Part 105 (2/2)

What indeed makes us believe that so many human beings have to remain inferior to so few; that this kind of animal cannot be improved and elevated like any other kind? What makes us believe that because one man is inferior to another, therefore the other must take advantage of him? What makes us believe that while the wide earth responds submissively to our modifying hand; while we master arts and sciences, develop industries, probe mysteries, achieve marvels; we are, and must ourselves remain a set of helpless, changeless undesirables?

”But,” the professor will say to the child, ”they _felt_ thus and so, you see.” ”Felt!” that st.u.r.dy son of the future will say, ”Didn't they know that feeling could be changed as easy as anything?”

It will be hard indeed, when human nature is altered a little more, to make it patient with the besotted conviction of unalterableness that paralyzes it now.

A baby's opening mind should be placed among the most beautiful and rational conditions, specially arranged for easy observation and deduction. It should be surrounded by persons of the best wisdom now ours; and whatever it may lack of what we do not yet know to be true, it should be religiously guarded from what we do know to be false.

Every college should have its course in Humaniculture, and the most earnest minds should be at work to steadily raise the standard of that new science.

New concepts, broad and beautiful, should be implanted in each young mind; this mighty power of suggestion being used by the highest, to lift us up, instead of by the lowest, to keep us down.

What a simple process! What a blessed change! At present the child mind is entrusted to the most ignorant, and taught the oldest lies.

Soon we shall entrust it only to the most wise and teach it the newest truths.

[Unt.i.tled]

Sit up and think!

The life in you is Life--unlimited!

You rose--you'll sink-- But Life goes on--that isn't dead.

THE KITCHEN FLY

The ills that flesh is heir to are not all entailed.

We used to think that diseases were special afflictions sent by G.o.d, to be borne with meek endurance. Now we have learned that some of them grow in us like plants in a garden, that some we give to one another as presents, and some we keep as pets.

Many little go-betweens we have discovered, with legs and wings, who operate as continual mischief-makers, and among these at last looms large and deadly, that most widespread and intimate of pests--the Common Fly.

The House Fly is his most familiar name, but that should be changed. He is not of his own nature a parlor fly, nor a library fly, nor a bedroom fly; an attic fly nor a hall and stair fly; but he is _par excellence_ the Kitchen Fly.

Flies are not perennial bloomers. They have to be born--hatched from eggs, and the resultant larva have to have a Congenial Medium to be born in. The careful mother fly does not leave her little flock on a mahogany center table. Flies have to eat; they eat all the things we do, and many that we don't!

There are two main nurseries for the Common Fly in all our cities, yes, and in our country homes as well--the Stable and the Kitchen.

Unless stables are kept with the most absolute cleanliness flies are bred there.

Unless kitchens are kept in the most absolute cleanliness flies are bred there--or therefrom! Moreover the smell of hot food draws flies from afar; a kitchen even though spotless and screened is a constant bait for flies.

I was once visiting in a fine clean summer camp in the Adirondacks, where friends in combination did the work. In the main room of this place was a wide long window--one great picture, framing the purple hills. It was a good deal of work to clean that window, and we took turns at it. One day this window was laboriously polished inside and out by an earnest gentleman of high ideals. Then--in the kitchen--some one cooked a cabbage. Forthwith that front-room window was black with flies--big, b.u.mping, buzzing, blue-bottle flies. To slay them was a carnage--and they were carried out by the dustpanful.

In the country, by screening every window and door, by constant watch upon each article of food to keep it covered, one may keep one's own flies b.u.mping vainly on the outside of one's own house--except when people go in and out, and the ever-ready buzzer darts in before the swing-door shuts.

But in the city, where a million homes maintain their million fly-baiting kitchens, and each kitchen maintains its garbage pail, the problem becomes more serious.

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