272 PLAIN FACT8 FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



These latter we will consider more particularly, as they 

 have not been so fully dwelt upon elsewhere. 



Evil Associations.— A child may have been reared 

 with the greatest care. From infancy he may have 

 been carefully shielded from all pernicious influences, 

 so that at the age of ten or twelve, when he is for the 

 first time sent to school, he may be free from vice ; but 

 when he associates with his fellow students, he soon 

 finds them practicing a habit new to him, and being 

 unwarned, he speedily follows their filthy example, and 

 quickly becomes fascinated with the vice. Thousands 

 have taken their first lessons in this debasing habit at 

 school. Teachers and scholars testify that it is often 

 practiced even in school hours, almost under the teach- 

 er 's eyes ; but where the infection most quickly spreads 

 is in the sleeping apartments, where more than one 

 occupy the same bed, or where several sleep in the 

 same room. 



Nothing is more indispensable to purity of body 

 and of morals than a private sleeping-room, and a 

 single bed for each student. Such an arrangement 

 would protect the youth from the reception of much 

 evil, and would allow an opportunity for privacy which 

 every young man or youth needs for his spiritual as 

 well as physical benefit. Not the least benefit of thQ 

 latter class is the opportunity for a thorough cleansing 

 of the whole body every morning, which is almost as 

 indispensable to purity of morals as to cleanliness of 

 body. The same suggestion is fully as applicable to 

 the sleeping arrangements of girls. The exceptional 

 cases in which this plan would not be the best are very 

 few indeed. 



Corruption in Schools.— Says Dr. Acton, ''I can- 

 not venture to print the accounts patients have given 



