"Although - falling - short - of ..."
"Well now, which is the longest river in Africa?"
The eyes are blank.
"I don't know."
"But the Nile, Tommy."
"The - Nile - is - the - longest - river - in - Africa - and - second ..."
"Then which river is the longest, Tommy?"
Tommy burst into tears.
"I don't know," he howls.)
That howl, the Director made it plain, discouraged the earliest investigators.
The experiments were abandoned.
No further attempt was made to teach children the length of the Nile in their sleep.
Quite rightly.
You can't learn a science unless you know what it's all about.
"Whereas, if they'd only started on moral education," said the Director, leading the way towards the door. The students followed him, desperately scribbling as they walked and all the way up in the lift.
"Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational."
"Silence, silence," whispered a loud speaker as they stepped out at the fourteenth floor, and "Silence, silence," the trumpet mouths indefati-gably repeated at intervals down every corridor.
The students and even the Director himself rose automatically to the tips of their toes.
They were Alphas, of course, but even Alphas have been well conditioned.
"Silence, silence." All the air of the fourteenth floor was sibilant with the categorical imperative.
Fifty yards of tiptoeing brought them to a door which the Director cautiously opened.
They stepped over the threshold into the twilight of a shuttered dormitory.
Eighty cots stood in a row against the wall.
There was a sound of light regular breathing and a continuous murmur, as of very faint voices remotely whispering.
A nurse rose as they entered and came to attention before the Director.
"What's the lesson this afternoon?" he asked.
"We had Elementary Sex for the first forty minutes," she answered.
"But now it's switched over to Elementary Class Consciousness."
The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots.
Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing.
There was a whisper under every pillow.
The D.H.C. halted and, bending over one of the little beds, listened attentively.
"Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say?
Let's have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet."
At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall.
The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.
"... all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki.
Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children.
And Epsilons are still worse.
They're too stupid to be able to read or write.
Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour.
I'm so glad I'm a Beta." There was a pause; then the voice began again.
"Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever.
I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.
And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.
Gammas are stupid.
They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki.
Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children.
And Epsilons are still worse.
They're too stupid to be able ..."