The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-28
DArcERous TEXT BOOKS.

1A&s~k3nsOO0 As~O-~~"
 In connection with the Colorado proposition for limited marriages. or as one part of the argument behind that proposition. 1t will not be out or place to copy an extract from a book by Ernest Haeckel. who says:
 Reason demands the liberation of marriage from ecclesiastical pressure It demands that matrfpony be ground and that it. at the same time. be counted a social contract, and be pro- tected as civil marriage by proper legislation. But when the contracting parties ind Gas so often ten happens, h csaa. Sna. acter, and that they do not suit each other, they should be free to dissolve the bargain. The pressure which comes of marriage being regarded as a sacra- ton of unhappy marriages. Is merely a source of vice and crime.
 Haeckel is an eminent German naturalist and scientist. whose books are extensively circulated and read in this country. The Richmond Times Dispatch tells us that the book from which this extract was taken was seen by New York man on the table of his son, who is a student in New York college. On being questioned the young man spoke of the author as "one of the greatest thinkefs and leaders of thought in Germany" and gave tho further information that this and other works by the same author "are re- garded as safe and exact text books" for the young men of this country.
 The Times-Dispatch expresses doubt as to whether the statement of the young man can be true. and exclaims: God save our youth from such vicious and dastardly doctrine. Better that all the colleges be destroyed from the face of the earth than that the young men be trained to these beastly mo- tions." We do not know but we would go further, and prefer that both schools and colleges should be abolished than that the boys and girls of this land should be taught that there is noth- ing binding or sacred in marriage should be taught. in fact, that the union of men and women who were formed in Gods image occupies no higher or holier place than does the union of the beasts of the field.
 It might be looked on as intolerance to contend that books which teach such belief. or anything like it. should not be allowed taught in any school or other institution of learning in this country, but surely the authorities have as much right to protect the minds and the morals of the pupils in the schools as they have to protect their bodies. Would any teacher worthy to instruct the children. allow them to read and study book teach ing that 1t Is right for men and women to live together without any form of marriage? We hardly think so. but this doctrine of Haeckers really amounts to the same thing. for if a man and woman can marry and divorce themselves at will it is but step to the abolition of all pretence of mar riage. ..
 There has of late years been much discussion on the SuDJect Ot ulVOTCe, and there should be no two opinions as to its evil and its increase in various sections of the country. but divorce is only one of the twin evils of the age. It surely doesn't requre very keen intellect to see that easy marriages and easy divorces are complements of each other, or that one is a natural and inevitable result of the other. When the time comes that our young people can marry and divorce themselves at will there will no longer be any need for licenses. ministers and divorce courts, nor, to speak plainly. will there be any regard for domestic virtue or human reverence for purity and right living. That the Haeckel idea is gain ing is too plain for disputation. and 1t will continue to gain unless it is put down while there is time. The churches. the newspapers and the laws should work in harmony against the encroachment of a worse evil than nihilism itself, for that would murder the body while the other would assassi- nate the home. Better have little education than be learned in the doctrines of Haeckel
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