After supper, Norrena informed me that on the morrow, he would devote an hour to oral lessons at the institute of district school superintendents and that his subject would be the History of the Transition Period.
"This," he explained, "covers that period in the history of Altruria which marks the decline and fall of the old system of competition and the introduction of co-operative methods. It may be just what you want in the way of lessons from history. If you think that you do not yet understand our language well enough to fully comprehend all the points, I will provide you with a translation into English."
I thanked him for his interest in my work and assured him that while I wanted to hear him in his own tongue, if he could provide me with the same matter in English, it would help me to a better understanding of the language of the country, and that certainly I did not want to miss any point of real value in the subject matter.
THE INSTITUTE OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS--NORRENA'S ADDRESS ON THE TRANSITION PERIOD--FROM COMPETITION TO CO-OPERATION--THE CLOSING DECADES OF MONEY SUPREMACY--THE POWER OF GOLD--ITS CONQUEST OF THE WORLD--POLITICAL GOVERNMENTS ITS TOOLS--THE PEOPLE HELPLESS--A HINT AT THE WAY OUT.
AT an early hour we were up and had our breakfast. I felt that my journey to Orbitello and the hasty glance through the leading departments had been the most instructive day I had ever experienced. But I was not surfeited, and looked forward with interest to the meeting of the Institute of School Superintendents and especially to Norrena's oral lessons from the Transition Period of the great Industrial Commonwealth of Altruria.
We met in the Auditorium over the Department of Public Printing. Many had already arrived and were gathered into groups in various portions of the vast hall conversing with each other. I took a seat on one side by myself to contemplate the scene before me. I was by nature a student, and here I was among, as it were, a nation of competent instructors, and in a country where everything demonstrated the power to control the great potent forces which govern the external world, and the innate force of our higher moral and spiritual concepts of what should be our relations toward each other in order to convert this earth into a heaven of blissful, happy contentment. I was among a people who universally regarded "an injury to one as the concern of all," and hence health, happiness and abundance for all was their normal condition.