"Expert tutors, specialists in different subjects, are assigned to help them in studies which may be difficult for them. We know the dangers of overloading the young developing mind. Some minds develop sooner than others. Nature has a way of its own, in that respect. Our educational facilities are there to help but not force. It is not always the earliest proficiency which is the best.
"As the child grows up, we train him with tact and love; under no circumstances do we allow any feeling of inferiority, fear, or hate to develop. Teachers are coalescent with our students. Fear does not enter into our school curriculum. We give the students, student government. They learn from the start, self control and obedience and the rudiments of governing.
"In this way, thousands of years ago we succeeded in divesting ourselves of the primitive animal fighting instinct. We have strenuously discouraged the spirit of combativeness. We do not have nor will we allow any offensive or defensive exercises, exhibitions, or contests such as your brutal boxing and wrestling shows. We do not have any offensive or defensive instruments, arms, or weapons, since we have no need to master anyone among us. The spirit of combativeness is totally absent in our exercises; we do not train ourselves in your sciences of offense and defense. Violence of any kind is unknown.
"We are brought up in a healthy, pleasant environment, by affectionate parents who inculcate in us the feelings of serenity, happiness, and reverence for old age, and who guide us toward chastity, patience, politeness and obedience to superiors. Our parents and teachers train us in human relationship, how to become likable personalities, so we can get along with our fellow beings. Our teachers stress friendship, unselfishness, honor and loyalty. Our strict health regime keeps us healthy and free from irritability. As a result, we live in a spirit of unselfishness, loving and helping each other in the highest degree of brotherhood.
"The science of human relationship referred to by your late President Roosevelt, in a speech written before he died, but never delivered, was long ago mastered by us. In school we take courses in human relations. Our frequent attendance to lectures by our eminent psychologists has helped to develop in us the most harmonious connubial and social intercourse.
"We have no teen age problems because of our carefully planned childhoods. I have heard about your places of correction for adolescent children. To us it seems an indictment of your method of child training. The parents rather than the children should be punished. Our visitors from your earth have been telling us many things about your youth problem. They were much impressed with our lack of such problems. A Martian cannot visualize adolescents as murderers, robbers, committers of petty crime. Your habit-forming drugs and stimulants no doubt help to increase your juvenile delinquency. I was amazed to hear from one of you that statistics show your seventeen-year-olds come into trouble with the law more than any other age group.
"We do not coddle our youths; their bodies and strength are developed with careful and continual exercise and under strict discipline. We force no square pegs in round holes, nor round pegs in square holes. After their periods of education our young boys and girls are examined by experts from the professional and crafts academies, who take great pains to discover their natural talents and aptitudes so that they can not only be of great service to us but a satisfaction to themselves. We help them pass through training necessary to perfect them in their chosen careers. We try to develop their ingenuity.
"Every profession or craft is controlled by an academy for each race. The members of these academies are the governing powers and judges of promotion and demotion. They honestly promote and reward only those who are justly deserving. No one among us would want to be treated otherwise. Whereas some of your own best known colleges of learning will take poor students who are proficient in football or other sports.
"Up until the age of thirty Earth years we are still minors in our educational period; after that our boys and girls must volunteer into the general army of service. This service includes menial jobs, such as working as farm hands, laborers, servants. It also covers all general labor, such as city cleaning, dishwashing, rubbish assorting, fertilizer and garbage handling. The girls must do the menial work in hospitals as nurses' assistants or aides. All boys and girls, gain their points according to their willingness to excel in their work during their testing period. Almost all of them are fired with enthusiasm and have a strong incentive to do good work. After a year they become first grade degree citizens of Mars; then they go back to their chosen or original trades or professions as apprentices.
"All of us on Mars go through the same routine. We are supposed to have graduated from all grade schools, educational, trade, agricultural, and professional—and colleges of the highest learning; but not from postgraduate courses, which we continually take after we have already chosen our future vocations.