‘That would not be easy,’ I answered. ‘For they are compiled with great solemnity and reverence and are the nearest things in America to sacred objects. The ritual of compilation is the chief way of practising efficiency and so of worshipping Progress.’ ‘But what is on the cards?’ insisted Lysis. ‘The most sacred things of all――entrancing statistics and The Facts, and all the things that Modern Science teaches.’ ‘Tell us, Socrates, who is this Modern Science?’ ‘A divine priestess,’ I answered, ‘who is invoked in all difficulties, whose words are received with great reverence, and that though her oracles are more than usually incomprehensible and fickle and her words long and horrible. But she is dear to the Americans because she speaks principally about machines, and tells them there shall be more and more of them, and an increasing number of parts in each.’ ‘And does she speak true things?’ demanded Lysis. ‘She knows about machines and the substances of the earth, and so the Americans find her “practical,” a word of supreme praise, and in consequence are forever seeking to make her speak on other matters where she has no gift of utterance. They seek encouragement in their beliefs about themselves and insist upon an answer about their race till in self-defence she takes refuge in gibberish.’ ‘That is a disappointment to them,’ said Lysis. ‘In no wise,’ I answered, ‘for each can twist her answer to his desires. And she is surrounded by people crying that they have heard her voice and they alone, and using her authority for their own views. It is from this babble of tongues that the facts for the card-indexes are derived. But we will train our guardians never to use such things and to consider them only fit for slaves.’ ‘We will,’ they said. ‘For their studies will not be the acquisition of information, which is a training in acquisitiveness and due to the hunger of their souls for quantity. They acquire information as a second best until they can acquire wealth. But our guardians will study those matters which satisfy the reason and those which elevate the soul. Now these studies are many.’ ‘You have described such studies many times, Socrates,’ said they all. ‘And do you not agree?’ ‘We agree,’ said they all again. ‘And shall we,’ I asked them next, ‘permit our guardians to live in sisterhoods and sororities as they like to do to-day?’ ‘Do the young American women live much in sisterhoods?’ asked Phaelon, ‘for I have read of sisterhoods and of convents, and the great principle of the life is to have nothing whatever to do with men.’ I reassured Phaelon. ‘An American sorority is not at all like that. But I think we shall have to say that no men may go near these sororities where we are training our guardians, at least till our guardians have reached thirty-five. For the men are a great distraction.’