Cat curled up on a bench as bright and clean and transparent as
ever. But she pretended not to notice them, and they passed her by
without remark.

21. The College of Athletic Arts

Dorothy and her friends arrived at the Royal Palace at an opportune
time, for Ozma was holding high court in her Throne Room, where
Professor H. M. Wogglebug, T.E., was appealing to her to punish some of
the students of the Royal Athletic College, of which he was the
Principal.

This College is located in the Munchkin Country, but not far from the
Emerald City. To enable the students to devote their entire time to
athletic exercises, such as boating, foot-ball, and the like, Professor
Wogglebug had invented an assortment of Tablets of Learning. One of
these tablets, eaten by a scholar after breakfast, would instantly
enable him to understand arithmetic or algebra or any other branch of
mathematics. Another tablet eaten after lunch gave a student a
complete knowledge of geography. Another tablet made it possible for
the eater to spell the most difficult words, and still another enabled
him to write a beautiful hand. There were tablets for history,
mechanics, home cooking and agriculture, and it mattered not whether a
boy or a girl was stupid or bright, for the tablets taught them
everything in the twinkling of an eye.

This method, which is patented in the Land of Oz by Professor
Wogglebug, saves paper and books, as well as the tedious hours devoted
to study in some of our less favored schools, and it also allows the
students to devote all their time to racing, base-ball, tennis and
other manly and womanly sports, which are greatly interfered with by
study in those Temples of Learning where Tablets of Learning are
unknown.

But it so happened that Professor Wogglebug (who had invented so much
that he had acquired the habit) carelessly invented a Square-Meal
Tablet, which was no bigger than your little finger-nail but contained,
in condensed form, the equal of a bowl of soup, a portion of fried
fish, a roast, a salad and a dessert, all of which gave the same
nourishment as a square meal.

The Professor was so proud of these Square-Meal Tablets that he began
to feed them to the students at his college, instead of other food, but
the boys and girls objected because they wanted food that they could
enjoy the taste of. It was no fun at all to swallow a tablet, with a
glass of water, and call it a dinner; so they refused to