_ during countless ages, is, in the opinion of the Marsites, one
of the causes of the lengthened period of infancy and helplessness
which we find existing in the offspring of the different species of
organisms, as we ascend in the scale of the animal kingdom. But, as
mankind rise to a certain point of intelligence, they direct their
course of action by conscious wisdom acquired by long-continued
ancestral and personal experience, instead of following only the
thoughtless, primitive instinct.
“Thus we see that the period of infancy is continually lengthened by
a rise of intelligence up to a _certain point_, and that from this
maximum period it slowly begins to shorten, as the higher parental
wisdom and truer affections make the child constantly more self-reliant
by throwing it, under favorable conditions and at an earlier age,
more and more on its own resources and independence, by which all the
child’s faculties are harmoniously unfolded by an earlier independent
course of action. This higher and broader wisdom of the adult has, in
the course of time, greatly shortened the period of infancy on Mars.
“A Marsian child, as we have already seen, has a healthy and vigorous
pre-natal (before birth) growth, to begin with. After birth it is
never over-burdened with manual labor; inactivity, dissipation,
constraint, and paternalism never stunt the full development of body
and mind, and poverty leaves no regretful marks on its after-life,
while your children on earth, as a rule, are, on the one hand,
largely over-burdened with toilsome labor and a vicious pre-natal
existence, and, on the other hand, inactivity, dissipation, constraint,
paternalism and poverty nearly always prevent the full and harmonious
unfoldment of their faculties, and this tends to lengthen the period of
infancy and helplessness.
“There is still one other lesson, which, of all the countless bad
lessons you teach, is perhaps the worst one. I mean, of course, the
flogging of children. To begin with, under right conditions, it is
not only useless, but actually harmful in all its consequences. It
irritates both parent and child. It makes a tyrant of the stronger and
a slave of the weaker. It teaches a child to be cruel, because one who
is reared in an atmosphere of cruelty can not help being cruel himself.
This instruction dwarfs and often withers the higher feelings of
affection and amiability.
“For my part, I do not see how a parent or friend can gather around the
bedside of his sick or dying child whom he has misused. How he can,
during its dying hour, gently press these poor, tiny fingers with that
hand, which, more than once, cruelly struck it. How he can look into
those longing, wide-open, staring eyes from which he has often caused
the tears to flow. How, after such despotism, such kicks and cuffs,
he can draw nearer to those arms which are so imploringly stretched
out toward him in its agony, when the last tremor gently steals over
the voiceless lips of that suffering, dying child. How he can impress
a parting kiss on those open, pallid lips, which he has often cruelly
hushed. How he can gaze on those pale sunken cheeks that were once so
round and rosy. How he can smooth the forehead which is now covered
with cold perspiration with that same hand which not long before
outraged it with violence. How he can remove the pressure from the
heaving bosom, gasping for breath. How he can, in the last moment of
its life, embrace one whom he has treated more like a slave than like
an equal. How he can summon sufficient courage to cast the last look at
the now poor, pale, withered, lifeless handful of dust that was once
aglow with life and health. How he can repress the tears of regret and
repentance when bitter recollections of abuse, negligence, and violence
committed on that harmless, innocent, lifeless little prattler, come
crowding thick and fast into his memory.
“It may be that the earthly inhabitants can see how all these
things can easily be done; but for a Marsite they would seem almost
impossible. Here, then, a mundane being can do what would seem utterly
impossible for a Marsite to do.
“But the evil training of your youths does not end here. For example:
Nearly all your parents, teachers, preachers and other persons take the
part of a child complaining against the conduct of another child. This
is one of the most unholy lessons you can teach. Let me illustrate my
meaning more clearly. A number of children are playing outdoors. One
strikes or otherwise offends another. The offended one will begin to
bawl in order to attract the attention of the mother in the house, or
it will go to the mother to state its actual or imaginary grievances.
The mother, who, as a rule, knows very little about human nature,
immediately loses her temper and plays general havoc with the real or
supposed offender; first, by asking him a series of questions which
tend to make a liar out of the child, and secondly, by beating the
offender, which act makes a worse despot out of the mother than the
offending child was. But remember that this is not all the harmful
results brought about by your method on this point. If, during the
inquiry, the child believes it can escape further punishment by telling
a falsehood, nine times out of ten it is tempted to do so, in order to
get out of its predicament. Thus it becomes plain that the mother’s
course of action offers a premium on lying.”
“But what would you do with such an offender?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“Would you let one child pound and abuse another without interfering?
