Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

by Godfrey Sweven

“The growth of this charlatanism became a serious danger to our socialistic community, and it was thought that by its removal the danger would be over. Accordingly it was resolved, only the scholars and their mimics dissenting, that the study and use of these primitive languages should be interdicted. The books written in them were burnt,—to the great joy of the boys and girls in the seminaries,—and it was made a penal offence to write or speak any word of them. There was much sophistry used to get round the law, as a good deal of Tirralarian phraseology was derived from them. But this difficulty was surmounted by a clearer and more detailed definition, and the cultured hung their heads defeated.

“It was not for long. Before another generation had passed, the scholars had invented other claims to pre-eminence, other shibboleths. Now it was the laws of nature and the laws of beauty that supplied the platform for scorn of neighbours. The scientists and artists and critics of art became the small privileged class, who had more than their fair share of happiness and content. They produced something that seemed to be of more value than the musty books of the scholars written in languages that none but themselves could read. And their humours and superiority were borne with at first for the sake of their discoveries and useful contrivances and beautiful works. It was they who built the temples and decorated them with such splendour and filled them with such machines and expedients for the use and comfort of the citizens. They were few, and not very obtrusive in their contempt for the multitude, and their superior airs were counterbalanced by their usefulness.

“This tolerance was a mistake. The idea of having exclusiveness without detriment to the socialistic principle was only a dream. There sprang up the fringe of insolent make-believe again. Herds of pretenders to art or science or criticism flocked into the universities and technical schools. They gabbled of genius and talent, of principles and laws, of elements and atoms, of cells and tissues, and of ideals and the spirit of beauty. The trick was more transparent than the other, for they had to use the vernacular in their patter; and a good deal of it was manifest nonsense to the simplest mind, whilst the astuter amongst the uneducated stripped even their most high-sounding maxims and laws into the nakedest of truisms. But the empiric scientists and artists and æsthetes shifted their ground every year and manufactured other and more mystic phraseology. It was difficult to follow them through their thickets and labyrinths of gibberish by which they kept off those whom they were pleased to call the rabble. They became almost as stupidly contemptuous and insolent as the possession of the rudiments of the most unintelligible languages could have made them.

“It came to be clear that the old danger to equality had only taken a new form. The mass of the nation clamoured against the new pretensions of culture. They would hear of nothing but the abolition of its factories, as they called the universities and schools of art. What would come of the principle of socialism if this aristocracy of genius and talent, brummagem or real, was to be let alone with its capacity to blow itself out with its limitless vanity about its own importance? No sane man would answer for the consequences if the wild rage of the uneducated was allowed to vent itself on this superficial pretence and shallow scorn. Scholars, scientists, artists, critics, and the parasitic crew that battened on their results and used them offensively against the multitude would fall in one great welter of blood. The gentler section of the community could not look on this risk to their ideal of society without a shudder. They convened the whole nation, and by an overwhelming majority it was resolved to abolish the institutions that fostered science and art, learning and criticism; it became high treason to establish a library or university, or a school of art or science, or a seminary of literature or criticism. There were the same attempts as before to elude the provisions of the law and get round it by quibble and sophism; but this led only to greater stringency and detail in its clauses. It was made penal to write a book, or make a scientific discovery, or invent any contrivance, or produce any work of art; and you may be quite sure that, with the bulk of the people acting policeman and spy for the law, it was soon carried into force, and pictures and statues and books and machines ceased to be made. The insolence and contempt of the intellectual parasites had no soil to fatten on, and ultimately vanished from the state.”

He stopped with a snap of the jaw that said plainly: “There now; are you satisfied? If not, you are a most unreasonable being. Where will you find a civilisation grander than ours on the face of the earth?”

I was by no means satisfied. He had left one of the main branches of my question unanswered. He had explained the history of the higher institutions and the fate of the sciences and art and literature; but I had asked him about the schools. I still pressed the question.

