While the Old Woman speaks, the light burns dimmer. The other maidens stop their work to listen, all showing their approval of her words, and their condemnation of her who dared to dream of better things. As the Old Woman finishes, they resume their task and their monotonous tune.
Curtain
Education and Any City appear before the curtain.
Any City. Good for the Old Woman! I believe in sticking to old well-tried things. So many people believe that just because a thing is new, it is the only good thing in the world.
Education. But a greater number believe that just because a thing is old, it is sacredly all sufficient. If everybody had thought with you and the Old Woman, how would the world be fed to-day? Think you those primitive stone-grinders rival the great flour mills of the present day? How many hand-mills think you would be necessary to grind the wheat of our vast plains?
Any City. Of course, I don’t mean that I want things as they were long ago. But there are some people who are never satisfied. They are continually wanting things different.
Education. No, you don’t want things to remain as they were. You want them to stay as they are. That is all the Old Woman wanted in her time. She didn’t want to go back to the earliest days when the grain was ground only by the teeth of the consumer. Had everyone followed blindly the tradition of his own time, we should still be at the very beginning. Look you to the justly dissatisfied man for all that has made for progress in the world. Saw you not how my light brightened at the words of the maiden? Remember that, far as we have journeyed in the past, so far and perhaps still farther lies the way of the future along the Highway of Progress. Be not you bound too tightly by the bonds of old tradition.
As Education speaks the last sentence, her light plays for a moment on Any City’s paper. With a guilty air he tries to conceal it, as he follows Education behind the curtain.