This time the class didn’t laugh. It had never asked itself why boys were taught how to count, and girls were not taught how to count. If nothing else, its silence demanded an explanation.
The old prune with chalk dust wedged into its fingernails frowned, “You’re wrong. You don’t have the right to learn how to count. There is no reason for you to know how to count for you are not among the counters. You are among the counted.
“See, here,” he pointed and read the Tenth Commandment aloud, ‘Thou shalt not desire to take from thy neighbor his property, including his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass.’2
“Only a man counts his property, his money, his slaves, his sheep, his cows, his chickens, his ox, his wife, his children and all else he owns.
“According to Almighty God under whom our great nation has been built, according to its constitution, like other animals you are mere property. Being property you cannot own property. Having no property to count, you have no reason to learn how to count.”
Susan didn’t blink an eye, “I am not an animal. I am a human being.” The boys doubled up laughing. The girls looked up at her as if they had just come back from the dead.
The old prune with chalk dust wedged into its fingernails closed his case. “Not according to God, not according to the facts.” He pointed once more to the Tenth Commandment. The boys giggled. The girls accepted their fate. It was obvious to each of them Susan was in over her head.
The old prune with chalk dust wedged into its fingernails glanced around the room. With the exception of his adversary, it was clear he had convinced the lighter sex of their role in life. He had done a masterful job of presenting the facts. He had won his case. He had removed the question mark from each of their stares. On top of it all, he had made a fool of this impudent little girl. “Now let’s get on with the business of the day. What those brave young lads took those first bullets for in the spring of 1775?”
Susan was not quite finished, “That’s not what it says.”
“It is exactly what it says.” The old man pointed again and read, “‘Thou shalt not desire to take from thy neighbor his property, including his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass.’” 2
Taking up his chalk he underlined ‘his property’ → ‘his wife’ inserting an arrow between the phrases.
“Not there, over here.”
The little girl pointed to the Pledge of Allegiance. With a defiant smile she demolished his case, the case of this old prune with chalk dust wedged into its fingernails. Susan read, “…liberty and justice for all!”
Her classmates looked to their master for an explanation. He answered their unasked question, “My mistake,” the frustrated old prune chuckled. Taking up the chalk, he added the word ‘men.’
Standing back, he read, “‘…liberty and justice for all men!’ Yes, that’s better” he announced to the class, “This is what those brave lads took those first bullets for in the spring of 1775!”
The little girl kept the thought to herself. “This is not what those brave young lads took those first bullets for in the spring of 1775. They took those first bullets so that I, too, can learn how to count.
“Furthermore, I am going to learn how to count.
“What’s more, I am going to make it possible for all those little girls who come after me to be able to learn how to count.
“I am going to change Ichabod Falwell’s blackboard back to what those brave lads took those first bullets for in the spring of 1775, ‘…liberty and justice for all!’”
_____
Until the mid-20th century, there were virtually no women engineers in the United States, engineering requiring a strong aptitude in mathematics.
On April 9, 1775, British troops fired on Minutemen at Concord. Two fell dead and four others were wounded by ‘the shot heard round the world.’
Susan B. Anthony was a precocious child having learned to read and write at age three. In 1826, when she was six years old, a teacher refused to teach her arithmetic because of her gender. That night, Susan announced to her family she was going to learn how to count so that all little girls who would come after her would have the same right to learn how to count.
Her father, a cotton manufacturer and abolitionist, groomed her into the human rights activist she became—one dedicated to women’s rights, particularly as they concerned themselves with custody rights of their own children. She would change the definition of ‘woman’ from ‘property’ to ‘human being’ which, in turn, changed the definition of marriage; marriage would no longer be a barter between one man and another—a maiden for a cow—but the decision of two people who are in love.
The Author
on his first trip to Vittorio Veneto
Born in New England, George Lucien Gregoire completed his undergraduate and graduate work in Massachusetts schools.
He spent his military service in U.S. Army Intelligence in Italy and CIA headquarters in McLean Virginia and his professional career as a financial officer of American and European corporations.
He was an American industrialist operating in Central America dealing with the same banks the Vatican was involved with when the Vatican bank scandal and revolution he speaks of in this book took place.
For a time, a national figure in cooperative education, he has served on boards of secondary schools and universities. He is the founding trustee of charitable organizations, many providing education to impaired children.
Gregoire made the acquaintance of John Paul in the sixties when the Pope—as a little known bishop of a remote mountain province in northern Italy—was involved in the priest-worker revolution which eventually gave rise to the success of the communist and socialist parties in the polls.
“This chalice contains one hundred and twenty-two of the world’s most pristine diamonds. Do you really think this is what Christ meant by his Church?”
John Paul I, 4th audience 27 Sep 78
Contact author: [email protected] 410 625 9741
Murder in the Vatican Page 51
