The confession of Catholics plays a deplorable pedagogic part in the sexual domain. We may admit that some high-minded priests may be capable of modifying their interpretation of the prescriptions of Liguori and others which we have cited, and do little or no harm to young people of either sex. It must, however, be recognized—and the most devout Catholic cannot deny it—that priests are only human, and have not all the noble spirit nor the tact to fulfill the ideal required of them in their behavior toward women. This is enough to make the confessional, in many cases, a depraved institution from the sexual point of view. On this subject, I refer the reader to what has already been said in Chapter XII on the experiences of the Canadian reformer, father Chiniqui.
The following instance is very characteristic. A very prudish man, observing children of both sexes bathing together, exclaimed to them indignantly, that this was improper. Thereupon a little boy replied naively: "We do not know which is a boy nor which is a girl, because we have no clothes." This charming reply shows how certain moral intentions are more likely to attract the attention of young people to erotic subjects.
Corporal Punishment and Sadism.—An important fact has recently attracted the attention of the whole world, concerning certain terrible crimes. There is no longer any doubt that in some cases perverted masters and teachers find satisfaction for their sadist sexual appetite in the corporal punishment of children. This was the case with the German teacher, Dippold, who, to satisfy his perverted appetite flogged two children confided to him by their parents, till one of them died.
The Arbeiter Zeitung, of Vienna, a very conscientious journal, published the case of a prince of a small German state, who, whenever a schoolmaster ordered corporal punishment to a pupil, offered to execute it himself. The journal in question attributes with good reason this fantasy to sadism.
Again, many children were at one time belabored with blows for several years by a person who pretended to be a police agent, and who threatened them with prosecution if they complained. One boy more courageous than the others finally gave information, and the affair then ended.
We thus see that sadism does not always manifest itself by assassination. Its less dangerous forms in which pleasure is obtained by blows or some other form of bodily or mental ill-treatment, are no doubt much more common. They constitute a kind of complement to sexual desire in pathological individuals whose appetite is only partly perverted. This fact, which has hitherto not received sufficient attention, gives one more reason for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, for the art of dissimulation and refinement of torture are unlimited in the sexually perverted. A thousand hypocritical pretexts serve to conceal their morbid appetite, and it has been proved by experience that they can succeed for a long time in deceiving even experts in this subject. This was the case with Dippold and many others.
Corporal punishment of schoolboys is only useless and harmful brutality. It is a disgrace to civilization that it is still maintained at a time when the bastinado has been suppressed among convicts.
Protection of Childhood. Child Martyrs.—Children, especially when illegitimate or of another marriage, are often exposed to atrocious treatment in which alcohol and sexual passion, inconvenienced by the presence of the child, play a great part.
I here refer the reader to the last work of Lydia von Wolfring.[14] This author, who has made a special study of the judicial protection of children, makes the following propositions directed against parents and tutors who commit misdemeanors against children or pupils confided to them, or who incite the latter to commit misdemeanors, or who show themselves incapable of protecting them against others who abuse them in the manner indicated (this last condition applies especially to concubines, widows, etc.).
(1). Withdrawal of paternal, maternal or tutelary authority and nomination of another tutor.