wer; with the boys the social reformer may well
hesitate between the no and the yes. The balance between fear and hope
may be very even there. Yet, however depressing such a decision may
be, the psychologist must acknowledge that even here the loss by frank
discussion is greater than the gain.

A serious warning lies in the well-known fact that of all professional
students, the young medical men have the worst reputation for their
reckless indulgence in an erotic life. They know most, and it is
psychologically not surprising that just on that account they are most
reckless. The instinctive fear of the half knower has left them; they
live in an illusory safety, the danger has become familiar to them,
and they deceive themselves with the idea that the particular case is
harmless. If the steps to be taken were to be worked out at the
writing desk in cool mood and sober deliberation, the knowledge would
at least often be a certain help, but when the passionate desire has
taken hold of the mind and the organic tension of the irritated body
works on the mind, there is no longer a fair fight with those sober
reasons. The action of the glands controls the psychophysical
reactions, so that the ideas which would lead to opposite response are
inhibited. Alcohol and the imitative mood of social gayety may help to
dull those hygienic fears, but on the whole the mere sexual longing
is sufficient to break down the reminiscence of medical warning. The
situation for the boy is then ultimately this: A full knowledge of the
chances of disease will start in hours of sexual coolness on the one
side a certain resolution to abstain from sexual intercourse, and on
the other side a certain intention to use protective means for the
prevention of venereal diseases. As soon as the sexual desire awakes,
the decision of the first kind will become the less effective, and
will be the more easily overrun the more firmly the idea is fixed that
such preventive means are at his disposal. At the same time the
discussion of all these sexual matters, even with their gruesome
background, will force on the mind a stronger engagement with sexual
thought than had ever before occurred, and this will find its
discharge in an increased sexual tension. On the other hand, this new
knowledge of means of safety will greatly increase the playing with
danger. Of course it may be said that the education ought not to refer
only to sexual hygiene, but that it ought to be a