Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/74

58 in Europe are the high-schools of prostitution. After the young man for ten years has stood under the lash of pedantic and servile schoolmasters, he feels himself free for the first time at the university. But it is not the freedom which permits him to develop his mental powers in all directions and to accustom himself to participate in public life; no, he has only the freedom to spend the money of his parents without being watched, and to find in inns and brothels an outlet for his longing to exercise his rising powers. The systematic favoring of these doings seems even to be a part of the plan of the governmental system of instruction, and the wish of high statesmanship is fulfilled if the young man leaves the university enervated and dulled; he requires nothing more than ability to pass his examinations and to execute the commands of the powers that be. That the powers that be do not consider whether the youth who is used to debauchery is still capable of making a wife happy need not astonish the female sex as long as they cannot comprehend the connection between their interests and political development.

The women moreover will admit that the standing armies will not be abolished out of gallantry. For do not the standing armies furnish the chief representatives of gallantry? The powers that be are liberal enough to allow the maltreated soldier and the bored officer to seek compensation for the