Chapter 57

I think much on what I have seen in court these two days.

Linda speaks for a man who is not a good man. He is ill and has done things that are ill. I think it likely he will do more things that are ill in time to come.

But it isn’t for these things that he goes to trial. He is tried for a deed he did not do. I think another has done this crime, or else it is not a crime. And because Linda speaks well for this man, he will go free. In one way I wish he would not go free, but it isn’t right that he be punished for what he didn’t do.

That is the part of lawyers, those who speak for others in court, to be sure that punishment is not unjustly given. I think again on the one who stuttered and was cast out for killing when perhaps another man, more liked among his people, might not have been. This is a thing worth doing.

I think it is what I wish to do.

When I tell Linda this she looks very surprised. She says it is difficult to become lawyer and takes many years of study. But then she thinks more.

“Hugo, you’re really sure this is what you want?” she asks. When I tell her yes she goes to computer for a time and then returns.

“OK, here’s what we do,” she tells me. “The first step is to get you into a college, you need an undergraduate degree. To do that you have to either graduate high school, which is impossible, or get a GED, which is a paper saying you have the equivalent of a high school education. And to get that you have to pass a test, a written test. One of those is scheduled in about six months, and you’ll need to bone up in a few areas, but I think we can make it.”

When she explains further I must laugh. In this world all learning must be in strict sequence. First children are expected to spend twelve years of schooling to learn basic things. By this time they are already older than Unkgat, who is a man among us. Then they must take four more years to learn greater knowledge but still basic. Then they must take three years additional to learn of the law, and still more years at the end of schooling to learn while working. A person will be nearly to thirty or perhaps still more years before he is ready for real work.

And it must be done just so, no step may be skipped. In one way I understand; with so many people it isn’t possible for each to be judged individually, there must be some method. But it still seems to me unnecessary that the method is so rigidly held.

In this world, I tell myself again, I must do as others do. Linda finds me copy of GED test from before and tries me with it. There are some things I don’t know, and these I study. When I take test I know I do well.

Then I must quickly take another test called SAT. Linda says the letters mean scholastic aptitude test, which I think means how able I am to learn in college, but that makes little sense; one may test what a person now knows, but how is one to test the ability to learn more? I shrug, it is merely another way of this world.

The tests are mostly very easy. Some of the questions might be hard, but one is offered only a few choices and mostly it isn’t difficult to eliminate at least some bad choices immediately and then reach the right one. There is one part of SAT where I am to write on a subject that is chosen for me, and this is harder because my English is still not perfect, but I think I do well there, too.

Finally I must make out application for college. Only one college in this city will be good, and when I apply they at first tell me no, they will not take me because I have only GED instead of high school. But Irving talks to them for me, and after my SAT scores are received they change their minds and tell that they will accept me as student.