Anthem | Page 5

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 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 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 man, 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 the 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 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 went to the Home
of the Scholars, we could learn from these also. We could ask questions
of these, for they do not forbid questions.
And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us
seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It
whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that
we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask,
why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that
we may know.
So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it so
much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night, and we
bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure. It was
evil and we dared not face our brothers in the morning. For men may
wish nothing for themselves. And we were punished when the Council
of Vocations came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who
reach their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest of their
days.
The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and they sat
in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the Teachers came
into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations sat on a high dais, and
they had but two words