Upon this hint, Correliana conquered sufficient composure to introduce the speaker as Manito, the Prætor of Maniculæ, the chief city of Manatitla. Then with the accompaniment of a spasmodic inclination to sneeze, as they leaned over the serrated edges of the petals, the tribunes were introduced individually by name. This process was lengthened by occasional suppressed tendencies to mirthful outbreaks, which gave M. Hollydorf and his companions an opportunity for partial recovery from their dazed state of amazement. When sufficiently restored for intelligent comprehension, the flower was changed for one of less pungent odor, and Manito from the rostrum point of a petal continued his address.
“From our diminutive size we willingly subscribe to the designation your nomenclature bestows upon insect animalities which are but partially visible to your unaided eyes. Still we do not disdain our size, for with the Manatitlans it has received the compensating privilege of a perception that enabled them to distinguish the evident object of mankind’s intelligent endowment above the instincts of associate animality.
“Like individuals of your race, ours vary in size. Some among the Manatitlans have reached in stature a height approximating in a remote degree to your well formed dwarfs of a standard monstrosity in the diminutive extreme sufficient for the excitement of wondering surprise. Our own divisions are expressed in terms rating from the smallest in stature, which are called tits; these form the masses, but with a sensible diminution in numbers from an upward tendency to the second degree of elevation from the majority. The middle class are styled mediums. With every generation this grade has been increased in proportion with the decrease of the tits, and ranks in status with your “well to do” money grade of merchants and speculators. The giantesco enjoys the highest statutory standing in the ranks of size, representing your titled duke commanders, and subalterns of lordly and knightly degree. But these distinctions are only perceptible to the eye, and in no way arbitrary in the assumption of prerogative stature rights above those below. As our scholastic term of education commences with the infant at the age of two years: the first stage that directs and controls the infantile perceptions and cravings of instinct is styled pupillage, and is under the supervision of the censor and nurse, who hold the instinctive exaggerations of parental fondness in check from birth. This habilitative stage of matriculation is the most trying for direction, as upon it depends the matriculant’s after power of self- control. The second stage of nonage commences at seven, when the self- devising perceptions begin to expand into individuality, that require educated direction, and leading encouragement. At fourteen, or the pubertal stage, the first indications appear for the premonitory inauguration of status rank established for the distinctions of size. The initiatory discipline of the scholar entering upon his senior term, induces the tractor disposition of the censorial advisor, in association with his juniors; in place of your form system of “bullying” the nether “fag,” whose weakness makes submission a virtue, when subject to the classical distinctions of arbitrary power. The seniors become assistant tutors to the censors and teachers from the age of fourteen until the close of their twenty-third year, when they graduate; and after a probationary term of three months’ “courtship,” with the connubial censors’ selection of affiances, are married. This cursory glance will serve for an introductory insight into our natural system of education designed for the direction of our immortal endowment in perceptive flight above the body’s ephemeral gratification of instinctive desire.