# A Few Hours in a Far-Off Age/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
THEY enter the alcove, fully a third of a mile from where I have remained watching them—happy to even see such beings. Truth, freedom, love and grace are indeed here. I shall join them after passing near the other families, and so give gladness to my "half brutal" self in contemplation of this shamless refinement. No glances of envy or tones of detraction. No slander. These must be women of really high birth.
Where are the low Illiterate ? The pompous, self-lauding, arrogant ignorami? That great band so heavily weighting the Car of Progress in my century! Not in any of these noble families! who appear so affectionately and so reverently united by honest endeavour for human perfection. Nowhere can I see the baleful, cruel stamp of ignorance. Mothers and fathers are ably imparting instruction to attentive—fascinatingly attentive—young people in matters which, up to the nineteenth century, have been left to chance study; and on other subjects beyond present comprehension, with eloquence exceeding my power to transcribe; yet causing so great an exaltation of my thought that I shudder at contemplating the barbaric misconceptions and young-world understandings awaiting my return to an unenlightened age.
While I linger occasionally, on my way up the gallery, to hear a little from the lips of these beautiful, earnest truth-seekers, I learn the origin of their Instruction Galleries, and pride upholds me upon finding that our Australia planted ​the seed of so goodly a tree of knowledge. An example which was followed by countries in the Northern Hemisphere, where the principle became an institution during thousands of years, and ultimately was established with increased culture in this newer land, Alethia.
Soon after women entered Parliament, they brought forward a measure compelling either mothers or fathers to devote two mornings of every week—commencing Sunday—to oral instruction of their children. They argued that it would restore the too often overstrained mental power of both teachers and pupils, besides arresting premature decay of sight, frequently caused by too continuous application to books at an early age. Added to which important considerations, they urged the value of such a law as a means for strengthening family ties, by increasing the loving respect of children for their parents. After a very short debate, the measure received the authority of the House by unanimous voting. The few progressionists supported it of course, and the ignorant ones, also of course, because they believed it must ultimately rid them of woman's quieting presence in the senate. And much they chuckled, with silly jokes, over what their wisdom considered to be woman's stupidity in thus forging chains for herself. For it afterwards transpired that they had fully intended all the obligation of the act should be borne by the originators of it. On their side, the women were prepared to execute the desirable work. It was nothing to them to do more than their fair share ever since beasts on two legs first ordered their female mates to carry logs for their fire, while they employed the great intellect man has always accredited himself with in extracting grubs, and other such dainties, for the gratification of their own appetite, or lolling in company with other great ​male intellects around lovely pools of water; intellect consisting in brutal strength of legs and arms, the reflection of which gave them immense self-esteem as they lay contemplating and planning anew some cruel discomfort or privation for their weaker halves—the real workers!—who, in addition to other toil, had that of rearing fresh beasts.
In the words of a gentleman relating this to his son:
"So those bravely good women, in the era you despise, entered upon their task. Think, boy, what must have been the requisite energy and patience. Unaided, in nearly every family, they fully satisfied the law's exactions—a law which has proved the greatest regenerating influence over human kind yet known to the world."
And, according to this same gentleman, performed their task so earnestly and conscientiously that, as century after century rolled away, the little band of noble men, honorably anxious to assist woman in her rise, increased to powerful numbers.
​As time grew men became educated from their apathy, and freely aided the women to the fullest extent of their power. They also introduced a measure for the erection of State galleries, in which the morning studies or lectures were to be continued after the children should have attained the age of sixteen or seventeen years, no admittance being permitted under that age. Such mornings there to be devoted to physiology, evolution, geology, mythology, &c., imparted in the manner I am now observing.
The two mornings of this week are occupied on evolution. Wherever I pass, the subject is being earnestly discussed; and it seems to be a very displeasing accession of knowledge to all the young students.
I am now opposite an alcove, in which are mother, father and two sons. The youngest says:—
"I regret, dear mother and father, having caused you so much trouble in proving our ascent from such bestial thought and matter; but I promise to give you no difficulty concerning our still more remote progenitors you speak of, for the difference between ourselves and those ferocious men of the merciless Christian era is so great that there cannot be much further descent to master."
Gravely his father replies:—
"In those words, my son, I grieve to read yet something remaining of your origin. They betray just a trace of the vanity which so perniciously opposed justice and progress in that transition age. It forms the one great lesson learnt from our valuable records. The nearer we approach the primordial savage the greater the amount of vanity we find. None can say either the immense length of time required to bring humankind even to the stage of improvement, with which you feel so dissatisfied or the probably still longer ​period to come during which progress will continue. At some future time our structure will have so changed to one nearer perfection that when we look back over the wonderful history of humankind during the course of evolution, as we do to-day, we shall no more recognize our present selves than you feel inclined to do in the ruder forms of the Christian era. But I am inclined to think that the youth of that time will feel only admiration and reverence, as the wise designs of the Infinite Mind become more distinct to growing reason. Do not mistake this, my boy. I imply no blame for your condemnation of those unfortunately selfish men. And (looking tenderly at the dear mother) we much admire your spirit-stirred sympathy for the oppressed condition of the women; but we wish you to take a more philosophical view of past imperfections. It matters not how faulty were their ethics, if they consistently and conscientiously founded their conduct upon them. This is what we can never know. We ought not to condemn them for believing that right which they had not sense enough to learn was so very, very wrong."
Son: "With time, father, I shall no doubt think as you and my dear mother so kindly and so patiently work to guide my thought, because all your counsel has been nobly just. I will reflect well over this, your most difficult lecture. You say our structure may change. Think you our present formation could be improved?"
Father: "Who can deny it? We are certainly not mind perfect. Why should we consider our body incapable of improvement? By the ancient records I find that those men we have been considering, whose form more resembles that of the ape than our own, thought as you do on this question. Their self-idolatry was even amusing. They were ​so overweening that in speaking of their shape, which was often distorted by excesses, they called it the 'human form divine.' That idea was peculiarly man's. The males of all species have ever been paramount in vanity; and before we can approach a nearer stage to perfection, yet more vanity must wear from our nature."
Reluctantly I leave this family, for the mother now speaks; but I wish to join my favorites.