Miss Matheson smiled, her face blooming into a sunburst of radiating 
wrinkles. "It is not important. Let us only say
that we have made room for you. This institution makes it a practice to accept 
a small number of students who are not New Atlantan subjects. The propagation 
of Atlantan memes is central to our mission, as a school and as a society. 
Unlike some phyles, which propagate through conversion or through 
indiscriminate exploitation of the natural biological capacity that is shared, 
for better or worse, by all persons, we appeal to the rational faculties. All 
children are born with rational faculties, which want only development. Our 
academy has recently welcomed several young ladies of extra-Atlantan 
extraction, and it is our expectation that all will go on to take the Oath in 
due time."