“Ay, that was another danger to the social constitution. The energy of talent and genius, and the sham intellectualism chased from one post of vantage took refuge in another. A pedagogic class sprang up that would have grown into a most contemptuous and insolent aristocracy. The loud and haughty arrogance and overbearing dogmatism of the charlatan fringe of the profession were beginning to impress the bulk of the nation with disgust and alarm, when there arose a fierce rebellion among the scholars. The hundreds of mean-spirited empirics that had crept into the ranks of teachers for the sake of the emoluments in the shape of prestige and opportunity for the scorn of neighbours had had to resort to the most tyrannical and cruel methods in order to keep discipline. A few genuine instructors there were, who were able to cope with the knavishness of the worst of pupils by means of their strength of character and power of sympathy and imagination; they always elicited what was best in the embryo humanity that came into their hands to be moulded; they could use the laughter and sympathy of the majority to whip the offensive disposition and will out of the laggards and would-be rebels; and the latter were cowed and disciplined without any sense of unfair treatment. But the closing of the channels of science and art and criticism to the aristocratic quackery, that flows, if unchecked, from the corrupt fountains of human nature, flooded the profession with supercilious pretenders. Their scholars easily measured their intelligence and sincerity, and turned the school-rooms into pandemonium. The high-flying charlatans conferred together and invented new and cruel modes of punishment. They introduced a reign of terror into the schools. The boys and girls formed secret societies which combined into one great brotherhood all over the island. They drilled in darkness and armed every member with a catapult and pea-shooter. They wrote the agreement and signed it in their own blood, and managed to keep the proposed rebellion shrouded in mystery for five whole days, for it was strictly confined to those above the age of twelve. But the fear that it would leak out precipitated the rising; and they drove the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses out under a fierce fire of peas and pebbles, till wounded and bleeding the charlatans took refuge up the mountains amid the snow, or in the waves of the beach, ducking to avoid the missiles. The rout was most ignominious, and the scholars were able to dictate their own terms. It was agreed that they should be exempted from school and family discipline and be admitted to the full citizenship. For it was seen that the exclusion of children above the age of twelve from the schools would so reduce the numbers of the insolent parasites and shams in the profession as to remove the forefront of the offence.

“But it was found that twelve was a mere artificial limit. Inspired by the example of their predecessors, the ten-year-olds made a successful revolution and had the minimum age of citizenship reduced to ten. Still the pedants were felt to be a most offensively arrogant class; the smaller their numbers grew, the more they plumed themselves on their superiority. And every new rebellion against their authority was aided and abetted by the multitude, who huzzaed as the catapults of the pigmy forces swept the field and the volleys from their pea-shooters told with deadly effect, and after the defeat of the pedagogues granted citizenship to every child of a certain age. Victory followed victory till at last it seemed a farce to have schools at all. They were turned into playhouses for stormy or wet weather, and the limit of age was removed from citizenship. Every child, as soon as his legs would carry him and his tongue would wag, could come to the conventions of the people and record his vote. It greatly encouraged marriage and the increase of families, for a man or woman with a dozen or score of children had become a power in the state. Thus the last vestige of privilege disappeared, and with it the last chance of intellectual charlatanism forming an aristocracy. Every man was like his neighbour, and for that matter so was every child. Sex, age, genius, talent, profession, trade had ceased to form the basis of caste. Equality within the nation had at last been reached.”

There was unspeakable complacence on his face; and yet my look of interrogation broke it up. I had heard much about the professions and their history in Tirralaria. I had heard nothing of the medical profession. I wondered how they guaranteed the healing art.

“Oh, as for that, it disappeared in the earliest jetsam of the community. Of the charlatans and nose-elevators the privileged doctors were the worst. They blundered and buried their blunders, and wildly resented every question. They kept up a mysterious patter that was of the very essence of aristocracy and privilege. The atmosphere of superstition that they threw round their old-wives’ remedies imposed upon men when they were sick; but as soon as they were well their fear vanished, and they determined to be clear of the empiricism and mummery of the profession. And at last, after a great plague had laughed at their charms and talismans and skill, and swept half the nation down to the worms, their quackery had become too apparent. One third of them had taken boat and migrated to other islands of the archipelago. Another third had died of their own plague-nostrums and salves. The remainder had lost their self-confidence and dogmatism and were willing to acknowledge that they knew little if any but the simplest diseases, and to these they applied the herbs and salves that every old woman tried. The nation took them in their mood of humility and destroyed the fences round the profession. Everyone was left free to use his own remedies. In a fit of generosity they handed over the secrets of their trade to the public, and salves and medicaments and pills and powders were manufactured wholesale by the state chemists and issued free with instructions for their use. Whether it was the abolition of the caste or not, the death-rate has, if anything, decreased, and plagues are no more frequent than they were before. Everyone who treats another and kills him is liable to punishment by the state. So, few undertake to prescribe, and every citizen is responsible for his own treatment. In times of privilege a doctor was licensed to kill with impunity; he and his brethren could always throw dust in the eyes of any inquiry by technical terms and abracadabra. We are rid of that chicanery, and in health and death-rate we are no worse off than before. So much for physic.”