grateful."

"You speak as if it were done for the convenience of the consumer--not
the pride of the producer," I suggested.

"It's both," said Somel. "We have pride enough in our work."

"Then why not in your children?" urged Jeff.

"But we have! We're magnificently proud of them," she insisted.

"Then why not sign 'em?" said Terry triumphantly.

Moadine turned to him with her slightly quizzical smile. "Because the
finished product is not a private one. When they are babies, we do speak
of them, at times, as 'Essa's Lato,' or 'Novine's Amel'; but that is
merely descriptive and conversational. In the records, of course,
the child stands in her own line of mothers; but in dealing with it
personally it is Lato, or Amel, without dragging in its ancestors."

"But have you names enough to give a new one to each child?"

"Assuredly we have, for each living generation."

Then they asked about our methods, and found first that "we" did so and
so, and then that other nations did differently. Upon which they wanted
to know which method has been proved best--and we had to admit that
so far as we knew there had been no attempt at comparison, each people
pursuing its own custom in the fond conviction of superiority, and
either despising or quite ignoring the others.

With these women the most salient quality in all their institutions was
reasonableness. When I dug into the records to follow out any line of
development, that was the most astonishing thing--the conscious effort
to make it better.

They had early observed the value of certain improvements, had easily
inferred that there was room for more, and took the greatest pains to
develop two kinds of minds--the critic and inventor. Those who showed
an early tendency to observe, to discriminate, to suggest, were given
special training for that function; and some of their highest officials
spent their time in the most careful study of one or another branch of
work, with a view to its further improvement.

In each generation there was sure to arrive some new mind to detect
faults and show need of alterations; and the whole corps of inventors
was at hand to apply their special faculty at the point criticized, and
offer suggestions.

We had learned by this time not to open a discussion on any of their
characteristics without first priming ourselves to answer questions
about our own methods; so I kept rather quiet on this matter of
conscious improvement. We were not prepa