My own
early recollections of (private) school-life fail to yield any
reminiscences of any kind connected with either masturbation or
homosexuality; and, while such happy ignorance may be the
exception rather than the rule, I am certainly inclined to
believe that--owing to race and climate, and healthier conditions
of life--the sexual impulse is less precocious and less
prominently developed during the school-age in England than in
some Continental countries. It is probably to this delayed
development that we should attribute the contrast that Ferrero
finds (_L'Europa Giovane_, pp. 151-56), and certainly states too
absolutely, between the sexual reserve of young Englishmen and
the sexual immodesty of his own countrymen.
In Germany, Naecke has also stated ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der
Sexualitaet," _Archiv fuer Psychiatrie_, pp. 354-56, 1899) that he
heard nothing at school either of masturbation or homosexuality,
and he records the experience of medical friends who stated that
such phenomena were only rare exceptions, and regarded by the
majority of the boys as exhibitions of "_Schweinerei_." At other
German schools, as Hoche has shown, sexual practices are very
prevalent. It is evident that at different schools, and even at
the same school at different times, these manifestations vary in
frequency within wide limits.
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