“You have forgotten that marriage-licenses are granted only after the Applicants are fully qualified. Our Committee on Generation thoroughly investigate every case.”
“The five-year-olds?”
“Are taken in groups of ten, by teachers, who, during the following two years, instruct them in the first principles of birth, growth and change as presented by plant and animal life in field, forest, garden and home: This includes much you would classify as rudiments of Physiology, Chemistry, Astronomy, Psychology, Paleontology, Arithmetic, Language, Geography, History and Agriculture, besides Cleaning and Cooking. It is accomplished however without books or tablets, and, much of it outside the class-rooms.
“Flowers, fruits, vegetables and grains; birds, fish, reptiles and many other forms of animal life, are germinated and developed to maturity; nurtured and experimented upon; but ever to the benefit of the life involved.”
“Are your teachers men or women?”
“Both; always in pairs; the government believing that by constant and familiar association, only, can the present standard of purity and liberty be maintained.”
A strain of flute-like music interrupted us. “A sick call,” explained the guides. “You see the flags floating from occasional nursery knolls; they locate ailing babes, and demand attention from any passing mother; while every staff-whistle is distinctive and quickly recognized by the mother whose offspring has special need of her presence. Knowing this, each is free from that harrowing anxiety experienced by Earth mothers, who must watch constantly over their teething or otherwise ailing little ones; or suffer untold agonies with apprehension, during an absence; thus poisoning the nourishment, in preparation, which Nature intends to serve as a cure for every infantile ill.”
“But it seems positively cruel to force mothers with sick children into the field.” We were really indignant about it.
Again those merry children laughed in great glee at our innocence: “Reinstern mothers are forced to—nothing; they are their own sovereigns. They have fitted themselves for their positions, and their responsibilities are the greatest possible—the reproduction of the race. Their salaries are generous, and continue without interruption or diminution throughout the parental term.”
“How long is that?”