THE country was as astonishing to me as the city — its old beauty added to in every direction. They took me about in motor cars, motor boats and air ships, on foot and on horseback (the only horses now to be found were in the country) . And while I speak of horses, I will add that the only dogs and cats I saw, or heard, were in the country, too, and not very numerous at that. “We’ve changed our views as to ‘pets’ and ‘domestic animals,’ ” Nellie said. “We ourselves are the only domestic animals allowed now. Meat eating, as Hallie told you, is decreasing every day; but the care and handling of our food animals improves even more rapidly. Every city has its municipal pastures and dairies, and every village or residence group. By the way, I might as well show you one of those last, and get it clear in your mind.”
We were on an air trip in one of the smooth-going, noiseless machines commonly used, which opened a new world of delight to me. This one held two, with the aviator. I had inquired about accidents, and was glad to find that thirty years’ practice had eliminated the worst dangers and reared a race of flying men.
“In our educational plan today all the children are given full physical development and control,” my sister explained. “That goes back to the woman again — the mothers. There was a sort of Hellenic revival — a recognition that it was possible for us to rear as beautiful human beings as walked in Athens. When women were really free of man’s selective discrimination they proved i quite educable, and learned to be ashamed of their deformities. Then we began to appreciate the human body and to have children reared in an atmosphere of lovely form and color, statues and pictures all about them, and the new stories — Oh! I haven’t told you a thing about them, have I?”
“No,” I said; “and please don’t. I started out to see the country, and your new-fangled ‘residence groups,’ whatever they may be, and I refuse to have my mind filled up with educational information. Take me on a school expedition another time, please.”
“All right,” she agreed; “but I can tell you more about the beasts without distracting your mind, I hope. For one thing, we have no longer any menageries.”
“What?” I cried. “No menageries!” How absurd! They were certainly educational, and a great pleasure to children — and other people.”
“Our views of education have changed you see,” she replied; “and our views of human relation to the animal world; also our ideas of pleasure. People do not think it a pleasure now to watch animals in pain.”
“More absurdity! They were not in pain. They were treated better than when left wild,” I hotly replied.
“Imprisonment is never a pleasure,” she answered; “it is a terrible punishment. A menagerie is just a prison, not for any offense of the inmates, but to gratify men in the indulgence of grossly savage impulses. Children, being in the savage period of their growth, feel anew the old satisfaction of seeing their huge enemies harmless or their small victims helpless and unable to escape. But it did no human being any good.”
“How about the study of these ‘victims’ of yours — the scientific value?”
“For such study as is really necessary to us, or to them, some laboratories keep a few. Otherwise, the student goes to where the animals live and studies their real habits.”
“And how much would he learn of wild tigers by following them about — unless it was an inside view?”
“My dear brother, can you mention one single piece of valuable information for humanity to be found in the study of imprisoned tigers? As a matter of fact, I don’t think there are any left by this time; I hope not.”
“Do you mean to tell me that your new humanitarianism has exterminated whole species?”
“Why not? Would England be pleasant if the gray wolf still ran at large? We are now trying, as rapidly as possible, to make this world safe and habitable everywhere.”
“And how about the hunting? Where’s the big game?”
“Another relic of barbarism. There is very little big game left, and very little hunting.”
I glared at her, speechless. Not that I was ever a hunter myself, or even wanted to be; but to have that splendid manly sport utterly prevented — it was outrageous I “I suppose this is more of the women’s work,” I said at length.
She cheerfully admitted it. “Yes, we did it. You see, hunting as a means of livelihood is even lower than private housework — far too wasteful and expensive to be allowed in a civilized world. When women left off using skins and feathers, that was a great blow to the industry. As to the sport, why, we had never greatly admired it, you know — the manly sport of killing things for fun — and with our new power we soon made it undesirable.”
I groaned in spirit. “Do you mean to tell me that you have introduced legislation against hunting, and found means to enforce it?”
“We found means to enforce it without much legislation, John.”
As for instance?”
As for instance, in rearing children who saw and heard the fullest condemnation of all such primitive cruelty. That is another place where the new story-books come in. Why on earth we should have fed our children on silly savagery a thousand years old, just because they liked it, is more than I can see. We were always interfering with their likes and dislikes in other ways. Why so considerate in this? We have a lot of splendid writers now — first-class ones — making a whole lot of new literature for children.”
“Do leave out your story books. You were telling me how you redoubtable females coerced men into giving up hunting.”
“Mostly by disapproval, consistent and final.”
