Boys and Suggestive Pictures
News and comments.
The following important communication lias been sent The Psychological Clinic by a writer who desires to preserve his usefulness along this line by withholding his name from publication:
“There is no need to enlarge upon the strength and endurance of the memory of visual images. We all know how easy it is to remember things that we have seen, even in our early childhood, and how much more difficult it is to recall words, sounds, or other impressions. All this being true, it is not difficult to understand how pubescent boys, who are in the most impressionable period of their lives, can be seriously affected by pictures of a suggestive, or worse, nature. The natural curiosity of this period intensifies the impressions made and, indeed, forms a basis for the demand for pictures of this character, a demand which produces a supply the extent of which can hardly be imagined. “In this country, the manufacturers and venders of obscene pictures do not lead easy lives, for the surveillance of the post office authorities, and the activity of such men as Anthony Comstock, make the manufacture and vending of this kind of abomination a matter not only of considerable difficulty but also of even more considerable danger, so that while such pictures of American manufacture may be found, it will not be in any great quantity.
“Yet the writer, who has a very large acquaintance with boys, finding that they were being supplied, to a remarkable extent, with pictures of a particularly vile description, therefore set himself the task of running down the source of supply. Hint lead to hint, and experiment made discovery certain. It was found that no less than four foreign firms were unloading their products upon our boys and young men. These foreigners advertise, you may be surprised to know, in very respectable magazines. Perhaps you would not recognize their notices for what they are. You undoubtedly would not, unless you were initiated by some one who ‘knew’ and who told you what kind of an ‘ad’ to look for. “Generally speaking, these dealers advertise the sale of ‘art’ prints, and ‘rare’ books. Perhaps there are kinds of art quite unknown to the average man, and unfortunately the books are not as rare as they might be! If, upon your first writing to them, you do not seem to be a likely customer for their usual wares, some of these dealers will send matter less virulent. If, however, they judge that you can ‘stand,’ or that you actually desire, their more questionable material, they will send matter that would horrify any but the most hardened.
“The writer followed up four sucli ‘ads,’ representing himself as a boy, sending requests for ‘circulars’ to a firm in Paris, one in Munich, one in Pressburg, and another in Barcelona. The matter received in return would have the most corrupting influence 011 any boy, and, indeed, the writer has known boys whose whole moral nature was almost hopelessly shattered from the effect of seeing such stuff. “The writer at once laid such evidence as came to him before a prominent post office inspector who has since taken action to prevent the publication of such advertisements and to punish such magazines as persist in publishing them.
“A point to be considered is that as magazines are not read by boys of the poorer classes, it is the boy of good family who falls into the net of these foreign dealers. And it was while working with boys of this type that the writer opened this particular and dangerous source of supply.”
A Magazine of Art in the Schools.
The November number of The School Arts Booh is well named a “Festival Number.” The first impression which it conveys is of a serene gaiety, animating the busy preparations for celebrating the great winter feasts of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Later one notices the pleasant and harmonious colors of paper, ink, and cover, the clear type, and appropriate decoration. In the schemes and plans suggested by this helpful magazine one finds no trace of hysteria,?no fuss, no clutter, no incompetent efforts to overtax the ordinary powers of teachers and children. The articles are practical to the smallest detail, and, what is no less admirable, they are brief; they stop when they have said their say. The illustrations really illustrate, and are in the best sense artistic. There is probably no better color printing to be found anywhere in America. The original designs, whether for stencils, pen and ink, weaving, or stage-setting, are all simple and beautiful.
The School Arts Book as a whole and in its parts, even the advertisements, is vastly superior to any other journal in this field. It is published by the National Arts Publishing Company, of Boston, Mass., who are to be congratulated on having accomplished so much for art in the schools.
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