the "manners" of a school house, that we are grotesquely
exaggerating the whole business; that there may be a problem in the
case of this boy or that, but that in general there is no problem at
all. This simply will not do. There is a problem, and a very grave
one; and we had better anticipate the possibility of being
misunderstood by stating very directly what it is. We believe that the
number of cases in which boys have undesirable relationships with one
another is not very large, but we believe also that there is a very
great deal of that purely personal self-indulgence, that purely
self-regarding licentiousness, which is the cause of so much
unhappiness in boyhood.

But the reader will already be asking, "What is all this to do with
political education?" The connection is a close one. For the
prevalence of this particular form of immorality may be ascribed to two
main causes. At some time during early adolescence the majority of
boys automatically become acquainted with the sensation of sex, and, as
part of a natural process, try to reproduce the pleasurable experience.
But why do so many of these repeat and repeat the process, until the
thing becomes a habit for which they can find no escape? Partly
because the verbal warning which is given to them by parents and
masters is made in a wrong form, and partly because there is not that
constant joy and romance in their daily lives in comparison with which
temptation, when it comes, will appear sordid and unworthy. In the
second place, there is an atmosphere in the houses of tolerance towards
these practices, accompanied by constant discussion, sometimes open,
sometimes secret, which encourages and not rarely actually suggests
them. This is certainly true of many houses in many schools. The
house prefects, it is true, usually try to suppress as much of the
unhealthiness as they can; but since, on the one hand, they are often
known to have been "as bad as any one" in their day, and on the other
they use the method of pretending that these are things which no decent
boy could possibly be guilty of, they meet at best with a very partial
success, derived only from the fear which they inspire.

The common method of dealing with the evil is a system of "talks" by
masters and heads of houses. The "talks" follow a fairly stereotyped
plan; they are either religious in nature, and contain references to
"the temple of the body," or medical, and convey warnings of the