The Unlearned Read online

varietyof lesser ways also--

  "Perhaps you are aware of the experiences and techniques commonlyemployed on Earth by white men in their efforts to educate theaborigine. The first procedure is to do away with the tribal medicinemen, ignore their lore and learning. Get them to give up the magic wordsand their pots of foul smelling liquids, abandon their ritual dances andtake up the white man's great wisdom.

  "We have done this time after time, only to learn decades later that thenatives once knew much of anesthetics and healing drugs, and had genuinepowers to communicate in ways the white man can't duplicate.

  "But once in a long while a group of aborigines show more spunk than theaverage. They refuse to give up their medicine men, their magic andtheir hard earned lore accumulated over generations and centuries.Instead of giving these things up they insist on the white man'slearning these mysteries in preference to _his_ nonsensical andineffective magic. They completely frustrate the situation, and if theypersist they finally destroy the white man as an educator. He is forcedto conclude that the ignorant savages are unteachable.

  "It is an infallible technique--and one that we shall employ. Dr.Silvers will undertake to teach his mathematical lecturer in theapproaches to the Legrandian Equations. He will speculate long andnoisily on the geometry which potentially lies in this mathematicalsystem. Dr. Carmen will elucidate at great length on the properties ofthe chain of chemicals he has been advised to abandon.

  "Each of us has at least one line of research the Rykes would have usgive up. That is the very thing we shall insist on having investigated.We shall teach them these things and prove Earthmen to be an unlearned,unteachable band of aborigines who refuse to pursue the single path toglory and light, but insist on following every devious byway andsearching every darkness that lies beside the path.

  "It ought to do the trick. I estimate it should not be more than a weekbefore we are on our way back home, labeled by the Rykes as utterlyhopeless material for their enlightenment."

  The senators seemed momentarily appalled and speechless, but theyrecovered shortly and had a considerable amount of high flown oratory todistribute on the subject. The scientists, however, were comparativelyquiet, but on their faces was a subdued glee that Hockley had to admitwas little short of fiendish. It was composed, he thought, of all thegloating anticipations of all the schoolboys who had ever put athumbtack on the teacher's chair.

  Hockley was somewhat off in his prediction. It was actually a mere fivedays after the beginning of the Earthmen's campaign that the Rykes gavethem up and put them firmly aboard a vessel bound for home. The Rykeswere apologetic but firm in admitting they had made a sorry mistake,that Earthmen would have to go their own hopeless way while the Rykesled the rest of the Universe toward enlightenment and glory.

  Hockley, Showalter, and Silvers watched the planet drop away beneaththem. Hockley could not help feeling sympathetic toward the Rykes. "Iwonder what will happen," he said slowly, "when they crash headlong intoan impassable barrier on that beautiful, straight road of theirs. Iwonder if they'll ever have enough guts to turn aside?"

  "I doubt it," said Showalter. "They'll probably curl up and call it aday."

  Silvers shook his head as if to ward off an oppressive vision. "Thatshouldn't be allowed to happen," he said. "They've got too much. They'veachieved too much, in spite of their limitations. I wonder if thereisn't some way we could help them?"