"You always had a long head, John. Well, whether you like it or not, our people saw their place and power at last and rose to it. We refuse no one. We have discovered as many ways of utilizing human waste as we used to have for the waste products of coal tar."
"You don't mean to say idiots and criminals?" I protested.
"Idiots, hopeless ones, we don't keep any more," she answered gently. "They are very rare now. The grade of average humanity is steadily rising; and we have the proud satisfaction of knowing we have helped it rise. We organized a permanent 'reception committee' for the whole country, one station here and one in California. Anybody could come—but they had to submit to our handling when they did come."
"We used to have physical examination, didn't we?"
"A rudimentary one. What we have now is Compulsory Socialization."
I stared at her.
"Yes, I know! You are thinking of that geological kind of evolution people used to talk about, and 'you can't alter human nature.' In the first place, we can. In the second place, we do. In the third place, there isn't so much alteration needed as we used to think. Human nature is a pretty good thing. No immigrant is turned loose on the community till he or she is up to a certain standard, and the children we educate."
"We always did, didn't we?"
"Always did? Why brother, we didn't know what the word meant in your time."
"I shall be glad to follow that up," I assured her. "Education was improving even in the old days, I remember. I shall be glad to see the schools."