Better reasons can be found for objecting to some other modes of
association on the part of children of the two sexes. The most important
of these are common dancing lessons and children's balls. These are not
so recent a development as is often assumed. More than a century ago,
Pockels,[137] the distinguished psychologist and educationalist,
objected strongly to dancing parties for children, which commonly
lasted, he tells us, from five o'clock in the afternoon till midnight,
and sometimes even on into the small hours of the morning. Beyond
question, the association of children in dances can by no means be
regarded as more innocuous than coeducation, all the more in view of the
fact that the children at such dances are often fairly old--towards the
end of the second period of childhood, or in the early years of the
period of youth. For my own part, the danger of children's balls appears
to me to affect, not so much the sphere of sexual morality, as that of
hygiene and general morality. As regards the danger to health, I have
known parents who were always complaining of the way in which their
children were overworked at school, and yet saw nothing wrong in these
same children going to dancing lessons on two evenings every week.
In conclusion, I will report a case which proves that when children are
inclined to sexual practices, they will find sufficient opportunity,
even in the absence of coeducation. This was the case of a boy of eight
and a girl of seven years, who stripped quite naked and got into bed
together; from the fact that spots of blood were found on the
bed-clothing, it appeared that very definite sexual malpractice had
taken place. The girl's sexual history was followed up for three years
after this. She showed herself much inclined to make sexual advances
towards adults, pressing herself up against them in a way which innocent
persons interpreted as manifesting the caressive inclinations of the
child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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