, so that at the age of ten or twelve, when he is for the
first time sent away to school, he may be free from vice; but when he
associates with his fellow-students, he soon finds them practicing a
habit new to him, and being unwarned, he speedily follows their filthy
example and quickly becomes fascinated with the vice. Thousands have
taken their first lessons in this debasing habit at school. Teachers
and scholars testify that it is often practiced even in school hours,
almost under the teacher's eyes; but where the infection most quickly
spreads is in the sleeping apartments, where more than one occupy the
same bed, or where several sleep in the same room.

Nothing is more indispensable to purity of body and of morals than a
private sleeping room and single bed for each student. Such an
arrangement would protect the youth from the reception of much evil,
and would allow an opportunity for privacy which every young man or
youth needs for his spiritual as well as physical benefit. Not the least
benefit of the latter class is the opportunity for a thorough cleansing
of the whole body every morning, which is almost as indispensable to
purity of morals as cleanliness of body. The same suggestion is fully
as applicable to the sleeping arrangements of girls. The exceptional
cases in which this plan would not be the best are very few indeed.

Corruption in Schools.--Says Dr. Acton, "I cannot venture to print the
accounts patients have given me of what they have seen or even been
drawn into at schools. I would fain hope that such abominations are
things of the past." The entrance of a single corrupt boy into a school
which may have been previously pure--though such schools must be
extremely rare--will speedily corrupt almost the entire membership.
The evil infection spreads more rapidly than the contagion of small-pox
or yellow fever, and it is scarcely less fatal.

This danger exists not in public or city schools alone, but in the most
select and private schools. A father who had kept his two sons under
the care of a private governess for several years, and then placed them
in a small school taught by a lady, and composed of a few small children
from the most select families, was greatly astonished when informed
by a physician that his sons showed symptoms of the effects of
self-abuse. He was totally incredulous; but an investigation showed
that they had already practiced the vile habit for several years, having
learned it