ty in the expression of her beautiful face, of tender
sympathy for those who seek the light, and who must some day find it,
but whose progress is as yet hampered by the human mind's unreasoning
adherence to the stepping-stones over which it has been passing
through the dark waters of ignorance. "Then, Doctor," she said calmly,
"you know what I have been taught?"

"Why--ah--yes--that is, vaguely. But--suppose you inform me briefly."
He was beginning to be sensible of having passed judgment upon the
girl without first according her a hearing.

"Well," she smiled up at him, "I have been taught the very hardest
thing in the whole world."

"H'm, indeed! Ah, quite so--and that?"

"To think."

"To--ah--to think!" He again clutched at his mental poise. "Well, yes,
quite so! But--ah--is it not the function of all our schools to teach
us to think?"

"No," answered the girl decidedly; "not to teach us to think, but to
cause us blindly to accept what is ignorantly called 'authority'! I
find we are not to reason, and particularly about religious matters,
but to accept, to let those 'in authority' think for us. Is it not so?
Are you not even now seeking to make me accept your religious views?
And why? Because they are true? Oh, no; but because you believe them
true--whether they are or not. Have you demonstrated their truth? Do
you come to me with proofs? Do your religious views rest upon anything
but the human mind's undemonstrated interpretation of the Bible? And
yet you can not prove that interpretation true, even though you would
force it upon such as I, who may differ from you."

"I--ah--" began the doctor nervously. But Carmen continued without
heeding the interruption:

"Only yesterday Professor Bales, of the University, lectured here on
'The Prime Function of Education.' He said it was the development of
the individual, and that the chief end of educational work was the
promotion of originality. And yet, when I think along original
lines--when I depart from stereotyped formulae, and state boldly that I
will not accept any religion, be it Presbyterian, Methodist, or Roman
Catholic, that makes a God of spirit the creator of a man of flesh, or
that makes evil as real as good, and therefore necessarily created and
recognized by a God who by very necessity can not know evil--then I am
accused of being a heretic, a free-thinker; and the authorities take
steps to remove me, lest my influence contaminate the rest of the
pu