ith which such things are confiscated in boys' schools,
and with which obscene photographs are found even in girls'
schools.[133] For the suppression of such pornographica in recent days
we have certainly in great part to thank the League above named, whose
efforts for good must not be confounded with the obscurantist aims of
the pious and hypocritical individuals to whom every nude statue is an
improper object.

The frequency with which such pornographica are circulated in schools is
subject to very great variations; but in the production of these
differences, certain factors which are sometimes given great weight,
really play a comparatively small part. Thus, it is commonly supposed
that there is a great difference in this respect between large towns and
small; but in the schools of small towns, pornographic writings and
pictures are at least as common as in those of large towns; and, indeed,
the addresses to which pornographic photographs are despatched from
Paris are usually in the small towns. Thus the determining influence is
not the difference between the large town and the small; and the
character of the school depends, not only upon the moral level of its
pupils, but above all upon the moral level and the _personal influence_
of the head of the school and the assistant teachers. I know certain
schools, and some of these in large towns, in which hardly a single
improper word is spoken by the pupils, and where no sexual improprieties
take place among the children, even though it has to be assumed that
many of them indulge, at any rate from time to time, in solitary
masturbation. But, on the whole, the spirit of such schools is an
admirable one, in contrast to others, in which extremely loose manners
prevail. Above all, therefore, we must avoid thinking that we state the
truth of this matter by using the catch-word of "the corruption of the
great towns."

It cannot be contested that the diffusion of these things among children
involves serious dangers alike to their morals and to their health.
Speaking generally, upon adults pornographic objects have rather a
repellent than a sexually exciting effect. In the case of children in
whom no sexual sensibility has as yet developed, they exercise no sexual
stimulation, but may later give rise to ill effects. But it is to
ripening children and young persons, who do not yet understand the
sexual life, but to whom it is first displayed in this form, that such
pornographic