“You mean that the Camiroi children learn to recall everything that they read?”
“The Camiroi children and adults will recall for life every detail they have ever seen, read, or heard. We on Camiroi are only a little more intelligent than you on Earth. We cannot afford to waste time in forgetting or reviewing, or in pursuing anything of a shallowness that lends itself to scanning.”
“Ah, would you call your schools liberal?” Mr. Piper asked.
“I would. You wouldn’t,” said Philoxenus. “We do not on Camiroi, as you do on Earth, use words to mean their opposites. There is nothing in our education or on our world that corresponds to the quaint servility which you call liberal on Earth.”
“Well, would you call your education progressive?”
“No. In your argot, progressive, of course, means infantile.”
“How are the schools financed?” asked Mr. Piper.
“Oh, the voluntary tithe on Camiroi takes care of everything, government, religion, education, public works. We don’t believe in taxes, of course, and we never maintain a high overhead in anything.”
“Just how voluntary is the tithing?” asked Miss Hanks. “Do you sometimes hang those who do not tithe voluntarily?”
“I believe there have been a few cases of that sort,” said Philoxenus.
“And is your government really as slipshod as your education?” Mr. Piper asked. “Are your high officials really chosen by lot and for short periods?”
“Oh yes. Can you imagine a person so sick that he would actually desire to hold high office for any great period of time? Are there any further questions?”
“There must be hundreds,” said Mr. Piper. “But we find difficulty putting them into words.”
“If you cannot find words for them, we cannot find answers. PTA disbanded.”
CONCLUSION A: The Camiroi system of education is inferior to our own in organization, in buildings, in facilities, in playgrounds, in teacher conferences, in funding, in parental involvement, in supervision, in in-group out-group accommodation adjustment motifs. Some of the school buildings are grotesque. We asked about one particular building which seemed to us to be flamboyant and in bad taste. “What do you expect from second-grade children?” they said. “It is well built even if of peculiar appearance. Second-grade children are not yet complete artists of design.”
“You mean that the children designed it themselves?” we asked.
“Of course,” they said. “Designed and built it. It isn’t a bad job for children.”
Such a thing wouldn’t be permitted on Earth.
CONCLUSION B: The Camiroi system of education somehow produces much better results than does the education system of Earth. We have been forced to admit this by the evidence at hand.
CONCLUSION C: There is an anomaly as yet unresolved between CONCLUSION A and CONCLUSION B. APPENDIX TO JOINT REPORT
We give here, as perhaps of some interest, the curriculum of the Camiroi Primary Education.
FIRST YEAR COURSE:
Playing one wind instrument.
Simple drawing of objects and numbers.
Singing. (This is important. Many Earth people sing who cannot sing. This early instruction of the Camiroi prevents that occurrence.)
Simple arithmetic, hand and machine.
First acrobatics.
First riddles and logic.
Mnemonic religion.
First dancing.
Walking the low wire.
Simple electric circuits.
Raising ants. (Eoempts, not Earth ants.)
SECOND YEAR COURSE:
Playing one keyboard instrument.
Drawing, faces, letters, motions.
Singing comedies.
Complex arithmetic, hand and machine.
Second acrobatics.
First jokes and logic.
Quadratic religion.
Second dancing.
Simple defamation. (Spirited attacks on the character of one fellow student, with elementary falsification and simple hatchet-job programming.)
Performing on the medium wire.
Project electric wiring.
Raising bees. (Galelea, not Earth bees.)
THIRD YEAR COURSE:
Playing one stringed instrument.
Reading and voice. (It is here that the student who may have fallen into bad habits of rapid reading is compelled to read at voice speed only.)
Soft stone sculpture.
Situation comedy.
Simple algebra, hand and machine.
First gymnastics.
Second jokes and logic.
Transcendent religion.
Complex acrobatic dancing.
Complex defamation.
Performing on the high wire and the sky pole.
Simple radio construction.
Raising, breeding, and dissecting frogs. (Karakoli, not Earth frogs.)
FOURTH YEAR COURSE:
History reading, Camiroi and galactic, basic and geological.
Decadent comedy.
Simple geometry and trigonometry, hand and machine.
Track and field.
Shaggy people jokes and hirsute logic.
Simple obscenity.
Simple mysticism.
Patterns of falsification.
Trapeze work.
Intermediate electronics.
Human dissection.
FIFTH YEAR COURSE:
History reading, Camiroi and galactic, technological.
Introverted drama.
Complex geometries and analytics, hand and machine.
Track and field for fifth form record.
First wit and logic.
First alcoholic appreciation.
Complex mysticism.
Setting intellectual climates, defamation in three dimensions.
Simple oratory.
Complex trapeze work.
Inorganic chemistry.
Advanced electronics.
Advanced human dissection.
Fifth form thesis.
The child is now ten years old and is half through his primary schooling. He is an unfinished animal, but he has learned to learn.
SIXTH YEAR COURSE:
Reemphasis on slow reading.
Simple prodigious memory.
History reading, Camiroi and galactic, economic.
Horsemanship (of the Patrushkoe, not the Earth horse).
Advanced lathe and machine work for art and utility.
Literature, passive.
Calculi, hand and machine pankration.
Advanced wit and logic.
Second alcoholic appreciation.
Differential religion.
First business ventures.
Complex oratory.
Building-scaling. (The buildings are higher and the gravity stronger than on Earth; this climbing of buildings like human flies calls out the ingenuity and daring of the Camiroi children.)
Nuclear physics and post-organic chemistry.
Simple pseudo-human assembly.
SEVENTH YEAR COURSE:
History reading, Camiroi and galactic, cultural.
Advanced prodigious memory.
Vehicle operation and manufacture of simple vehicle.