tremely low prices. They only
have to make up their minds what to take, and generally they take the
cheapest. There is a great demand for cheap thought just now, especially
when it is advertised as being of superior quality.'

'How do they buy it?' asked Queen Mab. 'I don't quite understand.'

'Well, you know a little about Commerce. Education is another kind
of commerce. The authors and publishers are the wholesale market, and
teachers and schools and colleges are a kind of retail dealers. Of
course, not being human, we can't expect to find it quite clear, but
that is what we _do_ make out. The kingfisher and I were listening
lately to a whole course of lectures on Political Economy; we were on
a skylight in the roof of the building, and we found that Popular
Education was part of the system of co-operation. The people who don't
think, you know, but want thoughts, hand education over to the people
who do think, or who buy up old thoughts cheap, and remake them, and
this class furnishes the community. So that, by division of labour, no
one is obliged to think who doesn't want to think, and this saves any
amount of time and expense. It is really astonishing, I hear, how few
people have to think under this new system. But Thought is in great
demand, as I said, and so is Knowledge--whether there was any difference
between the two we could not quite gather. It is a law that everyone
must buy a certain quantity from the dealers: in other words, education
is compulsory. Eating is _not_ compulsory; you _may_ starve, you
_must_ learn. The Government has founded a large system of retail
establishments, or schools, and up to a certain age all the children are
taught there whose parents do not undertake to have them supplied
with thoughts at other establishments. I say thoughts, but it is facts
principally that they acquire. Of course, some thoughts are necessary to
mix the facts together with; but they generally take as few as
possible, because facts are a cheaper article, and by the principles of
competition and profit, people use the cheapest article that will sell
again for the same price. Some writers say that thoughts at retail
establishments are very inferior, and that customers had better go to
wholesale dealers at once, or else make on the premises; but I don't
know about that. Generally people buy the kind that comes handiest;
they are not half so particular about them as about articles of food and
dress, and the dealer