Anthem [another edition] | Page 7

that
it has ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our last, supreme
transgression, our [-crime-] {+crimes+} of crimes hidden here under the ground.
We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five years old,
together with all the children of the City who had been born in the same year. The
sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
We were just like all our brothers then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our
brothers. There are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and
for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and of all the children of
that year, we were locked in the cellar most often.
When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students, where there are
ten wards, for our ten years of learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year.
Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when the big bell rang in the
tower and we went to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, we
stood in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all together
with the three Teachers at the head:
"We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives.
We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen."
Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one
hundred beds.
We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was
not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a
great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our
brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned
when they looked upon us.
So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we always
remembered. We tried not to understand what the [-Teachers-] {+teachers+} taught, but
we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked upon Union
[-5-3992,-] {+5-3992+} who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we tried to say
and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union 5-3992, but somehow the
Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often than all the other
children.
The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and the Councils
are the [-voice-] {+voices+} of all justice, for they are the voice of all men. And if
sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on 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 [-that which-] {+what+} the Council of [-Vocations-]
{+Vocation+} 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 [-man,-] {+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 [-love-] {+loved+} the
Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which
[-make-] {+makes+} the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers
forbade it.
We think that there are mysteries in the [-sky,-] {+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 [-the-] night. We learned the names of all the