Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/178

172 into which the child's head can be readily brought, if there is any difficulty in using the air-tubes; but after a little care the infant soon breathes as comfortably through the tubes as its elders, and never needs to resort to the air-reservoir.

At a very early age the children are arranged into various classes, according to their intellectual capacities, and education suitable to each is carefully given. Those whose mental capacity suits them for it are educated for the higher scientific employments; others are brought up to be skilled artisans; others again, to follow the more mechanical trades; and the lowest capacities of all are trained for the position of unskilled labourers.

These establishments turn out men and women of the highest calibre, philosophers, naturalists, engineers, architects, musicians and artists, as well as skilled and unskilled workmen in every department. Ample employment is given to each as he completes his education; and the pupils of these great educational establishments generally contrast favourably with those who have been brought up at the private houses of their parents and guardians. Far from there being any disgrace or shame attached to the bringing up in the public schools, it is rather the other way, and those reared by private persons are generally thought less of than those who have received the advantages of the state establishments.

For every one who can work there is always employment of some kind or another to be had in Colymbia, and, as the necessaries of life are cheap and wages good, all classes are comfortably off. Crime of every kind is extremely rare, and the punishment for it, banishment to the land for a longer or shorter period,