practice of masturbation they have sometimes done
themselves irreparable injury, is a common source of anxiety to
boys. It has long been a question whether a boy should be warned
against masturbation. At a meeting of the Section of Psychology
of the British Medical Association some years ago, four speakers,
including the President (Dr. Blandford), were decidedly in favor
of parents warning their children against masturbation, while
three speakers were decidedly against that course, mainly on the
ground that it was possible to pass through even a public school
life without hearing of masturbation, and also that the warning
against masturbation might encourage the practice. It is,
however, becoming more and more clearly realized that ignorance,
even if it can be maintained, is a perilous possession, while the
teaching that consists, as it should, in a loving mother's
counsel to the child from his earliest years to treat his sexual
parts with care and respect, can only lead to masturbation in the
child who is already irresistibly impelled to it. Most of the sex
manuals for boys touch on masturbation, sometimes exaggerating
its dangers; such exaggeration should be avoided, for it leads to
far worse evils than those it attempts to prevent. It seems
undesirable that any warnings about masturbation should form part
of school instruction, unless under very special circumstances.
The sexual instruction imparted in the school on sexual as on
other subjects should be absolutely impersonal and objective.

At this point we approach one of the difficulties in the way of
sexual enlightenment: the ignorance or unwisdom of the would-be
teachers. This difficulty at present exists both in the home and
the school, while it destroys the value of many manuals written
for the sexual instruction of the young. The mother, who ought to
be the child's confidant and guide in matters of sexual
education, and could naturally be so if left to her own healthy
instincts, has usually been brought up in false traditions which
it requires a high degree of intelligence and character to escape
from; the school-teacher, even if only called upon to give
instruction in natural history, is oppressed by the same
traditions, and by false shame concerning the whole subject of
sex; the writer of manuals on sex has often on