Would you let your neighbor’s child kick and beat your own?”
“Let me explain, Rev. Dudley,” said Mr. Midith. “My reply to the first
part of your interrogatory is that I would change the _conditions_
which produce such offenders. Then you ask, ‘Would you let one child
pound and otherwise abuse another child, perhaps a younger one, without
interfering?’ My reply to that is, that your very interfering made
the _one_ child a ‘pounder,’ as you call him, and the other one a
whining complainer. If your adults would not resort to ‘pounding,’ your
children would not. Your children are only imitating your example. What
a prominent part in the mind of the child the rod plays in domestic
life is demonstrated by the fact that whenever your children play
house, the child who represents the father or mother is generally
applying the switch to the others. From what I have seen, I believe
that your children are not half as cruel in many respects as your
adults are.
“If you would never give any encouragement or attention to a
complaining tattler, there would be no such tattlers and complainers.
It is the encouragement and success with which the complainer meets at
your hands which make him a complainer, and the greater his success the
more frequently he will resort to it.
“A child, in order to become the completest person, must, from the
beginning, be left free to adjust its own social affairs. All parental
and governmental interference and paternalism is a hindrance in the
process of attaining the highest social plane.
“Many of your parents also require their children to get the parent’s
permission whenever the child desires to go any place. This method of
training likewise tends to make schemers and fibbers. A child who is
desiring to go some place will, if it deems it necessary to get the
parent’s consent, fabricate most any story to gain its point. Perhaps
most of your parents now living know that from personal experience.
“Our children go when and where they please. They are capable
and experienced because they have been taught in the school of
self-reliance from infancy. We, as adults, have fitted our social
conditions so that our self-reliant child can easily grapple with any
emergency that it might meet. We keep no places below the dignity of
a child’s presence. Our children never tell fibs because we offer
no premium on a lie. We never scold nor flog them. They know this,
and do, therefore, never hesitate to say what they did and what they
want. We treat them as children that must grow in wisdom by a wider
experience. They never tattle or complain of their companion’s conduct
because we never pay any attention to their complaints. We have no
cry-babies and our children are always models of affection to all,
because they receive the kindest possible treatment and the widest
possible freedom consistent with their physical powers.
“Thus for want of a little more psychological knowledge, your people
generally make a cry-baby and an infantile tyrant out of the baby and
child, a drudge out of the mother and nurse, and slaves out of those
who are annoyed by the cries, confusion and noise made by the mother
and child. By this pernicious instruction, you are annually more than
wasting millions of days of destructive labor, which greatly lengthens
your day’s labor and detracts greatly from the happiness of all
concerned.”
“But are you not digressing from your subject?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“I understood you to say, Mr. Midith, that you were going to compare
our school with yours. You have been all this while speaking of home
training instead of school education. I should like to have you show us
some defects in our public school system. It has stood the criticisms
of generations and I believe that it is almost perfect.”
“You remember, Rev. Dudley, that I stated at the outset that any school
or system of education that does not include the home training is too
narrow and unnatural,” said Mr. Midith. “I am aware that I have so
far not spoken in particular of your _public schools_, as you call
them. I am well aware of the fact that most of your people, I may say
nearly all of them, have implicit faith in the work of your public
schools, and this pride is very likely relatively well-founded. Every
stage of intellectual culture is accompanied by a certain system of
education and training; and very likely your present public school,
with your social, industrial and sexual relations so sadly out of
tune, is as good as can acceptably be received by the masses. It, very
probably, just about fits with the other conditions and institutions
of your present age. All that any of us can do, in any world, is to
think our best thoughts and use the best means which they bring about.
Therefore, I shall, at least for the present, not attempt to deny but
that your public school system, as established in the United States, is
_relatively_ good.
“What I want to show you, if I can, is that your public school system
is by no means faultless, and that all those who are unprejudiced and
believe in progress should not feel satisfied until all its faults and
blemishes are removed, for progress consists of the process of removing
faults and errors; but before we can consciously and deliberately
remove a fault or an error, we must find it; and as you have requested
me to point out the faults and errors of your public school system, I
shall, at least in part, endeavor to comply with your request. I say
in part, for I believe that it would require too much time for us to
point out all the faults and demerits if it were measured by a Marsian
standard of right and wrong, or even if it were judged by the standard
of your own best thinkers.”
“Oh, it may be that our public schools contain a slight defect here and
there, but I can not see them, and I believe they are quite difficult
to find, too,” said Rev. Dudley.