This was the same sort of thing Owen had referred to in regard to tobacco. I didn’t like it. It gave me a creepy feeling, as of one slowly surmounted by a rising tide. “Are you — do you mean to tell me, Nellie, that you women are trying to make men over to suit yourselves?”
“Yes. Why not? Didn’t you make women to suit yourselves for several thousand years? You bred and trained us to suit your tastes; you liked us small, you liked us weak, you liked us timid, you liked us ignorant, you liked us pretty — what you called pretty — and you eliminated the kinds you did not like.”
How, if you please?” ‘By the same process we use — by not marrying them. Then, you see, there aren’t any more of that kind.”
“You are wrong, Nellie — you’re absurdly wrong. Women were naturally that way; that is, womanly women were, and men preferred that kind, of course.”
“How do you know women were ‘naturally’ like that? — without special education and artificial selection, and all manner of restrictions and penalties? Where were any women ever allowed to grow up ‘naturally’ until now?”
I maintained a sulky silence, looking down at the lovely green fields and forests beneath. “Have you exterminated dogs?” I asked.
“Not yet. There are a good many real dogs left. But we don’t make artificial ones any more.”
“I suppose you keep all the cats — being women.” She laughed.
“No; we keep very few. Cats kill birds, and we need the birds for our farms and gardens. They keep the insects down.”
“Do they keep the mice down, too?”
“Owls and night-hawks do, as far as they can. But we attend to the mice ourselves. Concrete construction and the removal of the kitchen did that. We do not live in food warehouses now. There, look! We are coming to Westholm Park; that was one of the first.”
In all the beauty spread below me, the great park showed more beautiful, outlined by a thick belt of trees.
We kept our vehicle gliding slowly above it while Nellie pointed things out. “It’s about 300 acres,” she said. “You can see the woodland and empty part — all that is left wild. That big patch there is pasturage
— they keep their own sheep and cows. There are gardens and meadows. Up in the corner is the children’s playground, bathing pool, and special buildings. Here is the playground for grown-ups — and their lake. This big spreading thing is the guest house and general playhouse for the folks — ballroom, billiards, bowling, and so on. Behind it is the plant for the whole thing. The water tower you’ll see to more advantage when we land. And all around you see the homes; each family has an acre or so.”
We dropped softly to the landing platform and came down to the pleasure ground beneath. In a little motor we ran about the place for awhile, that I might see the perfect roads, shaded with arching trees, the endless variety of arrangement, the miles of flowers, the fruit on every side.
“You must have had a good landscape architect to plan this,” I suggested.
“We did — one of the best.”
“It’s not so very unlike a great, first-class summer hotel, with singularly beautiful surroundings.”
“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “We had oiy best summer resorts in mind when we began to plan these places. People used to pay heavily in summer to enjoy a place where everything was done to make life smooth and pleasant. It occurred to us at last that we might live that way.”
“Who wants to live in a summer hotel all the time? Excuse me!”
“O, they don’t. The people here nearly all live in ‘homes’ — the homiest kind — each on its own ground, as you see. Only some unattached ones, and people who really like it, live in the hotel — with transients, of course. Let’s call here; I know this family.”
She introduced me to Mrs. Masson, a sweet, motherly little woman, rocking softly on her vine-shadowed piazza, a child in her arms. She was eager to tell me about things — most people were, I found.
“I’m a reactionary, Mr. Robertson. I prefer to work at home, and I prefer to keep my children with me, all I can.”
“Isn’t that allowed nowadays?“I inquired.
“O, yes; if one qualifies. I did. I took the child-culture course, but I do not want to be a regular teacher. My work is done right here, and I can have them as well as not, but they won’t stay much.”
Even as she spoke the little thing in her arms whispered eagerly to her mother, slipped to the floor, ran out of the gate, her little pink legs fairly twinkling, and joined an older child who was passing.
“They like to be with the others, you see. This is my baby; I manage to hold on to her for part of the day, but she’s always running off to The Garden when she can.”
“The Garden?”
“Yes; it’s a regular Child Garden, where they are cultivated and grow! And they do so love to growl”
She showed us her pretty little house and her lovely work — embroidery. “I’m so fortunate,” she said, “loving home as I do, to have work that’s just as well done here.”
I learned that there were some thirty families living in the grounds, not counting the hotel people. Quite a number found their work in the necessary activities of the place itself.
“We have a long string of places, you see — from the general manager to the gardeners and dairymen. It is really quite a piece of work, to care for some two hundred and fifty people,” Mrs. Masson explained with some pride.
............