e was Mother Earth, bearing fruit. All that they ate was fruit of
motherhood, from seed or egg or their product. By motherhood they were
born and by motherhood they lived--life was, to them, just the long
cycle of motherhood.

But very early they recognized the need of improvement as well as
of mere repetition, and devoted their combined intelligence to that
problem--how to make the best kind of people. First this was merely the
hope of bearing better ones, and then they recognized that however
the children differed at birth, the real growth lay later--through
education.

Then things began to hum.

As I learned more and more to appreciate what these women had
accomplished, the less proud I was of what we, with all our manhood, had
done.

You see, they had had no wars. They had had no kings, and no priests,
and no aristocracies. They were sisters, and as they grew, they grew
together--not by competition, but by united action.

We tried to put in a good word for competition, and they were keenly
interested. Indeed, we soon found from their earnest questions of us
that they were prepared to believe our world must be better than theirs.
They were not sure; they wanted to know; but there was no such arrogance
about them as might have been expected.

We rather spread ourselves, telling of the advantages of competition:
how it developed fine qualities; that without it there would be "no
stimulus to industry." Terry was very strong on that point.

"No stimulus to industry," they repeated, with that puzzled look we had
learned to know so well. "STIMULUS? TO INDUSTRY? But don't you LIKE to
work?"

"No man would work unless he had to," Terry declared.

"Oh, no MAN! You mean that is one of your sex distinctions?"

"No, indeed!" he said hastily. "No one, I mean, man or woman, would work
without incentive. Competition is the--the motor power, you see."

"It is not with us," they explained gently, "so it is hard for us to
understand. Do you mean, for instance, that with you no mother would
work for her children without the stimulus of competition?"

No, he admitted that he did not mean that. Mothers, he supposed, would
of course work for their children in the home; but the world's work
was different--that had to be done by men, and required the competitive
element.

All our teachers were eagerly interested.

"We want so much to know--you have the whole world to tell us of, and we
have only our little land! And there