'Oh! "delegated"--that is not quite correct. I have seen Doloir the mason, and Bongard the farmer, and have found that they blame you as I myself do. Only, it is always compromising to protest and give one's signature--is that not so? I myself risk a good deal by coming forward, on account of my superiors. But the voice of my conscience as the father of a family speaks too loudly for me to act otherwise. How shall I ever manage those two scapegraces of mine, Achille and Philippe, if you do not frighten them a little with fear of the punishment of God and the torments of hell? Look at my big girl, Hortense, who is so good in every respect, and who was admired by all Maillebois when she took her first Communion this year! By taking her to church, Mademoiselle Rouzaire has made her really perfect. Compare your work with Mademoiselle Rouzaire's, compare my two boys with my daughter. By that comparison alone you stand condemned, Monsieur Froment.' Marc smiled in his quiet way. The amiable Hortense, a pretty and precocious girl of thirteen, one of Mademoiselle Rouzaire's favourites, occasionally contrived to climb over the wall separating the playgrounds of the two schools, in order that she might hide away in corners with lads of her own age. Even as Savin had suggested, the young man had often compared his pupils, from whom by degrees he obtained a little more reason and truth, with the pupils of the schoolmistress, his neighbour--the affectedly prim and gentle little girls who were fed on clerical pap, falsehood, and hypocrisy, and perturbed, even secretly spoilt, by the corrupting influence of the mysterious. Marc would have liked to have seen his boys and those girls together--those girls who were now reared and educated apart, from whom everything was hidden, whose minds and whose senses were heated by all the fires of mysticism. They would then have ceased to climb over walls to go in search of so-called sin, the forbidden fruit of damnation and delight. Yes, only a system of mixed schools could ensure the health and strength of the free and happy nation of to-morrow.[2] [Footnote 2: This problem seems to have been solved in the United States, where, judging by official reports, the mingling of the sexes in the schools is extensive. Thence (I judge the matter as an European) must have come the very great and distinctly beneficial influence exercised by American women on the national character. Perhaps it is not too much to say that, apart from such incentives as a mere desire to gain money, the women of the United States have largely helped to make their race the most enterprising and progressive in the world. As for the influence of mixed schools on morals, Americans have repeatedly assured me that it has been the best possible.--_Trans._]