To return to the history: They began at once to plan and built for their children, all the strength and intelligence of the whole of them devoted to that one thing. Each girl, of course, was reared in full knowledge of her Crowning Office, and they had, even then, very high ideas of the molding powers of the mother, as well as those of education. Such high ideals as they had! Beauty, Health, Strength, Intellect, Goodness--for those they prayed and worked. They had no enemies; they themselves were all sisters and friends. The land was fair before them, and a great future began to form itself in their minds. The religion they had to begin with was much like that of old Greece--a number of gods and goddesses; but they lost all interest in deities of war and plunder, and gradually centered on their Mother Goddess altogether. Then, as they grew more intelligent, this had turned into a sort of Maternal Pantheism. Here was Mother Earth, bearing fruit. All that they ate was fruit of motherhood, from seed or egg or their product. By motherhood they were born and by motherhood they lived--life was, to them, just the long cycle of motherhood. But very early they recognized the need of improvement as well as of mere repetition, and devoted their combined intelligence to that problem--how to make the best kind of people. First this was merely the hope of bearing better ones, and then they recognized that however the children differed at birth, the real growth lay later--through education. Then things began to hum. As I learned more and more to appreciate what these women had accomplished, the less proud I was of what we, with all our manhood, had done. You see, they had had no wars. They had had no kings, and no priests, and no aristocracies. They were sisters, and as they grew, they grew together--not by competition, but by united action. We tried to put in a good word for competition, and they were keenly interested. Indeed, we soon found from their earnest questions of us that they were prepared to believe our world must be better than theirs. They were not sure; they wanted to know; but there was no such arrogance about them as might have been expected. We rather spread ourselves, telling of the advantages of competition: how it developed fine qualities; that without it there would be “no stimulus to industry.” Terry was very strong on that point. “No stimulus to industry,” they repeated, with that puzzled look we had learned to know so well. “_Stimulus? To Industry?_ But don’t you _like_ to work?” “No man would work unless he had to,” Terry declared. “Oh, no _man!_ You mean that is one of your sex distinctions?” “No, indeed!” he said hastily. “No one, I mean, man or woman, would work without incentive. Competition is the--the motor power, you see.”