if practiced very frequently.  The greater number made no attempt to conceal the habit, they enlarged upon the pleasure of it; it was ’ever so much nicer than eating tarts,’ etc.

“The chief cause I believe to be initiation by an older schoolmate.  But I have known accidental causes, such as the discovery that swarming up a pole pleasurably excited the organ, rubbing to allay irritation, and simple, curious handling of the erect penis in the early morning before rising from bed.”

I quote the foregoing communication as perhaps a fairly typical experience in a British school, though I am myself inclined to think that the prevalence of masturbation in schools is often much overrated, for, while in some schools the practice is doubtless rampant, in others it is practically unknown, or, at all events, only practiced by a few individuals in secret.  My own early recollections of (private) school-life fail to yield any reminiscences of any kind connected with either masturbation or homosexuality; and, while such happy ignorance may be the exception rather than the rule, I am certainly inclined to believe that—­owing to race and climate, and healthier conditions of life—­the sexual impulse is less precocious and less prominently developed during the school-age in England than in some Continental countries.  It is probably to this delayed development that we should attribute the contrast that Ferrero finds (L’Europa Giovane, pp. 151-56), and certainly states too absolutely, between the sexual reserve of young Englishmen and the sexual immodesty of his own countrymen.

In Germany, Naecke has also stated ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualitaet,” Archiv fuer Psychiatrie, pp. 354-56, 1899) that he heard nothing at school either of masturbation or homosexuality, and he records the experience of medical friends who stated that such phenomena were only rare exceptions, and regarded by the majority of the boys as exhibitions of “Schweinerei.”  At other German schools, as Hoche has shown, sexual practices are very prevalent.  It is evident that at different schools, and even at the same school at different times, these manifestations vary in frequency within wide limits.

Such variations, it seems to me, are due to two causes.  In the first place, they largely depend upon the character of the more influential elder boys.  In the second place, they depend upon the attitude of the head-master.  With reference to this point I may quote from a letter written by an experienced master in one of the most famous English public schools:  “When I first came to ——­, a quarter of a century ago, Dr. ——­ was making a crusade against this failing; boys were sent away wholesale; the school was summoned and lectured solemnly; and the more the severities, the more rampant the disease.  I thought to myself that the remedy was creating the malady, and I heard afterward,