in
connexion with a whipping upon the buttocks. In quite a number of cases
in which we are told that some experience during childhood has been the
initiating cause of subsequent masochism or sadism, there has been no
question of purely physical causation, as by a whipping upon the
buttocks. I may recall the case in which sexual perversion appeared to
have developed out of witnessing the slaughter of animals, so that the
only stimulus acting upon this child belonged to the psychical sphere.
The cases, also, in which a child refers the origin of his perversion to
having looked on at a whipping (in school, for instance) show that such
perversions are not only aroused by mechanical stimuli, but may depend
also upon psychological factors. For these reasons I consider that we
are not justified in assuming, if whipping upon the buttocks were
altogether done away with, and if blows upon the palm of the hand became
the only permissible form of corporal punishment, that permanent sexual
perversions would then become impossible. With further reference to what
I have said above about discipline in schools, I may add that the kernel
of the problem is this: is the probability that corporal punishment will
lead to permanent sexual perversion, or will induce sexual excitement,
sufficiently great, to render it necessary that corporal punishment
should be completely abolished from our schools, so long as our
schoolmasters possess no other adequate means of making certain of their
pupils observe the discipline of the school? It is unconditionally
necessary that the discipline of our schools should be maintained; and
those who are unreservedly opposed to corporal punishment in all its
forms should make it their business to see that some other adequate
means are provided for the maintenance of school-discipline. However
strongly we may feel that it is essential that there should be no abuse
by schoolmasters of their right to administer corporal punishment, none
the less, even in this "Century of the Child," we need safeguards also
against the abuse of sentimentality.

In this chapter I have attempted to deal with a few only of the problems
of sexual education. To discuss the subject exhaustively would have been
impossible within the limits of this book; nor have I endeavoured to
take into consideration the enormous mass of literature relating to the
modern movement in favour of the sexual enlightenment. I have made no
reference to the fac