Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford [Stableford, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2019-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

XI. A Future Sorbonne

While Marcel and Blas took a few moments’ rest, the latter gave his friend supplementary information regarding the professariat of the thirtieth century.

“Nowadays,” he said, “The professors occupy very enviable situations. They’re on the same footing as the administrators of the State who are responsible for the division of natural wealth, and for the wellbeing of all. They have the same rank as the artists, poets and philosophers who determine esthetic changes in the landscape, education and the interior decoration of edifices. They’re honored and respected by their fellow citizens because they work hard and have a great deal of responsibility.”

“Can you tell me, my dear Blas, what it’s necessary to do to become a professor?”

“It’s not only necessary to give proof, in very severe examinations, of memory and intelligence, and to show that one knows ideas and facts in an impeccable fashion, but also to be the author of an important discovery or original theory within the series of knowledge that one aspires to profess. Needless to say, nowadays, intrigue, favor and protections count for nothing. Our examiners are absolutely impartial. They don’t even know the people they’re called upon to judge.”

“I have difficulty believing that no illicit favor ever occurs...”

“I can assure you that that never happens. The ignorant candidate and the venal examiner who protected him would be prey to such scorn, overwhelmed by such an insulting pity, that no one would ever dare to take the risk. In any case, the knowledge demanded of the candidates is so complex that fraud would be immediately detected.” After a moment’s silence, Blas added: “Then again what interest would there be in protecting incapable candidates? Places and distinctions don’t bring, among us, any surplus of comfort or opulence. Thy only constrain people to greater endeavor; so the idle and those poorly endowed from the intellectual viewpoint are careful to avoid the redoubtable proofs of the professariat. They content themselves with rendering services to society within the measure of their faculties or their energy,”

“How do you choose the administrators and the artists that you mentioned just now?”

“We employ the same system as for the professors. We appoint as an administrator someone who publishes a plan for the division of wealth more equitable than those of his predecessors. It’s the same with artists. Those who find new means of simplifying or magnifying the conception of beauty are immediately admitted to give their advice to the Great Council on which the embellishment of habitations and landscapes depend.”

“Good…but what becomes, then, of political animosities and differences of opinion?”

“It’s a long time since we renounced those vain quarrels, Present day society is no longer anything but one vast family, paternally administered by the most intelligent and the most honest.”

“Are professors very numerous? Given the progress you’ve made in science, their number must be considerable.”

“On the contrary; men distinguished enough to become professors are restricted in number. All the science of the past is taught to us by phonographs. The professors speak to all the students in the world, thanks to the apparatus you saw a short while ago.

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