d
been his instructor had extolled to him as the _non plus ultra_ of the
higher knowledge. If we compare with this the descriptions given by
Retif de la Bretonne, who was born in the year 1734 in the village of
Sacy in Lower Burgundy, and was the son of a well-to-do peasant, and if
we study a number of similar accounts of country life, we shall hardly
be inclined to take a very roseate view regarding rural morals in former
days. We learn from Retif,[72] that while still quite a little boy, only
four years of age, he had the most diverse sexual experiences with a
grown-up girl, Marie Piot, after she had induced an erection of his
penis by tickling his genital organs. These and numerous similar
accounts, which we find in the works of writers of previous centuries,
are not likely to sustain the conviction that rural morals were formerly
distinguished by exceptional purity.

But if this claim must be disputed as regards rural life in former
times, it is still more certain that we must deny that to-day a higher
moral level obtains in the country than in the towns, and this is true
above all as regards children. It is certain that sexual activity in
children does not begin later in the country. My views as to present
conditions in the country are derived mainly from information directly
communicated to myself. From a number of grown-up persons, now residing
in the metropolis, but born and bred in the country, I have received
details of their own early sexual experiences. I have in addition had
opportunities for direct personal inquiries in rural districts and in
the smaller country towns. Lastly, I have received reports voluntarily
furnished to me by persons still residing in the country. Combining all
these sources of information, I am justified in asserting that in the
country sexual practices among children are of exceedingly common
occurrence.

Just as the recent increasing development of large towns has been
regarded as responsible for immorality and for premature sexual
activities in children, so also has modern civilisation in general been
blamed for the same results. There has always existed a tendency to
depreciate the morals of contemporary periods, and to exalt in
comparison the morals of an earlier day. In books of earlier
generations, in those, for instance, which appeared between the middle
of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century, we
find, just as we find in the writings of our own d