“Thus we see that the period of infancy is continually lengthened by a rise of intelligence up to a _certain point_, and that from this maximum period it slowly begins to shorten, as the higher parental wisdom and truer affections make the child constantly more self-reliant by throwing it, under favorable conditions and at an earlier age, more and more on its own resources and independence, by which all the child’s faculties are harmoniously unfolded by an earlier independent course of action. This higher and broader wisdom of the adult has, in the course of time, greatly shortened the period of infancy on Mars. “A Marsian child, as we have already seen, has a healthy and vigorous pre-natal (before birth) growth, to begin with. After birth it is never over-burdened with manual labor; inactivity, dissipation, constraint, and paternalism never stunt the full development of body and mind, and poverty leaves no regretful marks on its after-life, while your children on earth, as a rule, are, on the one hand, largely over-burdened with toilsome labor and a vicious pre-natal existence, and, on the other hand, inactivity, dissipation, constraint, paternalism and poverty nearly always prevent the full and harmonious unfoldment of their faculties, and this tends to lengthen the period of infancy and helplessness. “There is still one other lesson, which, of all the countless bad lessons you teach, is perhaps the worst one. I mean, of course, the flogging of children. To begin with, under right conditions, it is not only useless, but actually harmful in all its consequences. It irritates both parent and child. It makes a tyrant of the stronger and a slave of the weaker. It teaches a child to be cruel, because one who is reared in an atmosphere of cruelty can not help being cruel himself. This instruction dwarfs and often withers the higher feelings of affection and amiability.