differentiation, in children as well as in adults.
According to various statistics, embracing not only the period of
childhood, but including as well the period of youth, we learn that
girls constitute one-fifth only of the total number of youthful
criminals. A number of different explanations have been offered to
account for this disproportion. Thus, for instance, attention has been
drawn to the fact that a girl's physical weakness renders her incapable
of attempting violent assaults upon the person, and this would suffice
to explain why it is that girls so rarely commit such crimes. In the
case of offences for which bodily strength is less requisite, such as
fraud, theft, &c., the number of youthful female offenders is
proportionately larger, although here also they are less numerous than
males of corresponding age charged with the like offences. It has been
asserted that in the law courts girls find more sympathy than boys, and
that for this reason the former receive milder sentences than the
latter; hence it results that in appearance merely the criminality of
girls is less than that of boys. Others, again, refer the differences in
respect of criminality between the youthful members of the two sexes to
the influences of education and general environment. Morrison,[23]
however, maintains that all these influences combined are yet
insufficient to account for the great disproportion between the sexes,
and insists that there exists in youth as well as in adult life a
specific sexual differentiation, based, for the most part, upon
biological differences of a mental and physical character. I have
referred to these criminological data for the sake of completeness, but
I feel it necessary to add that their importance in relation to our
subject of study is comparatively trifling, since most of the cases in
question are offences committed by persons who can no longer properly be
regarded as children.

As we have seen, during childhood, and especially during the second
period of childhood, there exists a larger number of sexual differences
both mental and physical. Some of these are obviously discernible when
we compare isolated individuals; others only become apparent when we
institute a statistical comparison. And when such differences appear in
childhood, we find that they are quantitatively less extensive than the
sexual differences of adults. For the sexual life is in the child less
developed than it is in the adult. We