“Everybody knows that grown trees can be transplanted. I remember, when I was in Cologne, there was a garden where forty-year-old trees were replanted. It is expensive, but we spend a great deal for the public health. In these parks, which are for the people, nothing is too dear. It pays in the next generation, but we haven't put such expensive trees everywhere. We get young trees that grow very rapidly, like the eucalyptus, from Australia.”
“Now, that is clear to me,” said Kingscourt. “And, if you don’t mind telling me, where do all those children come from, who are playing yonder?” For, at some distance away, a number of boys and girls were playing tennis and cricket and football.
“Oh, those are the school children from the institutes built round the park.All the classes are sent to play here during the school intervals.”
“They seem to be the children, all of them, of well-to-do parents. They are all so neatly dressed.”
“No, sir,” replied the official, “they are the children of all classes. There are no differences in our schools, either as to clothing or anything else, except the capacity of the child. We do not believe in absolute equality: everyone according to his powers. We have not abolished competition, but the opportunities are all alike, as in any tourney. Everyone has to begin alike, not to end alike. In the old community, people could leave their children rich and without need of worrying.
“On the other hand, the children had to pay not only for the sins of their parents, but also for their bad business. Poverty-stricken families joined the proletariat, and it required an heroic effort to rise out of that condition. Our children are not rewarded nor punished for the business of their parents. Every generation begins anew; and so, from the elementary schools till they pass the middle-grade schools, all children must wear the same dress. We think that is morally good; the rank or wealth of the parents would simply spoil the schools; the better class would become purseproud and the other would become bitter and disappointed. You will excuse me now, I must return to my duties.”
Kingscourt and Friedrich remained looking for some time, watching the children play, and the old man felt some of the passions of his youth return to him; in fact, he felt as though he would have liked to join in the games, but he took Friedrich by the arm and said:
“Let us go and see how little Fritz is, and perhaps there are some reports about President Eichenstamm.”
So they returned to the hotel, where they found Fritz up and ready to greet his old friend, and they engaged upon a conversation understood only between the two.
The reports as to Eichenstamm, however, were very bad. Steineck sent Litvak a brief report, “Hopeless;” and in the evening the Professor came back, his face telling the story.
“It was a great death,” said Professor Steineck. “I was with him to the last moment. He spoke of death. He said it was painless when one had long prepared for it.
“I feel,’ he said, ‘that my consciousness is fast clouding. I hear myself