unexposed to the last.

Speaking of those commoner forms of impurity to which I have referred,
and which are so mischievous as stimulating immature functions, needing,
as Acton over and over again insists, absolute quiet and rest for
healthy development, Dr. Dukes, the head physician of one of our best
known public schools, states: "The reason why it is so widespread an
evil"--computed in 1886 at eighty per cent. of boys at school, a
computation accepted by a committee of public schoolmasters--"I believe
to be, that the boy leaves home in the first instance without one word
of warning from his parents that he will meet with bad boys who will
tell him that everybody does it, and thus he falls into evil ways from
his innocence and ignorance alone."[12]

Dr. Dukes further states that as the results of his thirty years'
experience he had come to the conclusion that only one per cent. of
parents ever warned their boys at all before sending them to school.

These statements were made some fifteen years ago, when first the
conspiracy of silence was broken through and the question of the
morality of our public and private schools was dragged into the light of
day and boldly faced and grappled with, largely owing to the action of
Dr. Pusey. Since then a mass of strenuous effort has been directed
against the evil by our high-minded head-masters; and an immense
improvement has been effected. It is too short a time for one to hope
that the evil has been eradicated; but when parents learn to fulfil
their moral duties of teaching and warning their own boys--as Dr. Dukes
observes--I feel sure it could be so far removed as to cause the numbers
to change places, so that we might obtain a percentage of ninety to
ninety-five of those who lead pure lives while at school, as against