“As the Marsites need work only a few hours a day for the acquisition of our material subsistence, we can devote a great deal of our leisure time for mental culture. The child, after its infancy, moves voluntarily about from place to place. It finds advice and practical instruction in the house, on the walks, in the parks, garden, greenhouse, orchard and field. After it grows older it takes lessons in the workshop, in the factory, on the railroad, in the mine, or wherever else it may direct its course. All the adults are its parents, so to speak, its teachers, advisers and protectors when young; but all teach that freedom, independence and self-reliance should be attained as early as possible.” “When do you begin to teach the alphabet?” asked Rev. Dudley. “At the age of about three years. (Remember that a Marsian year counts for no more in the age of a child than an earthly year does with you.) We begin to teach the elementary sounds, the forms and the names of the letters of the alphabet by attractive games of object lessons. We have a perfect alphabet, because it contains as many, and no more, letters as we have elementary sounds. We can spell every word correctly when it is pronounced to us, for we have neither silent letters nor substitutes. During all these exercises the child is simply playing, and quits whenever it likes. “The walls of the nursery near the floor are composed of slate. On these the children first begin to make marks and figures, sometimes before they can stand alone. Children are nearly always very fond of drawing when left to themselves, and practice it a great deal. Large slates for printing, writing, ciphering and drawing are also put up in different parts of the parks and along the walks. By these means our children, by playful practice, learn to print and write at an early age. We always keep plenty of such things as children can use before them, letting them use those things whenever they feel like it, but never compelling a child to use a thing or do an act it finds no pleasure in doing. We endeavor to create the pleasurable desire, and then let the child follow its inclination. All sound-minded children possess a faculty of inquiry which they love to exercise if _conditions_ are _right_ and _natural_, and if things are presented in a pleasant manner. As long as we cannot do things naturally and present them in an attractive way, the fault lies with the teachers, and not in the child.