Everyone goes to school until the age of 16, that is, the length of time on Mars would correspond to 32 years on your Earth. The Martian year is nearly twice as long as on your globe.
There are many universities on Mars where students enter direct from their homes, where the primary and preparatory education is first inculcated in their minds. Wonderful teachers have charge of the students, and many truths not yet known on your Earth are taught. Special and particular attention is given to the subject of the development of Spiritual gifts to the end that all may come into man's Divine Heritage, the PEACE, POWER AND PLENTY of the KINGDOM OF GOD.
Each student is selected for his or her proper vocation, and this vocation is determined scientifically and accurately, for what benefits the individual also benefits the entire community.
Each individual is trained to perform his part in a manner that will ensure the unity and harmony of the entire industrial system of the planet, and each unit understands the dignity and importance of his position, no matter what that position may be, for on Mars no activity of human endeavor is considered menial; no one position in life is less important than the rest: all is God's work.
And so each gravitates to his special liking in the realm of physical activity, for God has created each individual for some particular work. Six hours is a day's work, the remainder of the time is devoted to recreation, music, lectures, and those general activities that best develop the highest spiritualities with the individual. For the Martians realize that life on the material plane is but temporary the isolation of the individual Divine Spark from the Infinite whole to the end that the personality may become for all Eternity self-conscious and in harmony with God, which means the inheritance of God's Kingdom for all time.
Failure to come into harmony with God is destruction of the individuality, but not of the Divine in man, for that is indestructible: it always was and always will be.
Education on Mars is inculcated with a view principally of developing the individual spiritually in order to prepare one for the spiritual progress after the completion of the material probationary period as well as having life in greatest abundance during that period, and with this main end in view the subject of marriage, the rearing of children, receives special consideration and attention.
The pivotal idea is that when the time for mating arrives the selection of a wife by the prospective husband must be in accordance with true conjugal harmony, and this is not possible in the absence of Spiritual development. Hence, divorces are unknown with us, and to that end is special care taken in the matter of teaching the truth concerning the marital relation, the rearing of children and their Spiritual growth.
The marriage age for both sexes is about 35 years, in terms of your time measurements. The result of this early training is that the young couple just embarked on the "Sea of Matrimony," are true mates and go through life without the usual occurrence of domestic turmoil so characteristic of your Earth's people.
Marriage on your Earth, with but few exceptions, has degenerated from God's holiest of institutions to a happy convenience for the gratification of the animal passions; and the rearing of children is an accident rather than a preconceived reality. Such marriages are unholy and destructive, and unless your people respond to a Spiritual awakening such as God's workers are now trying to inaugurate on your Earth the growing degeneracy will be augmented rather than diminished and the extinction of the race will be inevitable.
The curriculum of our schools embraces all branches of Domestic Science, as well as all the sciences, with the difference from your system that Spiritual development must be the principal task of those having supervision over the studies of the young.
One of the subdivisions of Domestic Science receiving particular attention on Mars is the PREPARATION OF FOODS. With an atmospheric pressure of only eight pounds to the square inch, water boils at 175 degrees on our planet. This temperature is inadequate for cooking foods properly, especially the coarser varieties. But recourse is had to the cooking of food in vacuum or under pressure, as the exigencies of the occasion demand.
Electrical energy is used most generally for producing heat, and the variety of foods, both animal and vegetal, are as extensive as on your planet, for the flora and fauna of Mars differs little from yours.
Martians are not excessive eaters, as their bodies do not require the gross foods so characteristic of your Earth. There are two reasons for this. In the first place the difference in the gravitational pull on Mars being thirty-eight one-hundredths to that of your Earth, obviates the necessity of supplying as much fuel to the human body as your physical make-up demands. In the second place the Martians partake of food to keep the body alive, and not for the vulgar pleasure afforded by the consumption of victuals. We eat to live: whereas most of your Earth tenants live to eat.
Although each individual has his particular place in the universe where he will excel in some kind of activity, there being no two persons in all Creation exactly alike, the student on Mars is given an opportunity to obtain a broad and comprehensive knowledge relating to all subjects, both material and spiritual.
The study of matter, divided as it is into a number of elements, offers an interesting field for study and research work, as does also its concomitant Cosmic Energy.
Compared to your Earth, industry on Mars, by the aid of labor-saving devices is perfect: and as a consequence the use of energy is considerable, especially so in the realm of Synthetic Chemistry. But it must be understood that the individual is taught that dependence must be placed rather on one's own dexterity, born of that God-given faculty of Intuition, than on the perfectness of a man-made machine, the creation of finite mind.
