A doctor of philosophy, prominent in his profession, wrote to Stanley Hall (Adolescence, vol. i, p. 452):  “My entire youth, from six to eighteen, was made miserable from lack of knowledge that any one who knew anything of the nature of puberty might have given; this long sense of defect, dread of operation, shame and worry, has left an indelible mark.”  There are certainly many men who could say the same.  Lancaster ("Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence,” Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, pp. 123-5) speaks strongly regarding the evils of ignorance of sexual hygiene, and the terrible fact that millions of youths are always in the hands of quacks who dupe them into the belief that they are on the road to an awful destiny merely because they have occasional emissions during sleep.  “This is not a light matter,” Lancaster declares.  “It strikes at the very foundation of our inmost life.  It deals with the reproductory part of our natures, and must have a deep hereditary influence.  It is a natural result of the foolish false modesty shown regarding all sex instruction.  Every boy should be taught the simple physiological facts before his life is forever blighted by this cause.”  Lancaster has had in his hands one thousand letters, mostly written by young people, who were usually normal, and addressed to quacks who were duping them.  From time to time the suicides of youths from this cause are reported, and in many mysterious suicides this has undoubtedly been the real cause.  “Week after week,” writes the British Medical Journal in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack Literature:  The Moral of a Recent Suicide,” Oct. 1, 1892), “we receive despairing letters from those victims of foul birds of prey who have obtained their first hold on those they rob, torture and often ruin, by advertisements inserted by newspapers of a respectable, nay, even of a valuable and respected, character.”  It is added that the wealthy proprietors of such newspapers, often enjoying a reputation for benevolence, even when the matter is brought before them, refuse to interfere as they would thereby lose a source of income, and a censorship of advertisements is proposed.  This, however, is difficult, and would be quite unnecessary if youths received proper enlightenment from their natural guardians.

Masturbation, and the fear that by an occasional and perhaps outgrown practice of masturbation they have sometimes done themselves irreparable injury, is a common source of anxiety to boys.  It has long been a question whether a boy should be warned against masturbation.  At a meeting of the Section of Psychology of the British Medical Association some years ago, four speakers, including the President (Dr. Blandford), were decidedly in favor of parents warning their children against masturbation, while three speakers were decidedly against that course, mainly on the ground that it was possible to pass through even a public school life without