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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

[125]
The institution which presents these phenomena to us in the most marked
and the most important manner is, naturally, the school, in England
especially the Public School. In France, where the same phenomena are
noted, Tarde called attention to these relationships, "most usually
Platonic in the primitive meaning of the word, which indicate a simple
indecision of frontier between friendship and love, still undifferentiated
in the dawn of the awakening heart," and he regretted that no one had
studied them. In England we are very familiar with vague allusions to the
vices of public schools. From time to time we read letters in the
newspapers denouncing public schools as "hot-beds of vice" and one
anonymous writer remarks that "some of our public schools almost provoke
the punishment of the cities of the Plain."[126] But these allegations are
rarely or never submitted to accurate investigation. The physicians and
masters of public schools who are in a position to study the matter
usually possess no psychological training, and appear to view
homosexuality with too much disgust to care to pay any careful attention
to it.


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