In many rural districts of England, France, and Sweden, and even in London and Paris, a large percentage of the marriages are simply legalization of free unions. In short, in all these countries the monogamic ideal is not followed by a large percentage of people. It must be remembered that the great majority of people involved in the above figures are of the peasant and laboring classes; conditions are quite different among women of the educated classes. These must ultimately set the moral standards for the masses.

Our American conditions are quite different, especially outside of the large cosmopolitan cities. It is impossible not to believe in the moral integrity of the great majority of unmarried women in America. Certainly even in our worst communities we have no such general immorality of women as above European figures suggest. Perhaps wholesale prostitution in which one public woman may be the mistress of ten, twenty, or even fifty men, may tend to protect any equal number of American women; whereas in Europe a peasant woman would probably be for a time the paramour of one man, thus tending to make equal numbers of immoral men and women.

However, it matters nothing for our present purposes what may be the explanation of conditions of sexual promiscuity here or abroad. The one great fact is that our national code of morality is a monogamic one, approved as ideal even by many of those who fail to live strictly in harmony with its dictates. Hence, all Americans who are prominently interested in sex-education believe that it should aim to make our young people more ready to accept and understand morality according to the monogamic ideal.

Those who are interested in this problem of morality as related to marriage should read Foerster's "Marriage and the Sex Problem."

[Sidenote: Relation of sex-hygiene and ethics.]

Among those who see the need of teaching sex-ethics as a part of the larger outlook of sex-education, there are two points of view: (1) those who favor the teaching of sex-ethics with the hope of preventing the hygienic problems arising from immorality, and (2) those who believe in sexual morality for its own sake or as an accepted code of conduct.

The founders of the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis placed sanitation first in the name and stated in the constitution that "the object of this Society is to limit the spread of diseases which have their origin in the Social Evil. It proposes to study every means, sanitary, moral, and administrative, which promise to be most effective for this purpose." Most of the papers that have been read at the meetings of the Society have emphasized the sanitary aim as primary, and the moral aim as a means to the hygienic end; but in the past three years there has been a decided tendency towards placing emphasis upon morality, and recently the executive committee of the Society voted to propose the following revised statement: "The aim of this Society is to promote the appreciation of the sacredness of human sexual relation, and thereby to minimize the moral and physical evils resulting from ignorance and vice." This change of emphasis is well expressed in President Keyes's report to the Society (Journal, Vol. V, No. 1).

As to the relation between sex-hygiene and sex-ethics as phases of the larger sex-education, there has been much discussion. Several writers have contended that there is some conflict between sanitary and moral ends, but have failed to convince most readers that hygiene and ethics should not be associated in teaching. In fact, the most impressive sex-hygiene is that relating to social disease, and its value is chiefly in the ethical appeal for protection of innocent wives and children.

[Sidenote: Dr. Cabot's view.]

Most prominent of those who have declared that hygienic and moral teaching should be dissociated is Dr. Richard C. Cabot, of Boston. I shall discuss his point of view in connection with a later lecture on "Criticisms of Sex-education" (Sec. 46). In the present discussion of sexual morality as an important reason for sex-education, it is sufficient to say that Dr. Cabot seems to disagree with other teachers on the question of the influence of formal instruction on the morals of people.

[Sidenote: Moral and hygienic problems.]

Sex-education is now commonly understood to be attempting to solve the moral as well as the hygienic problems of sex. As suggested before, these two lines of problems are clearly related but not coincident; for sexual health and morals are not entirely coordinated. We must not overlook the possibility that the marvellous progress of bacteriological and medical science may some day largely reduce the health problems of sex without improving morality. In fact, sexual immorality that is hygienic does actually exist to a limited extent. Such facts indicate that while sex-education was first planned to solve health problems, the ultimate sex-education must attempt to guide sexual conduct by moral principles. This coming need of more emphasis on the moral problems of sex should be clearly foreseen by those who are interested in sex-education.

[Sidenote: Super-morality desirable.]

Now, while sexual morality as commonly understood is a direct aim of sex-education, it is not, in the opinion of many people, the ideal and ultimate goal of sex-education in its broadest outlook. There is something higher than conventional morality for the reason that, while natural sexual union in monogamic marriage is never legally or ecclesiastically immoral, it is very often far from ideal. It is not ideal if it is unethical, unhygienic, or unaesthetic. It is unethical, if it is not a bi-personal desideratum (i.e., based on mutual love[9]); it is unhygienic when not promotive and conservative of health; and it is unaesthetic if the concomitant psychical reactions are not in harmony with the beautiful in nature and life. In all these ways, morality as commonly and legally and ecclesiastically understood may fall very far short of the ideal sexual relationships. Such an ideal is now held by many men and women who wish that morality might mean to all the world not simply the limitation of sexual union to monogamic marriage, but also that it might be made to mean an all-satisfying monogamic affection and comradeship based on certain physiological, psychical, aesthetic, and ethical laws that underlie human sexual potentialities. Such would be a morality so far beyond the accepted standards that for convenience we may call it super-morality, or the new morality. This, I sincerely believe, is the ultimate goal of sex-education in its largest outlook.

