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nothing is more true. The example of a single masturbator never fails to bear its fruit. At first the novelty, and then the pleasure, explains the contagiousness. This furnishes the explanation for its frequency in establishments where a great number of young subjects are gathered together—schools, boarding-houses, colleges; in short, all places where education is in common—and great care, watchfulness, and supervision should be, and to a certain extent are exercised, in order that this horrible evil may not entirely depopulate these establishments.
There is among children a sort of instinct, which leads them to hide and to dissimulate their maneuvers before even they have found them to be illicit and shameful. The art with which they elude watchfulness and evade questions is often inconceivable. They cannot be too strongly suspected. The nature of the habits of a young person should awaken suspicion; for masturbation leads them to solitude. Have an eye, then, upon those who prefer darkness and solitude; who remain long alone without being able to give good reasons for this isolation. Let vigilance attach itself principally to the moments which follow the retirement to bed, and those which precede the rising. It is then especially that the masturbator may be surprised in the act. Her hands are never outside the bed, and generally she prefers to hide her head under the coverlet. She has scarcely gone to bed ere she appears plunged in a profound sleep. This circumstance, which to a practiced observer is always suspicious, is one of those which most frequently contributes to the cause, or to nourish the false security of parents. The affectation that the young person carries into pretended sleep, the marked exaggeration with which she pretends to sleep, may often serve to betray her. Often, when suddenly approached, she may be seen to blush, and
