Hamage laughed, and admitted that the one he was carrying home was the fourth he had bought for his boy within a month. He agreed with me that it was hard to see how a boy was to get his growth under quite so much government; but his wife, and indeed the ladies generally, insisted that the application of the phonograph to family government was the greatest invention of the age.
Then I asked a question which had repeatedly occurred to me that day,— What had become of the printers?
“Naturally,” replied Hamage, “they have had a rather hard time of it. Some classes of books, however, are still printed, and probably will continue to be for some time, although reading, as well as writing, is getting to be an increasingly rare accomplishment.”
“Do you mean that your schools do not teach reading and writing?” I exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, they are still taught; but as the pupils need them little after leaving school,—or even in school, for that matter, all their text-books being phonographic,—they usually keep the acquirements about as long as a college graduate does his Greek. There is a strong movement already on foot to drop reading and writing entirely from the school course, but probably a compromise will be made for the present by substituting a shorthand or phonetic system, based upon the direct interpretation of the sound-waves themselves. This is, of course, the only logical method for the visual interpretation of sound. Students and men of research, however, will always need to understand how to read print, as much of the old literature will probably never repay phonographing.”
“But,” I said, “I notice that you still use printed phrases, as superscriptions, titles, and so forth.”
“So we do,” replied Hamage, “but phonographic substitutes could be easily devised in these cases, and no doubt will soon have to be supplied in deference to the growing number of those who cannot read.”
“Did I understand you,” I asked, “that the text-books in your schools even are phonographs?”
“Certainly,” replied Hamage; “our children are taught by phonographs, recite to phonographs, and are examined by phonographs.”
“Bless my soul!” I ejaculated.