Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov [32]
"I haven't seen any that I know. Most mathematicians start the day early and have classes by eight. My own feeling is chat any student so foolhardy as to take mathematics wants to get that part of the course over with as soon as possible."
"I take is you're not a mathematician yourself."
"Anything but," said Dors with a short laugh. "Anything. History is my field. I've already published some studies on the rise of Trantor-I mean the primitive kingdom, not this world. I suppose that will end up as my field of specialization-Royal Trantor."
"Wonderful," said Seldon.
"Wonderful?" Dors looked at him quizzically. "Are you interested in Royal Trantor too?"
"In a way, yes. That and other things like that. I've never really studied history and I should have."
"Should you? If you had studied history, you'd scarcely have had time to study mathematics and mathematicians are very much neededespecially at this University. We're full to here with historians," she said, raising her hand to her eyebrows, "and economists and political scientists, but we're short on science and mathematics. Chetter Hummin pointed that out to me once. He called it the decline of science and seemed to think it was a general phenomenon."
Seldon said, "Of course, when I say I should have studied history, I don't mean that I should have made it a life work. I meant I should have studied enough to help me in my mathematics. My field of specialization is the mathematical analysis of social structure."
"Sounds horrible."
"In a way, it is. It's very complicated and without my knowing a great deal more about how societies evolved it's hopeless. My picture is too static, you see."
"I can't see because I know nothing about it. Chetter told me you were developing something called psychohistory and that it was important. Have I got it right? Psychohistory?"
"That's right. I should have called it 'psychsociology,' but it seemed to me that was too ugly a word. Or perhaps I knew instinctively that a knowledge of history was necessary and then didn't pay sufficient attention to my thoughts."
"Psychohistory does sound better, but I don't know what it is."
"I scarcely do myself." He brooded a few minutes, looking at the woman on the other side of the table and feeling that she might make this exile of his seem a little less like an exile. He thought of the other woman he had known a few years ago, but blocked it off with a determined effort. If he ever found another companion, it would have to be one who understood scholarship and what it demanded of a person.
To get his mind onto a new track, he said, "Chetter Hummin told me that the University is in no way troubled by the government. "
"He's right."
Seldon shook his head. "That seems rather unbelievably forbearing of the Imperial government. The educational institutions on Helicon are by no means so independent of governmental pressures."
"Nor on Cinna. Nor on any Outworld, except perhaps for one or two of the largest. Trantor is another matter."
"Yes, but why?"
"Because it's the center of the Empire. The universities here have enormous prestige. Professionals are turned out by any university anywhere, but the administrators of the Empire-the high officials, the countless millions of people who represent the tentacles of Empire reaching into every corner of the Galaxy-are educated right here on Trantor."
"I've never seen the statistics-" began Seldon.
"Take my word for it. It is important that the officials of the Empire have some common ground, some special feeling for the Empire. And they can't all be native Trantorians or else the Outworlds would grow restless. For that reason, Trantor must attract millions of Outworlders for education here. It doesn't matter where they come from or what their home accent or culture may be, as long as they pick up the Trantorian patina and identify themselves with a Trantorian educational background. That's what holds the Empire together. The Outworlds are also less restive when a noticeable portion of the administrators