The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-06-28
MIR. SARDOU ON DIVORCE IN
AMERICA.
PRESIDENT ELIOT OF HARVARD ON
MIXED SCHOOLS FOR THE SEXES.

States Is shown up with all the Sarcas-
tic wit for which that able writer is
famous. There is a trite old prOverb
about glass houses and stones, and this
voice rising from the most immoral
people upon the face of the earth against
a legal severance of the marriage tie
is simply absurd.
Nowhere is this same marriage tie
more utterly disregarded than in Eu-
rope in *this nineteenth century. No
where are cases Of marital intidelity
more general, Oh more patiently accept
ed as a natural order of things which
belongs to modern civilization.
Perhaps u women are less patient
than their European sisters. Perhaps,
too, they may not have reached that
ultra-refnement which has trav-
elled back to the passive indiffer-
ence of savages to any moral OBJ
legation. ."Les ertremes Sc tOuchent.''
They may also have too much pride of
womanhoOd to p~assively accept the pO-
sition too often held by theirsex abroad
where. the wife holds the second place
in her husbands affections and is quite
content that itshOuld be so. But be the
reason what it may, though we deeply
lament the increasing frequency of di-
vorce, andseein it a leprosy of evil which
will make the whole nation unclean, yet
we deny the propriety Of NJ. Sardou's
d~escanting upon the rotten state of
American morals from his European
heap of filth. It is like a MAI in a de-
cayed building tumbling about his ears,
crying out against a rotten post in his
neighbours dwelling. Disagreeable and
dangerous as the post may be we will
take it a thousand times in preference
to a system of immortality which has
honey-combedthe foundations ofFrench
and English society.
Some of the deepest thinkers i'll the
United States, in tracing up the divorce
evil to its fountain head, have landed
in the very midst of the Shriekers.
With the growth of the w0man's move
ment ii began to assume its present dan
gerous proportions. Their doctrines
of "affinities' and equal rights" threw
bOmbshell into the conservatism of the
domestic hearth. Foolish women in
pursuit of some ridiculous Utopia, and
profigate men ready to take advantage
of this folly, have combined to make
our domestic life the ridicule and pity
of the world.
What can be more audacioUs than the
manner in which the venerable Presi-
dent Eliot of Harvard was treated at
the Social Science Convention" lately
held in Boston. The subject of the
co-education of the sexes was under
discussion.
President Elliot, in a spirit Of earnest
ness, candor, and good temper, opposed
the mixture Of sexes in schools. He
had devoted much time and attention
to the leading institutions of that kind
both North and West, and believed
they only grew out of the necessities of
poor communities. AS people grew
richer, separate schools for the sexes
were provided. The male and female
are not essentially the same, and diff
ferent intellectual food is required fol-
each. Oberlin college, where the ex-
pertinent was first tried, had already
proved it failure by establishing a sep
arate course for girls. He gave the per-
sonal testimony of teachers, and the ma
iron of Oberlin told him that on no &C.
count would she allow her daughters OF
any girls in whom she was interested to
go through the college course.
Nh. Wendell Phillips answered him
in his usual extirpatory style, but Mrs
Julia Ward Howe, thinking him rather
too mild, flew at the 1uckless President
like an enraged wild cat. She attacked
the morality of Harvard. She called
President Eliot the enemy of human
kind, and abused and insulted him at
such a rate that the bedeviled maj
calmly took his hat and left the room.
He fed incontinently from a virago'E
tongue. But in spite of President
Eliofs inglorious flight, his calm dis
passionate argument against mixed
schools will have a certain weight with
thinking men and women. No move
ment can have any stability whose prin-
eipal weapons + objurgation and vi.
tuperation.
In our opinion the first heading of ou1
subject and the last have a certain re-
lation. These mixed schools whose re.
suits have been to break down the bar
riers between the sexes, recognizing no
psychological and little physiological
difference between them have been
fruitful in mischief already. Women
passing through a masculine curricu-
lum come from it with a fixed distaste
for domestic duties, and If this
distaste does not bring about a rich har-
vest Of divorces, then we are widely
mistaken in the nature of the sexes,
Whilst Madame is busy with her nu-
merical equations, or wrapped in de-
light before some telescope discovery,
Mons. le Mari, tearing his hair over an
n-eooked dinner or ragged garment
is somewhat apt to say naughty things
and feel naughtier ones. Mad
ame's noble ambition is not to be
tTameIed by these sordid duties, and
the ma and woman agree to separate,
and live out their lives according to
their different idnaa how bova baa,,