“There is the printing establishment. No, the paper and the magazines are not self-supporting--though the school advertising helps. They’re subsidized. We quite believe in that.
“And there--you can get a glimpse of the greenhouses and gardens. Botany and so forth.... The library is the centre of the research groups. History, sociology, economics--finding out what and why. Very informal and very earnest, as you’ll find.... The groups? Oh, the time one stays in each group varies with the individual. But every one likes to be able to boast quietly of an M. P.--that means a ‘masterpiece’ in the old mediaeval sense; a piece of work that shows you’ve passed the apprentice stage--in a reasonable number of departments. Some Admirable Crichtons go in for an M. P. in everything!...
“The restaurant--that’s quite important. The cooking groups give a grand dinner every little while, and everybody goes and dines quite in state, with dancing afterward. We learn the best of bourgeois manners--makes it _quite_ impossible to distinguish an immigrant’s child from the scions of our old families. The result is that the best families are discarding their manners in order to retain their distinction! Very amusing....
“The church? You mean that building over there, I suppose? That isn’t a church--not in the sense you mean. It’s our meeting place. You see, since your time churches have come to be used so much for meetings that when our architecture group came to plan an assembly hall it was quite natural for them to choose the ecclesiastical style. Anyway, I understand it’s a return to their original purpose....”
“But,” I said, “this school is just like the world outside!”
“Except,” he said, “in one particular. In the world outside we still have certain vestiges of class privilege and exploitation--considerably toned down from their former asperities, but still recognizable as relics of capitalism. In the school we have play, production and exchange as they would exist in the outside world if these things were to be done and managed wholly with the intention of making better and wiser and happier citizens. The difference, of course, is simply that one is run with an educational and the other with a productive intention.”