he Sanscrit AEsop."

8. Explain some episode in American history by means of a fable.

9. Write an editorial on some question of local and current
interest, using the fable method to illustrate the situation.

IV. Model II

A Voltairean view of war may be of interest at this time. Some
one has called attention to the illuminating discourse between
Micromegas, gigantic dweller on one of the planets revolving
about Sirius, and a company of our philosophers, as reported in
the seventh chapter of the amusing fantasy bearing the name of
the above-mentioned Sirian visitor. A free translation of a part
of this conversation is here offered. After congratulating his
terrestrial hearers on being so small and adding that, with so
manifest a subordination of matter to mind, they must pass
their lives in the pleasures of intellectual pursuits and mutual
love--a veritable spiritual existence--the stranger is thus
answered by one of the philosophers: "We have more matter than
we need for the accomplishment of much evil, if evil comes from
matter, and more mind than we need if evil comes from mind. Do
you know that at the present moment there are a hundred thousand
fools of our species, wearing caps, who are killing a hundred
thousand other animals wearing turbans, or who are themselves
being massacred by the latter, and that almost everywhere on
earth this is the immemorial usage?" The Sirian, properly
shocked, demands the reason of these horrible encounters between
creatures so puny. "It is all about a pile of dirt no bigger
than your heel," is the reply. "Not that any one of these
millions of men marching to slaughter has the slightest claim to
this pile of dirt; the only question is whether it shall belong
to a certain man known as Sultan or to another having the title
of Czar. Neither of the two has ever seen or ever will see the
patch of ground in dispute, and hardly a single one of these
animals engaged in killing one another has ever seen the animal
for whom they are thus employed." Again the stranger expresses
his horror, and declares he has half a mind to annihilate with a
kick or two the whole batch of ridiculous assassins. "Don't give
yourself the trouble," is the rejoinder; "they will accomplish
their own destruction fast enough. Know that ten years hence not
a hundredth part