In this as in other matters we have become wealthy: we can afford to give ourselves time to grow." "Yes," said I, "but suppose the child, youth, man, never wants the information, never grows in the direction you might hope him to do: suppose, for instance, he objects to learning arithmetic or mathematics; you can't force him when he _is_ grown; can't you force him while he is growing, and oughtn't you to do so ?" "Well," said he, "were you forced to learn arithmetic and mathematics ?" "A little," said I.
"And how old are you now ?" "Say fifty-six," said I.
"And how much arithmetic and mathematics do you know now ?" quoth the old man, smiling rather mockingly.
Said I: "None whatever, I am sorry to say." Hammond laughed quietly, but made no other comment on my admission, and I dropped the subject of education, perceiving him to be hopeless on that side.
I thought a little, and said: "You were speaking just now of households: that sounded to me a little like the customs of past times; I should have thought you would have lived more in public." "Phalangsteries, eh ?" said he.

"Well, we live as we like, and we like to live as a rule with certain house-mates that we have got used to.
Remember, again, that poverty is extinct, and that the Fourierist phalangsteries and all their kind, as was but natural at the time, implied nothing but a refuge from mere destitution.

Such a way of life as that, could only have been conceived of by people surrounded by the worst form of poverty.

But you must understand therewith, that though separate households are the rule amongst us, and though they differ in their habits more or less, yet no door is shut to any good-tempered person who is content to live as the other house-mates do: only of course it would be unreasonable for one man to drop into a household and bid the folk of it to alter their habits to please him, since he can go elsewhere and live as he pleases.

However, I need not say much about all this, as you are going up the river with Dick, and will find out for yourself by experience how these matters are managed." After a pause, I said: "Your big towns, now; how about them?
London, which--which I have read about as the modern Babylon of civilization, seems to have disappeared." "Well, well," said old Hammond, "perhaps after all it is more like ancient Babylon now than the 'modern Babylon' of the nineteenth century was.