Visitor. What are the pupils doing in geography?
Miss White. Will someone answer our visitor?
Several pupils rise.
Miss White (choosing). Mary.
Mary (looking straight at Visitor). To-day we are to show whether or not Argentina is a progressive country.
Visitor. Aren’t you going to take just what your geography says? That’s what we did when I went to school.
Mary. Yes, but we want to know more than our geography tells before we can decide.
Visitor. Bless me! I don’t see how you’re going to get anywhere. Suppose half of you say Argentina isn’t a progressive country, and the other half say it is, and the geography says nothing—who is going to decide?
Mary. Oh, we must all prove our statements, show our authority. (Taking up a book and looking around.) See, we all have reference books. (Other pupils produce books which they hold up.) They are all different.
Visitor (walking over and peering at titles through glasses). Different! So they are—as different as our way of studying geography from one book in the past. Well! Well! What are you doing in arithmetic?