On the whole therefore--although I am not ignorant that,
in many popularly elected School Boards, there is a reaction
in favour of "the cheap system" as it is called--
I am myself disposed to think that this is one
of the many cases in which expense is the truest economy.
But I must not allow questions of School Board politics to divert
me from my subject. Enough has been said, I trust, to shew that
Recognition by Feeling is not so tedious or indecisive a process
as might have been supposed; and it is obviously more trustworthy
than Recognition by hearing. Still there remains, as has been pointed
out above, the objection that this method is not without danger.
For this reason many in the Middle and Lower classes, and all
without exception in the Polygonal and Circular orders,
prefer a third method, the description of which
shall be reserved for the next section.
SECTION 6 Of Recognition by Sight
I am about to appear very inconsistent. In the previous sections
I have said that all figures in Flatland present the appearance
of a straight line; and it was added or implied, that it is consequently
impossible to distinguish by the visual organ between individuals
of different classes: yet now I am about to explain to my Spaceland
critics how we are able to recognize one another by the sense of sight.
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