6o THE JUKES. 



all this, and in a certain sense antedating it, is fornication, speading 

 diseases that undermine the vital force and literally create the idle- 

 ness which is fortified by the cessation of work, so that both sur- 

 roundings and proclivities become cumulative. The residuary 

 vital force having ceased to be expended in labor, must find another 

 mode of activity, and the one which presents itself as the most 

 alluring is sexual excess, which thus completes a vicious circle, 

 making idleness and fornication reciprocal causes of each other as 

 hereditary characteristics which can only be eliminated from society 

 by the advent of uncompromising death — the wages of sin. The 

 argument for early marriage previously alluded to is strengthened 

 by the fact that it brings with it the cares and obligations of rearing 

 the family, and this is labor both physical and mental, which has a 

 salutary effect in this respect upon women as well as upon men. 



In the training of certain idiots, one of the great impediments in 

 ameliorating their condition is found in the sexual orgasms to which 

 they are addicted, the practice of which perpetuates their idiocy. 

 The first step in improvement is to check their vice, and the main 

 reliance to this end is occupation for mind and muscle, medication 

 being only an auxiliary. In the institutions for the training of these 

 unfortunates they are constrained to activity of some kind, their 

 inert limbs are made to move, sometimes by the nurse, sometimes 

 by mechanical contrivances which compel the flexion of the members, 

 and their senses are gradually developed by being arbitrarily excited 

 in a way appropriate to their nature. The result of this close, con- 

 tinuous and systematic turning of their attention to objects of the 

 external world, unfolds their stunted minds, and produces fatigue, so 

 that when laid down they fall to sleep at once without chance of 

 sexual abandonment. It is the duty of the nurse to assure that 

 each evening, and be ready to occupy the patient on the moment of 

 his waking. Without this there is no cure. The lesson is, that the 

 expenditure of the vital force in the direction of occupation sub- 

 tracts just so much from sexual indulgence and reduces it to healthy 

 periodicity. 



The direct effect of industrial training is to curb licentiousness, 

 its secondary effects to decrease the craving for stimulants and nar- 



