Dweller on Two Planets: Dividing of the Way

Atlantis, or Poseid, was an empire whose subjects enjoyed the freedom allowed by the most limited monarchical rule, The general law of official succession presented to every male subject a chance for preferment to office. Even the emperor held an elective position, as also did his ministers, the Council of Ninety, or Princes of the Realm--offices analagous to those of the Secretarial Portfolios of the American Republic--its veritable successor. If death claimed the occupant of the throne, or any of the councillors, the elective franchise came into activity, but not otherwise, barring dismissal for rnalfeasance in office, a penalty which, if incurred by him, not even the emperor was exempt from suffering.

The possession of the elective power was vested in the two great social divisions, which embraced all classes of people, of either sex. The great underlying principle of the Poseid political fabric might be said to have been "an educational measuring-rod for every ballot-holder, but the sex of the holder, no one's business." The two major social branches were known by the distinctive names of "Incala" and "Xioqua," or, respectively, the priesthood and scientists.

Do my readers ask where that open opportunity for every subject could be in a system which excluded the artisans, tradespeople, and military, if they happened not to be of the enfranchised classes? Every person had the option of entering either the College of Sciences, or that of Incal, or both.

Nor was race, color or sex considered, the only prerequisite being that the candidate for admission must be sixteen years of age, and the possessor of a good education obtained in the common schools, or at some of the lesser seats of collegiate learning, as the Xioquithlon in the capital city of some one of the Poseid States, as at Numea, Terna, Idosa, Corosa, or even at Marzeus' lower college, Marzeus being the principal art-manufacturing center of Atl. Seven years was the allotted term of study at the Great Xioquithlon, ten months in each year, divided into two sub-terms of five months each, devoted to active work, and one month allowed for recreation, half of it between each session. Any student might compete in the annual examination exercises, held at the end of the year or just preceding the vernal equinox.

That we recognized the natural law of mental limitation will be obvious from the fact that the course of study was purely optional, the aspirant being at liberty to select as many, or as few topics as were agreeable, with this necessary proviso:--that only possessors of diplomas of the first class could be candidates for even the humblest official position. These certificates were evidence of a grade of acquirement which embraced a range of topical knowledge too great to be mentioned, otherwise than inferentially, as the reader proceeds. The second-grade diploma did mot confer political prestige, except in the matter of carrying with it the voting privilege, although if a person neither cared to be an office holder, nor to vote, the right to instruction in any educational branch was none the less a gratuitous privilege. Those, however, who only aspired to a limited education, with the purpose of more successfully pursuing a given business, as tuition in mineralogy by an intending miner, agriculture by a farmer, or botany by an ambitious gardener--had no voice in the government.

While the number of those unambitious ones was not small, none the less the stimulus of obtaining political prestige was so great that not above one in a dozen of the adult population was without at least a secondary diploma, while fully one-third had first-grade certificates. It was owing to this, that the electors found no scarcity of material for filling all elective positions under the government.