Part 3 (1/2)

My scientific men discovered a means by which the causes that produced the darkness are now used to remedy its inconveniences.

The City is made gloriously radiant. Forms of trees, birds, vases of flowers and fruit, fountains, and other designs of many tints and great beauty are transparent with light, rendered more beautiful by combination with a peculiar electricity emitted by the earth--an electricity which, be it observed, is the cause of the darkness.

The very birds by their warbling seem to greet the change, and the trees and flowers emit a more delicious perfume.

There is music and rejoicing everywhere in the City. Many of the electrical amus.e.m.e.nts provided appear grander from the contrast with the darkness they are made to displace--a contrast scarcely greater than that depicted by our ”Nature Delineators” when, in allegory, they paint the present contrasted with past times; the later years of my reign contrasted with the beginning.

V.

CHARACTER-DIVERS.

EDUCATION.

”Let none but skilful workmen elaborate precious material.”

Think not that the truly great Vyora was but little honoured by being appointed to an office connected with little children.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Ante_, p. 8.]

The character-divers were entrusted by me with grave duties, on the proper discharge of which depended the enduring success of my polity.

The education of the young of both s.e.xes engaged from the first my deepest study, for I had early convinced myself that the many evils to be eradicated had their stronghold in the mode in which education had been conducted, and soon after the commencement of my reign I put into execution a portion of my laws for making education a powerful lever in the regeneration of my world.

Men of genius had been compelled by ignorance or driven by necessity to follow occupations for which they were not fitted, and which they, indeed, often loathed; the really valuable tendencies of these men, bent in an opposite direction, were allowed to run to waste, or perhaps be used to the injury and destruction of others.

I felt that to do justice to all and effect good incalculable, evil tendencies must be destroyed in their birth, the germs of the imperfections and crimes of the man, detected and eradicated in the child; whilst valuable qualities and good tendencies must be searched out, and effective means devised for their healthful development.

The most ordinary men, those even who would otherwise be swayed by gross pa.s.sions, would become contented workmen in the cause of good when occupied with pursuits for which nature and education had fitted them; whilst the power and works of men of genius would be many times increased and multiplied if their education were adapted to strengthen and develop their talents, eradicate their faults, and generate auxiliary excellencies.

But how could all this be effected if the first step to so desirable an end were wanting?

In my visits to the schools I had been struck with the fact that little account was taken of the characters of children,--their qualifications and natural tendencies physical or mental: the attempt was to force the boy to the system, not to adapt the system to the boy.

One routine existed for all pupils, whether for the inculcation of the love of study or for the correction of faults. The earnest and pa.s.sionate nature was treated in the same way as the cold and phlegmatic; the boy of genius or talent, as the dullard; the one who loved, as he who disliked, or had a tendency to dislike, study; the weakly, as the strong. They were all driven together like a flock of sheep, with scarcely any regard to individual capabilities, bent of genius, or physical const.i.tution, which indeed little effort, and that ill-directed, had been made to discover.

I had observed, also, boys with the germs of great genius, who, for want of some minor quality, were rejected and perhaps placed in some lower division, humiliated and discouraged, although with care the deficient quality could have been supplied. The want of this perhaps would make the boy a recruit to the ranks of evil, or at least unfit him, when a man, for the real business of life. It was the small bolt wanting to enable the machine to do its work properly.

I saw the sad consequences of all this mismanagement.

Many precepts, beautiful indeed in intention, were crammed into the pupil, the process being repeated until they often became irksome, and he was expected to become moral and religious. I saw that precepts were of little use unless those whom they were meant to benefit were educated, fortified, and disciplined in the practical means of observing them.

It was at that time painful to see children, with many good natural tendencies, leave school with bad habits, and vices so marked and developed, that even the exertions of the most skilful physicians, the discourses of the most learned of our clergy, failed to effect a cure.