“Well—­well—­” Babbitt sought for adequate expression of his admiration.  “I’m a son of a gun!  I knew this correspondence-school business had become a mighty profitable game—­makes suburban real-estate look like two cents!—­but I didn’t realize it’d got to be such a reg’lar key-industry!  Must rank right up with groceries and movies.  Always figured somebody’d come along with the brains to not leave education to a lot of bookworms and impractical theorists but make a big thing out of it.  Yes, I can see how a lot of these courses might interest you.  I must ask the fellows at the Athletic if they ever realized—­But same time, Ted, you know how advertisers, I means some advertisers, exaggerate.  I don’t know as they’d be able to jam you through these courses as fast as they claim they can.”

“Oh sure, Dad; of course.”  Ted had the immense and joyful maturity of a boy who is respectfully listened to by his elders.  Babbitt concentrated on him with grateful affection: 

“I can see what an influence these courses might have on the whole educational works.  Course I’d never admit it publicly—­fellow like myself, a State U. graduate, it’s only decent and patriotic for him to blow his horn and boost the Alma Mater—­but smatter of fact, there’s a whole lot of valuable time lost even at the U., studying poetry and French and subjects that never brought in anybody a cent.  I don’t know but what maybe these correspondence-courses might prove to be one of the most important American inventions.

“Trouble with a lot of folks is:  they’re so blame material; they don’t see the spiritual and mental side of American supremacy; they think that inventions like the telephone and the areoplane and wireless—­no, that was a Wop invention, but anyway:  they think these mechanical improvements are all that we stand for; whereas to a real thinker, he sees that spiritual and, uh, dominating movements like Efficiency, and Rotarianism, and Prohibition, and Democracy are what compose our deepest and truest wealth.  And maybe this new principle in education-at-home may be another—­may be another factor.  I tell you, Ted, we’ve got to have Vision—­”

“I think those correspondence-courses are terrible!”

The philosophers gasped.  It was Mrs. Babbitt who had made this discord in their spiritual harmony, and one of Mrs. Babbitt’s virtues was that, except during dinner-parties, when she was transformed into a raging hostess, she took care of the house and didn’t bother the males by thinking.  She went on firmly: 

“It sounds awful to me, the way they coax those poor young folks to think they’re learning something, and nobody ’round to help them and—­You two learn so quick, but me, I always was slow.  But just the same—­”