“Let us see, then, whether we can point out a few defects.
“1. As a rule, you demand your children, little and big, formally to
attend your public schools for six hours a day. During these six hours
you demand or force them to be quiet and silent; and as a child for its
full development requires constant activity in all directions, these
demands are an infraction against the laws of youthful life and health.
“2. To create a desire for inquiry should be the chief aim in the
acquisition of an education; and the development of this desire you
greatly frustrate or positively prevent by demanding your children in
your public schools to study just such branches at just such times.
From personal experience you well know that we do not always desire to
do the same thing at the same time. No one can, therefore, prescribe an
agreeable and useful course of study for another. You as adults would,
no doubt, fiercely remonstrate against the enforcement of such an
order, yet you impose it on your children with impunity and with an air
of apparent duty.
“3. Children who have been kept quiet and silent, like you keep them in
your so-called school-rooms for a disagreeable length of time, become,
when set at liberty, rude, boisterous and noisy. That is the reason why
your school-grounds, when the pupils during recess are at play, are
such loud, rude, disgusting places. The artificially pent-up vitality
is overflowing its banks. Thus by the very method by which you intend
to make your children kind, cultivated and refined, you actually make
them cruel, uncultivated and boisterous. Now let us not forget that all
these defects lie at the very _foundation_ of your public school system
and are entirely invisible to all superficial observers.
“4. When _many_ pupils like you have in your school buildings are,
after recess, demanded to come into the school-room immediately after
the ringing of the bell, or other signal, they, for want of time and
convenience of cleaning their shoes, rush in regardless of dust and
mud. This conduct and habit make children very indifferent and careless
of personal order and cleanliness.
“5. Your public school-rooms also cause your children to grow
disorderly and indifferent for want of proper conveniences. Many of
your schools require pupils to use paper for all their written work,
but schools provide no waste baskets or other receptacles for the waste
paper. As a natural consequence the waste paper is generally dropped on
the floor. This tends to create a habit of disorder and carelessness,
just the opposite of what you endeavor to impart.
“6. Perhaps as much as three-fourths of all your studying in your
school-room and colleges is largely done for the direct object of
recitation, examination and for obtaining diplomas. The evidence in
support of this proposition is that one seldom meets a pupil in your
public schools who cares enough for the intrinsic worth of knowledge
that he will study when no lessons are assigned. A pupil who has a
desire for knowledge and studies for the pleasure the intrinsic value
of it gives, would study even better when no lessons are assigned, for
then he is free to choose his own branches. Your graduations have also
a very evil effect. They tend to impress on the graduates the idea
that they have finished their education and need, therefore, no further
inquiry. It appears very clear to me that a vast majority of your
graduates would have a much better education in their maturer years if
they had not been affected by the graduation process. Thus you see that
the assignment of lessons, examinations, graduations and diplomas all
tend to blight self-inquiry, the only highway by which one can reach
the highest and noblest attainments.
“7. Your recitation and the showing process, which, as a rule, you
recommend so highly, instill into the mind of the pupil the idea and
habit that they can do nothing without the assistance of parent and
teacher. Thus the child is gradually taught to make no personal effort
without the telling and showing processes, and the consequence is, that
it kills nearly all originality and self-reliance in the child.
“8. Your compulsory attendance, whether enforced by parents or state,
tends to make fibbers and schemers out of many pupils who desire to
be excused before school lets out, or who desire to be excused by
parent or state. It is natural that after a pupil’s mental faculties
are exhausted for the time being, it can not continue to pursue its
studies without great bodily and mental injury. Under these conditions
the child’s healthful instinct generally prompts it to cease studying,
after which it begins its ‘mischievous pranks’ as you call them. It is
a well known fact that all minds are not endowed with like power of
endurance, yet your public schools, as a rule, make no provision for
such difference of mental endurance. You compel all to attend school
for six hours daily. Thus your compulsion tends to make fibbers and
miscreants; it injures the child’s health, prevents the spontaneous
development of its faculties and sets it against learning.
“9. Probably about one-fourth of the pupils attending school are what
you call ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls.’ They have little or no desire to
attend school and to study the assigned lessons and branches at such
a time and for such a length of time. They greatly annoy those who do
have a taste for study, and their compulsory attendance constantly
causes an increased repugnance for the school-room and for all the work
connected with it. They become thoroughly disgusted with all learning.
Thus, instead of creating a pleasurable desire for learning, you do not
even let it sprout by giving them a little freedom and opportunity.
“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.”