with the question of the alleged later awakening of
the sexual life in the country is the belief that in the country
children are also more moral and remain longer uncorrupted.

I myself do not believe that children are more moral in the country, or
that they here remain longer uncorrupted than in towns, whether large or
small. Nor is it proved that in former times the country possessed any
advantage in these respects, as compared with our own days and with the
modern town. The entire fable of rural innocence appears to rest, not
upon an actual comparison between town and country, but rather upon the
more lively interest felt in town life, and especially in the life of
the great towns: in towns, immorality has been more carefully studied
and more often _described_; and on account of the greater concentration
of town life, it is also more readily apparent. But any one who studies
erotic literature and descriptions of manners and customs, at any rate,
anyone who studies these without prejudice, will find ample ground for
the opinion that even in earlier times morality stood in the country on
no higher level than in the towns. The opinion that country life was
more moral has existed from very early times, and it is interesting to
observe the way in which in erotic literature we at times encounter a
satirical use of this fact, describing the painful disillusionment of a
man who has hoped to find perfect innocence in his loved one from the
country, and has been bitterly disappointed.

I do not propose to give numerous examples of rural immorality in
earlier times; two will suffice, both dating from the eighteenth
century, and both bearing on the seduction of children. Laukhard,[71]
born in the year 1758, at Wendelsheim, in the Lower Palatinate, tells us
how, when six years of age, he was introduced by a manservant into the
secrets of the sexual life, so that he was speedily in a position "to
take part, with consummate ability and to the admiration of all, in the
most shameless lewd sports and conversations of the menials of the
household." And Laukhard adds in a note that, in the Palatinate,
obscenity was so universal, and among the common people the general
conversation was so utterly shameless, that a Prussian grenadier would
have blushed on hearing the foul talk of the Jacks and Gills of the
Palatinate. He also relates that he soon found an opportunity of
practising with one of the servant-girls what the manservant who ha