Morality in English Schools.
One or two indications have reached me which seem to imply that in England there exists a belief that French school life is immoral. This may be founded on the mutual amenities of the clerical and lay parties in France, which profess a complete disbelief in each other’s morality, and would equally accuse each other of murder, if that were as difficult to test. Nobody knows much about the morality of boys, but I may observe that the government of French schools, both lay and clerical, is too strict for any immorality that can be detected to make way there. The very few instances of it in school life that have come to my knowledge have been followed by instant expulsion. I have heard something about school immorality in England, especially in one great public school, coupled with an expression of the desire that the rigorous French system could be established there, not in all things, but for this one safeguard.
Domestic Servants in Paris.
The Parisian System of Lodging.
With regard to the class of domestic servants, I am told that in Paris the morality of servants is generally much lower than in the country; but never having kept house in Paris I know nothing about it, except by hearsay. Statistics show a remarkably large proportion of illegitimate births for the capital; this, however, is rather favourable in a certain sense, I mean in the sense of natural morality, as the worst women are sterile. An ecclesiastic of high rank, who has had exceptional opportunities for studying the moral aspects of Paris, told me that he attributed the greater laxity there in the class of domestics to the system of lodging, by which the servants are often separated from the family life of the household, and sent to sleep up in the attics, where they are in a world of their own.
Unsatisfactory Nature of the Subject.
Two Codes of Morality.
Permanent Conflict between Man’s Animal Nature and his civilised Condition.
Increase of the Difficulty.