"As a lad of 11 or 12, I had heard frequent allusions to masturbation by other boys who were older, but always in a way that indicated contempt. Yet there is no doubt now in my mind that the practice was very general. I think that I was probably about 15 when I decided to try the act. I think that there was little sex impulse in this decision. The animating purpose was rather curiosity. I succeeded in producing the complete orgasm and found it pleasurable, though there was a considerable shock of surprise at the ejaculation of semen. As nearly as I can estimate in my memory of an event as far back as this was, this was the beginning of definite sexual sensibility in me. I cannot but believe, however, that it would have been aroused sooner or later in some other way. Thereafter I would imagine myself embracing some of the girl friends to whom I have referred above, and, when excited, would masturbate. The act was in every instance a psychic intercourse. For some time I did not know that the practice was considered harmful. I indulged whenever I felt the inclination. This at times was rather frequent; again only at considerable intervals. I did know that it was looked upon as being unmanly, and never admitted, except to perhaps two or three boy friends, that I ever indulged. With these boys I practised mutual masturbation a few times. There was no homosexual feeling connected with these acts in any of us. It was only that the normal method of gratifying our desires was not available. I know the subsequent history of each of these boys, and there has been nothing to indicate any perverted instinct in any of them. About the age of 16 I heard a talk on sexual matters by a traveling evangelist, who portrayed the effects of masturbation in fearful colors. I now realize that he was an ignorant though well-intentioned man; but the general effect of his talk upon me was a bad one. One of the results of the habit, according to his statements, was insanity. Therefore I expected at any moment to lose my mind. I felt that I must stop the practice at once, but the matter became so great an obsession that again and again I broke my resolutions for reform. I undertook exercise, dieting, the reading of serious literature: all of which I had seen referred to in books as methods of lessening sexual desire. The object of these disciplinary practices was always the thing most prominently in mind, and so they were of no avail. Fortunately I entered college a little later, and the affairs of school life gradually took a commanding place in my thoughts, and the practice was not so much in mind. I did not, however, completely break away from it until almost the time of my marriage. If the present attitude of the scientific medical world toward the