our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was
through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to
the words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:

"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when
you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do what the Council of
Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in
its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than
you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed
by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with
your bodies."

We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke
our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were guilty of
the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some
lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the
Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of
Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which
make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers
forbade it.

We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in
the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that there
are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we
learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and
that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and night. We
learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the
sails of our great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of
all ailments.

We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the secret hour,
when we awoke in the night and there were no brothers around us, but
only their shapes in the beds and their snores, we closed our eyes, and
we held our lips shut, and we stopped our breath, that no shudder might
let our brothers see or hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to
be sent to the Home of the Scholars when our time would come.

All of the great modern inventions come from the Home of the Scholars,
such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred years ago, of how
to make candles from wax and string; also, how to make glass, which is
put in our windows to protect us from the rain. To find these things,
the Scholars must study the earth and learn from the rivers, from the
sands, from the winds and the rocks. And if we w