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 of an infantile school-mate.
We were acquainted with one instance in which a primary school in a
secluded and select community was nearly broken up by the introduction
of this vile habit through a corrupt student. Many a watchful teacher
has seen the light of growing intelligence suddenly dim and wane in
the eye of his favorite student just when he was giving the most promise
of developing unusual talents in literature, mathematics, or some one
of the natural or physical sciences, and has been compelled to watch
the devastating influence of this deadly upas tree that often claims
the best and fairest human flowers as its victims.
Wicked Nurses.--In those cases in which the habit is acquired at a very
early age, the work of evil is usually wrought by the nurse, perhaps
through ignorance of the effects of the habit. Incredible as it seems,
it is proved by numerous instances that it is not an uncommon habit
for nurses to quiet small children by handling or titillating their
genital organs. They find this a speedy means of quieting them, and
resort to it regardless or ignorant of the consequences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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