"It is our job to teach the children. You are tired. I suggest you go home and rest."

How can you argue with metal? What can you add to a perfect mechanism, designed for its job, and integrated with a hundred other perfect mechanisms? What can you do when a thousand schools are so perfect they have a life of their own, with no need for human guidance, and, most significant, no failures from human weakness?

Wilson stared soberly at this school, at the colossus he had helped to create. He had the feeling that it was wrong somehow, that if people would only think about it they could find that something was wrong.

"You are tired."

He nodded at Socrates. "Yes, I am tired. I will go home."

Once, on the way home, he stared back toward the school with strange unease.

Inside the school there was the ringing of a bell. The children trooped into the large play area that was enclosed in the heart of the great building. Here and there they began to form in clusters. At the centers of the clusters were the newest students, the ones that had moved here, the ones that had been in the robot schools before.

"Is it true that the roboteachers will actually spank you?"

"It's true, all right."

"You're kidding. It's only a story, like Santa Claus or Johnny Appleseed. The human teachers never spanked us here."

"The robots will spank you if you get out of line."

"My father says no robot can lay a hand on a human."

"These robots are different."

The bell began to ring again. Recess was over. The children moved toward the classroom. All the children except one—Johnny Malone, husky Johnny Malone, twelve years old—the Mayor's son. Johnny Malone kicked at the dirt. A robot proctor approached. The metallic voice sounded.

"The ringing of the bell means that classes are resumed. You will take your place, please."

"I won't go inside."

"You will take your place, please."

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