A Solemn Appeal - James White

practice, and understand the language used to
describe it.' Remember, he who expresses himself
thus strongly, is a cautious, discreet man, and
always says much less than he means. So alarming
does he regard this evil, that he has devoted a work
to its exposition, entitled 'Hints to the Young.' Wm.
C. Woodbridge, so long and so ably devoted to the
cause of education, and whose means of knowing
was extensive, thus writes in that able work, 'The
Annals of Education:' 'A topic in Physiology which
"artificial modesty" has covered up until a solitary
but fatal vice is spreading desolation throughout
our schools and families, unnoticed and unknown.'
'Thousands,' says E. M. R. Wells, a distinguished
teacher in Boston, 'of pure minded and amiable
boys and young men, are undermining their
physical constitutions, and prospectively corrupting
their souls, by a pleasurable, and, to many of them,
an innocent, gratification.'
" 'What,' says a fond parent, 'our high schools
and colleges contaminated with this vice? Even so.
They are the most infected; first, because their boys
are highly organized, and such experience
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