can we help it!"

I had not thought of that. We say: "All the world loves a lover," but
to have a couple of million people watching one's courtship--and that a
difficult one--was rather embarrassing.

"Tell me about your theory of education," I said. "Make it short and
easy. And, to show you what puzzles me, I'll tell you that in our theory
great stress is laid on the forced exertion of the child's mind; we
think it is good for him to overcome obstacles."

"Of course it is," she unexpectedly agreed. "All our children do
that--they love to."

That puzzled me again. If they loved to do it, how could it be
educational?

"Our theory is this," she went on carefully. "Here is a young human
being. The mind is as natural a thing as the body, a thing that grows,
a thing to use and enjoy. We seek to nourish, to stimulate, to exercise
the mind of a child as we do the body. There are the two main divisions
in education--you have those of course?--the things it is necessary to
know, and the things it is necessary to do."

"To do? Mental exercises, you mean?"

"Yes. Our general plan is this: In the matter of feeding the mind,
of furnishing information, we use our best powers to meet the natural
appetite of a healthy young brain; not to overfeed it, to provide such
amount and variety of impressions as seem most welcome to each child.
That is the easiest part. The other division is in arranging a properly
graduated series of exercises which will best develop each mind; the
common faculties we all have, and most carefully, the especial faculties
some of us have. You do this also, do you not?"

"In a way," I said rather lamely. "We have not so subtle and highly
developed a system as you, not approaching it; but tell me more. As
to the information--how do you manage? It appears that all of you know
pretty much everything--is that right?"

This she laughingly disclaimed. "By no means. We are, as you soon found
out, extremely limited in knowledge. I wish you could realize what a
ferment the country is in over the new things you have told us; the
passionate eagerness among thousands of us to go to your country and
learn--learn--learn! But what we do know is readily divisible into
common knowledge and special knowledge. The common knowledge we have
long since learned to feed into the minds of our little ones with no
waste of time or strength; the special knowledge is open to all, as
they desire it. Some of us specialize in one lin