ionally fed and suffered to exist
for several years; but in the more temperate and better regulated
regions, it is found in the long run more advantageous for the
educational interests of the young, to dispense with food, and to renew
the Specimens every month--which is about the average duration of the
foodless existence of the Criminal class. In the cheaper schools, what
is gained by the longer existence of the Specimen is lost, partly in
the expenditure for food, and partly in the diminished accuracy of the
angles, which are impaired after a few weeks of constant "feeling".
Nor must we forget to add, in enumerating the advantages of the more
expensive system, that it tends, though slightly yet perceptibly, to
the diminution of the redundant Isosceles population--an object which
every statesman in Flatland constantly keeps in view. On the whole
therefore--although I am not ignorant that, in many popularly elected
School Boards, there is a reaction in favour of "the cheap system" as
it is called--I am myself disposed to think that this is one of the
many cases in which expense is the truest economy.

But I must not allow questions of School Board politics to divert me
from my subject. Enough has been said, I trust, to shew that
Recognition by Feeling is not so tedious or indecisive a process as
might have been supposed; and it is obviously more trustworthy than
Recognition by hearing. Still there remains, as has been pointed out
above, the objection that this method is not without danger. For this
reason many in the Middle and Lower classes, and all without exception
in the Polygonal and Circular orders, prefer a third method, the
description of which shall be reserved for the next section.

Section 6. Of Recognition by Sight

I am about to appear very inconsistent. In previous sections I have
said that all figures in Flatland present the appearance of a straight
line; and it was added or implied, that it is consequently impossible
to distinguish by the visual organ between individuals of different
classes: yet now I am about to explain to my Spaceland critics how we
are able to recognize one another by the sense of sight.

If however the Reader will take the trouble to refer to the passage in
which Recognition by Feeling is stated to be universal, he will find
this qualification--"among the lower classes". It is only among the
higher classes and in our temperate climates that Sight Recognition is