For it has so happened to races on other planets that complete degeneration and final extinction has come about by the entire dependence of the individual and afterwards of the entire race, on machinery to do the work required of the individual by the Creator, such dependence finally terminating in almost complete atrophy of the worker's intuitional faculties.
This calamity will surely overtake your future generations if a halt is not called on the over-zealous adoption of automatic machines for most every line of industrial activity. You are now getting to the stage where the most simple and elementary mathematical problems are solved by merely pressing a few buttons or turning a crank, the operator understanding little or nothing of the fundamentals underlying the solution of the problems in hand. This means, in the near future, brain atrophy through disuse.
And so with other lines of industrial activity. Not one among a thousand workers engaged in making shoes can do other than make a heel or perform some simple operation, one of hundreds of units in the completion of a pair of shoes. And perhaps it would be impossible to find one individual whose intuitional faculties were developed to the extent that he could turn out the perfect, completed article.
In order to explain how far we have succeeded on Mars in harnessing a mighty universal force to the end of utilizing the same in turning our factory wheels, lighting our domiciles and giving warmth to our homes in winter, it might not be amiss to state a few facts concerning our knowledge of matter and energy.
We have learned that material life simply amounts to functioning in an Effect world. The Cause world is the Reality which is invisible to all while hampered with a physical body; that all forms of matter are but the manifestation of the same ultimate Essence; that this Essence is but a Divine Impulse--a thrust, as it were, in the Ether. That although we observe with our sensory organs many different kinds of matter, consisting of elements and compounds of elements: if we were able to resolve any of the different forms of matter before us into their ultimate units, these ultimate particles would all turn out to be the same thing, the "Divine Impulses" just mentioned.
Now you can best grasp the idea by imagining yourselves immersed in an Infinite sea of such Divine Impulses, just as a fish is immersed in an ocean of water. Everywhere. all about us, is a teeming maelstrom of motion. There is not a cubic centimeter of space that you can call at rest. All is eternal motion. All is Energy.
And out of this inexhaustible Cosmic Reservoir do we Martians draw our energy. And as the Divine Impulse is the ultimate essence of all matter and all energy, therefore you might imagine matter in its different aspects as Electrical in origin. As Electricity is a manifestation of the Divine Impulse, then the only Reality in the Universe is GOD.
We have learned to utilize this Cosmic Energy by getting into harmony with its origin--GOD--for only through God can true knowledge be obtained.
On your Earth you have devised a very crude method for utilizing Electrical Energy. You expend more energy by burning coal or using water power than you derive from your electrical pump: for a dynamo is nothing more than a pump. Your machines do not generate electrical power for, as stated before you are immersed in an Infinite sea of energy.
On Mars we have learned to draw directly on this Infinite reservoir of energy. We have learned the law as you some day must.
Located at convenient points on our planet are high towers, capped with suitable receiving apparatus. In turn this energy is transmitted to different parts of our globe where it is used. We do not require wires to transmit energy. Our landscape is neither disfigured with unsightly wires, nor is it covered with a pall of black smoke. We devised a more perfect method of power production and transmission.
The relativity of time, space, motion and matter is an actuality brought to the attention of advanced students on Mars. An understanding of this truth exemplifies the unreality of the world of gross matter and the importance of gaining knowledge concerning Spiritual truths; for the latter are the only real tangible treasures worthy of one's efforts in their acquisition. Already a knowledge of these truths is beginning to be sought for by some of the more spiritually enlightened inhabitants of your Earth; but so immersed in the unreal things of life is the vast majority of your Earth people that it will take a long time before the present seed-sowing toward this end will bear fruit.
The seed-sowing referred to is the work of enlightenment now going on by a mighty group of Spiritual intelligences who, at the present day, have in hand the task of Spiritual reformation on your Earth. Only Truth can stand in the end. All that is unreal or false must ultimately give way to truth, and Omniscience has willed that the day when error shall be no more shall be hastened.
There are other planes of existence for the Spirit: many of them.
But they are simply extensions beyond your limited vision; for as long as you function in a world of unreality and error your Spiritual vision is incapable of discerning what lies beyond your present horizon, and must remain dormant. Material eyes are but the windows of the Soul, and your environment has so beclouded your vision that you grasp but little of the real things beyond.