turbated in youth. Perhaps, also, weight attaches to the opinion
of Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who states that from 90 to 95 per
cent. of all boys at boarding school masturbate.[292] Seerley, of
Springfield, Mass., found that of 125 academic students only 8 assured him
they had never masturbated; while of 347, who answered his questions, 71
denied that they practiced masturbation, which seems to imply that 79 per
cent. admitted that they practiced it.[293] Brockman, also in America,
among 232 theological students, of the average age of 231/2 years and coming
from various parts of the United States, found that 132 spontaneously
admitted that masturbation was their most serious temptation and all but
one of these admitted that he yielded, 69 of them to a considerable
extent. This is a proportion of at least 56 per cent., the real proportion
being doubtless larger, since no question had been asked as to sexual
offenses; 75 practiced masturbation after conversion, and 24 after they
had decided to become ministers; only 66 mentioned sexual intercourse as
their chief temptation; but altogether sexual temptations outnumbered all
others together.[294] Moraglia, who made inquiry of 200 women of the lower
class in Italy, found that 120 acknowledged either that they still
masturbate or that they had done so during a long period.[295] Gualino
found that 23 per cent. men of the professional classes in North Italy
masturbate about puberty; no account was taken of those who began later.
"Here in Switzerland," a correspondent writes, "I have had occasion to
learn from adult men, whom I can trust, that they have reached the age of
twenty-five, or over, without sexual congress. '_Wir haben nicht dieses
Beduerfniss_,' is what they say. But I believe that, in the case of the
Swiss mountaineers, moderate onanism is practiced, as a rule." In hot
countries the same habits are found at a more precocious age. In
Venezuela, for instance, among the Spanish creoles, Ernst found that in
all classes boys and girls are infested with the vice of onanism. They
learn it early, in the very beginning of life, from their wet-nurses,
generally low Mulatto women, and many reasons help to foster the habit;
the young men are often dissipated and the young women often remain
single.[296] Niceforo, who shows a special knowledge of the working-girl
class at Rome, states that in many milliners' and dressmakers' workrooms,
where young girls are employed, it fre