Animal Farm | Page 9

The Meeting always ended
with the singing of Beasts of England, and the afternoon was given up to recreation.

The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, they studied
blacksmithing, carpentering, and other necessary arts from books which they had brought out of the
farmhouse. Snowball also busied himself with organising the other animals into what he called Animal
Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean
Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades' Re-education Committee (the object of this was to tame the
rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others, besides instituting classes in
reading and writing. On the whole, these projects were a failure. The attempt to tame the wild creatures, for
instance, broke down almost immediately. They continued to behave very much as before, and when treated
with generosity, simply took advantage of it. The cat joined the Re-education Committee and was very active
in it for some days. She was seen one day sitting on a roof and talking to some sparrows who were just out of
her reach. She was telling them that all animals were now comrades and that any sparrow who chose could
come and perch on her paw; but the sparrows kept their distance.

The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the autumn almost every animal on the
farm was literate in some degree.

As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not
interested in reading anything except the Seven Commandments. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat
better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper
which she found on the rubbish heap. Benjamin could read as well as any pig, but never exercised his faculty.
So far as he knew, he said, there was nothing worth reading. Clover learnt the whole alphabet, but could not
put words together. Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with
his great hoof, and then would stand staring at the letters with his ears back, sometimes shaking his forelock,
trying with all his might to remember what came next and never succeeding. On several occasions, indeed, he
did learn E, F, G, H, but by the time he knew them, it was always discovered that he had forgotten A, B, C,
and D. Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters, and used to write them out once or twice
every day to refresh his memory. Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own name.
She would form these very neatly out of pieces of twig, and would then decorate them with a flower or two

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Animal Farm

and walk round them admiring them.

None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider
animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After
much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single
maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad." This, he said, contained the essential principle of
Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from human influences. The birds at first
objected, since it seemed to them that they also had two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this was not
so.

"A bird's wing, comrades," he said, "is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be
regarded as a leg. The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his
mischief."

The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler
animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on the
end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters When they had once got it by
heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start
bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!" and keep it up for hours on end, never
growing tired of it.

Napoleon took no interest in Snowball's committees. He said that the education of the young was more
important than anything that could be done for those who were already grown up. It happened that Jessie and
Bluebell had both whelped soon after the