The Fun They Had

1. The strange discovery — a real book

The story begins with Margie writing in her diary on 17 May 2155: “Today Tommy found a real book!” In her world, books are not made of paper at all — people read everything on television screens. So when Tommy found a very old printed book in the attic of his house, it amazed both children. The pages were yellow and crinkly, and it was funny to read words that stood still instead of moving across a screen the way they were used to. They felt that it was a tremendous waste — once you had read the book, you simply threw it away, whereas their television screen had held a million books and was still good for many more. The book was about school, and that is what made it truly fascinating to them.

2. Margie’s hatred of her school

Margie absolutely hated school, and at this moment she hated it more than ever. Her teacher was a mechanical teacher — a large machine with a screen, set up right in her own house in a special schoolroom next to her bedroom. The part she hated most was the slot where she had to put her homework and test papers; she had to write her answers in a punch code they had made her learn when she was very young, and the machine marked the papers in no time at all. Recently her geography sector had been giving her trouble, and she had been doing worse and worse in the geography tests.

3. The County Inspector and the slowed-down teacher

Margie’s mother had grown worried about her poor results and had sent for the County Inspector. He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with dials and wires. He took the mechanical teacher apart, and Margie had hoped he would not know how to put it together again — but he did. After about an hour, he explained that the problem was not Margie at all: the geography sector had been set a little too fast for an average ten-year-old, so he slowed it down to the proper level. He patted Margie on the head and told her mother she was not to blame. This shows how Margie’s whole life of learning was controlled by a machine that could be adjusted by a technician, with no human warmth or understanding.

4. Tommy explains “the old schools”

Reading the old book, the children learned that centuries ago schools were very different. Margie was puzzled when Tommy said the book was about school, because she could not imagine writing a whole book about something so dull. Tommy, with the superior air of a thirteen-year-old, told her it was about a different kind of school, the kind they had hundreds of years ago. He explained that there had been a special building where all the children went, that they were taught by men and women who were human teachers, and that the teacher did not live in the house. The children of the same age learned the same things and could help one another with their homework and talk about their lessons.

5. Margie wonders about human teachers

Margie found all of this hard to believe. She could not understand how a man could be a teacher, or how he could possibly know as much as a mechanical teacher. She thought a strange man would not be able to live in someone’s house. Tommy laughed and explained that the teacher did not live in the children’s houses — instead, all the children left their homes and went together to a special building, the school, where the teachers taught them. The idea of so many children studying together, laughing and learning side by side, slowly began to seem very appealing to Margie.

6. The interrupted lesson and the longing for the past

Just as the children were getting deep into the book, Margie’s mother called out that it was time for school. Margie did not want to go, and she asked if they could read a little more, but her mother insisted, reminding her that her schedule said she must study every day at a regular time. Margie went into the schoolroom, where the mechanical teacher was already on, telling her, “Today’s arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot.” As she did her sums, Margie kept thinking about the old schools that the whole neighbourhood’s children had once attended together — how they laughed and shouted in the schoolyard, sat together in the classroom, and went home together at the end of the day. She thought about how much the children of the past must have loved school, and the story ends with her wistful imagining: “What fun they had!”

7. Theme analysis — technology versus the human touch

The cost of too much technology: Asimov shows a future where machines have replaced human teachers and printed books. Although the technology is advanced, learning has become cold, lonely, and joyless. Margie’s “modern” education is far less fun than the “old-fashioned” school of the past.

The value of companionship in learning: The biggest difference between the two systems is company. In the old schools children learned together, helped each other, laughed and played together. In Margie’s world she studies alone, with no friends and no shared joy. The story tells us that learning is not only about gathering facts — it is also about friendship and human connection.

Irony — the future longs for the past: The whole story rests on a beautiful irony. We usually imagine the future as better and more exciting than the past, but here the child of the future envies the children of the past. What looks “old and primitive” to us — a real book, a school building, a human teacher — becomes the very thing Margie wishes she had.

A gentle warning: Written long ago, the story is almost a prediction of screen-based and online learning. Asimov gently warns that, however clever our machines become, they should not take away the warmth, fun, and togetherness that make school a happy place. Education must keep its human heart.