There is danger lest the reader should discount the significance of the statements I make in the foregoing paper by falling into the error of supposing that the facts stated apply, after all, to one school only.  This is not by any means so.  The facts have been collected at one school; but those which refer to the prevalence of sex knowledge and of masturbation have reference solely to the condition of boys when they first entered, and are significant of the conditions which obtain at some scores of schools and in many homes.  I venture here to quote and to warmly endorse Canon Lyttelton’s opinion:  “It is, however, so easy to be misunderstood in this matter that I must insert a caution against an inference which may be drawn from these words, viz. that school life is the origin of immorality among boys.  The real origin is to be found in the common predisposition to vicious conceptions, which is the result of neglect.  Nature provides in almost every case an active curiosity on this subject; and that curiosity must be somehow allayed; and if it were not allayed at school, false and depraved ideas would be picked up at home....  So readily does an ignorant mind at an early age take in teaching about these subjects that there are no conceivable conditions of modern social life not fraught with grave peril to a young boy, if once he has been allowed to face them quite unprepared, either by instruction or by warning.  And this manifestly applies to life at home, or in a day-school, or in a boarding-school to an almost equal degree."[A]

[Footnote A:  Training of the Young in Relation to Sex, p. 1 et seq.]

One of the facts which I always tried to elicit from boys was the source of their information, or rather the character of that source, for I was naturally anxious not to ask a boy to incriminate any individual known to me.  In many cases, information came first to the boy at home from a brother, or cousin, or casual acquaintance, or domestic servant.  In one of the worst cases I have known the information was given to a boy by another boy—­an entire stranger to him—­whom he happened to meet on a country road when cycling.  Since boys meet one another very much more at school than elsewhere and spend three-fourths of their lives there, of course information is more often obtained at school than at home.  My own experience leads me to think that in this respect the day-school—­probably on account of its mixed social conditions—­is worse than the boarding-school.

Before passing from matters of personal experience, it may interest the reader if I give particulars of a few typical cases to illustrate some points on which I have insisted.