for the child of refined parents to grow up without example or precept
in relation to table manners and morals, except the example and advice
of vulgar people, who would expect refinement and consideration from
him? Is there anyone who has such faith in innate refinement that he
would be content to let a child of his own, grow up without a hint on
these matters, and with such example only as was supplied by
association with vulgar people? Yet this is precisely what we do in
relation to the subject of personal purity. The child has no good
example to guide him. The extent to which temptation comes to those
whom he respects, the manner in which they comport themselves when
tempted, the character of their sex relations are entirely hidden from
him. He is not only without example, he is without precept. No ideals
are set before him, no advice is given to him: the very existence of
anything in which ideals and advice are needful is ignored.

If in conditions like these we should expect a boy to grow up greedy,
we may be certain that he will grow up impure. At puberty there awakes
within him by far the strongest appetite that human nature can
experience--an appetite against which some of the noblest of mankind
have striven in vain. The appetite is given abnormal strength by the
artificial and stimulating conditions under which he lives. The act
which satisfies this appetite is also one of keen pleasure. He has
long been accustomed to caress his private parts, and the pleasure
with which he does this is greatly enhanced. He does not suspect that
indulgence is harmful. This pleasure, unlike that of eating, costs him
nothing, and is ever available. His powers of self-control are as yet
undeveloped. He can indulge himself without incurring the least
suspicion. He probably knows that most boys, of his age and above,
indulge themselves. The result is inevitable. He finds that sexual
thoughts are keenly pleasurable, and that they produce bodily
exaltation. He has much yet to learn on the subject of sex, and he
enjoys the quest. Wherever he turns he finds it now--in his Bible, in
animal life, in his classics, in the encyclopaedia, in his companions,
and in the newspaper. Day and night the subject is ever with him. It
is inevitable. And at this juncture comes along the theorist who is
aghast at our destroying the lad's "innocence," and at our "suggesting
evils to him which otherwise he would never have thought of." "The
boy's innate