proclamation of the new gospel of individual initiative within the social groups of that day. But this beneficent rule was so soon interrupted that the races never have been wholly liberated from the slavery of custom; fashion still unduly dominates Urantia.
66:6.3 The Caligastia 100 — graduates of the Satania mansion worlds — well knew the arts and culture of Jerusem, but such knowledge is nearly valueless on a barbaric planet populated by primitive humans. These wise beings knew better than to undertake the
66:6.4 Each of the ten planetary commissions set about
66:6.5 Foreign emissaries were never sent to a race except upon the specific request of that people. Those who laboured for the uplift and advancement of a given tribe or race were always natives of that tribe or race. The 100 would not attempt to impose the habits and mores of even a superior race upon another tribe. Always they patiently worked to uplift and advance the time-tried mores of each race. The simple folk of Urantia brought their social customs to Dalamatia, not to exchange them for new and better practices, but to have them uplifted by contact with a higher culture and by association with superior minds. The process was slow but very effectual.
66:6.6 The Dalamatia teachers sought to add conscious social selection to the purely natural selection of biologic evolution. They did not derange human society, but they did markedly accelerate its normal and natural evolution. Their motive was progression by evolution and not revolution by revelation. The human race had spent ages in acquiring the little religion and morals it had, and these supermen knew better than to rob mankind of these few advances by the confusion and dismay which always result when enlightened and superior beings undertake to uplift the backward races by overteaching and overenlightenment.
66:6.7 When Christian missionaries go into the heart of Africa, where sons and daughters are supposed to remain under the control and direction of their parents throughout the lifetime of the parents, they only bring about confusion and the breakdown of all authority when they seek, in a single generation, to supplant this practice by teaching that these children should be free from all parental restraint after they have attained the age of 21.
7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA
66:7.1 The Prince’s headquarters, though exquisitely beautiful and designed to awe the primitive men of that age, was altogether modest. The buildings were not especially large as it was the motive of these imported teachers to encourage the eventual development of agriculture through the introduction of animal husbandry. The land provision within the city walls was sufficient to provide for pasturage and gardening for the support of a population of about 20,000.
66:7.2 The interiors of the central temple of worship and the ten council mansions of the supervising groups of supermen were indeed beautiful works of art. And while the residential buildings were models of neatness and cleanliness, everything was very simple and altogether primitive in comparison with later-day developments. At this headquarters of culture no methods were employed which did not naturally belong on Urantia.
66:7.3 The Prince’s corporeal staff presided over simple and exemplary abodes which they maintained as homes designed to inspire and favourably impress the student observers sojourning at the world’s social centre and educational headquarters.
66:7.4 ¶ The definite order of family life and the living of one family together in one residence of comparatively settled location date from these times of Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the example and teachings of the 100 and their pupils. The home as a social unit never became a success until the supermen and superwomen of Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s children. Savage man loves his child, but civilized man loves also his grandchild.
66:7.5 The Prince’s staff lived together as fathers and mothers. True, they had no children of their own, but the 50 pattern homes of Dalamatia never sheltered less than 500 adopted little ones assembled from the superior families of the Andonic and Sangik races; many of these children were orphans. They were favoured with the discipline and training of these superparents; and then, after 3 years in the schools of the Prince (they entered from 13 to 15), they were eligible for marriage and ready to receive their commissions as emissaries of the Prince to the needy tribes of their respective races.
66:7.6 ¶ Fad sponsored the Dalamatia plan of teaching that was carried out as an industrial school in which the pupils learned by doing, and through which they worked their way by the daily performance of useful tasks. This plan of education did not ignore thinking and feeling in the development of character; but it gave first place to manual training. The instruction was individual and collective. The pupils were taught by both men and women and by the two acting conjointly. One half of this group instruction was by sexes; the other half was coeducational. Students were taught manual dexterity as individuals and were socialized in groups or classes. They were trained to fraternize with younger groups, older groups, and adults, as well as to do teamwork with those of their own ages. They were also familiarized with such associations as family groups, play squads, and school classes.
66:7.7 Among the later students trained in Mesopotamia for work with their respective races were Andonites from the highlands of western India together with representatives of the red men and the blue men; still later a small number of the yellow race were also received.
66:7.8 ¶ Hap presented the early races with a moral law. This code was known as “The Father’s Way” and consisted of the following seven commands:
66:7.9 1. You shall not fear nor serve any God but the Father of all.
66:7.10 2. You shall not disobey the Father’s Son, the world’s ruler, nor show disrespect to his superhuman associates.
66:7.11 3. You shall not speak a lie when called before the judges of the people.
66:7.12 4. You shall not kill men, women, or children.
66:7.13 5. You shall not steal your neighbour’s goods or cattle.
66:7.14 6. You shall not touch your friend’s wife.
66:7.15 7. You shall not show disrespect to your parents or to the elders of the tribe.
66:7.16 ¶ This was the law of Dalamatia for almost 300,000 years. And many of the stones on which this law was inscribed now lie beneath the waters off the shores of Mesopotamia and Persia. It became the custom to hold one of these commands in mind for each day of the week, using it for salutations and mealtime thanksgiving.
66:7.17 ¶ The time measurement of these days was the lunar month, this period being reckoned as 28 days. That, with the exception of day and night, was the only time reckoning known to the early peoples. The 7-day week was introduced by the Dalamatia teachers and grew out of the fact that 7 = 28/4. The significance of the number 7 in the superuniverse undoubtedly afforded them opportunity to introduce a spiritual reminder into the common reckoning of time. But there is no natural origin for the weekly period.
66:7.18 ¶ The country around the city was quite well settled within a radius of 160 km. Immediately surrounding the city, hundreds of graduates of the Prince’s schools engaged in animal husbandry and otherwise carried out the instruction they had received from his staff and their numerous human helpers. A few engaged in agriculture and horticulture.
66:7.19 Mankind was not consigned to agricultural toil as the penalty of supposed sin. “In the sweat of your face shall you eat the fruit of the fields” was not a sentence of punishment pronounced because of man’s participation in the follies of the Lucifer rebellion under the leadership of the traitorous Caligastia. The cultivation of the soil is inherent in the establishment of an advancing civilization on the evolutionary worlds, and this injunction was the centre of all teaching of the Planetary Prince and his staff throughout the 300,000 years which intervened between their arrival on Urantia and those tragic days when Caligastia threw in his lot with the