[Sidenote: Super-morality deserves emphasis.]

Among those who have contributed to the sex-education movement there are none who have properly emphasized this super-morality, which, I believe, is the ultimate goal of the larger sex-education for the most enlightened people. The definition that sex-education means all instruction which aims to help young people prepare to solve for themselves the sexual problems that inevitably come to every normal individual, is broad enough to include all questions of hygiene, morality, and super-morality that may come into one's life. The third aim of sex-education (Sec. 16) which refers to the "social, ethical, and psychical aspects of sex as affecting the individual life in relation to other individuals," should be understood as meaning first a stand for morality and then, this having been attained, super-morality is an easy stage forward. The same idea was touched by the writer in a paper on "Biology in Sex-Instruction" (Journal of Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, October, 1911) in these words: "If the great questions of sex relationship are ever satisfactorily solved, it must be through the direct application of the four sciences which are centered around human life, namely, psychology, ethics, sociology, and last, but far from least, aesthetics. As we have seen, biology teaches much directly bearing on the purely physical aspects of the perpetuation of human life, and its study is absolutely necessary for mental attitude and basal facts; but the keystone of the arch of sex-education must be contributed by these four sciences which touch human life much deeper than the merely physical, to which the science of biology is limited. Above all we must look to these sciences for the solution of the problems of sex in relation to society, which more than any physical ills have led to our present problems concerning sexual disharmonies."

[Sidenote: Super-morality not for the masses.]

But while there is something attractive in this larger interpretation of sex-education as looking forward to the highest adaptation of sex and life, I realize that as a practical matter we must first of all work with young people for sexual morality as defined by the accepted code. We must remember that the vast majority of people are not yet ready, and will not soon be ready, for a code of super-morality. Confusion might result from an attempt at wholesale teaching of such idealism of sex relationship. Certainly, so far as sex-education aims to help immature young people, there is nothing to do but hold up monogamic marriage as the basis of our accepted morality; but the higher view of super-morality should be promulgated as rapidly as possible among people who are advanced enough to understand that morality as defined by church and state is not the best interpretation of life's possibilities. To many it is a significant fact that we now find numerous young men and women ready to stand for super-morality as a foundation for monogamic marriage. Fortunately, such individuals need not wait for the world to grasp the idea of super-morals; and already there is many a home in which the higher view of life and sex prevails.

[Sidenote: Cautious teaching concerning immorality.]

Immorality in sexual lines should not be overstressed when teaching young people. Rather should there be emphasis on the moral, the normal, the healthful, the helpful, and the aesthetic processes in human life. We should emphasize sexual health and morals, not disease and immorality. Concerning immoral living in general, young people should know only enough for necessary warning. Curiosity derived from extensive knowledge of immorality has drawn many a young man into the whirlpool of sexual depravity. It is beyond question that in sexual lines there is the danger that Pope saw when he declared that vice is a monster that seen too oft, we first endure, then pity, then embrace. Sex-education should guard against such dangerous familiarity with vice.

Sec. 11. The Sixth Problem for Sex-education: Sexual Vulgarity

[Sidenote: Present attitude.]

Even a limited study of the prevailing attitude towards sex and reproduction convinces one that back of the greatest sexual problems of our times is the almost universal secrecy, disrespect, vulgarity, and irreverence concerning every aspect of sex and reproduction. Even expectant motherhood is commonly concealed as long as possible, and all reference to the developing new life is usually accompanied with blushes and tones suggestive of some great shame. Nothing sexual is commonly regarded as sacred. Love and marriage, motherhood and birth, are all freely selected as themes for sexual jests, many of them so vulgar that no printed dictionary supplies the necessary words. And I am not simply referring to the great masses of uneducated people, for the saddest fact is that a very large proportion of intelligent people have not an open-minded and respectful attitude concerning sex and reproduction.

[Sidenote: Vast change of attitude needed.]

Now, unless we can devise some way to counteract the prevailing narrow, vulgar, disrespectful, and irreverent attitude towards all aspects of sex and reproduction; unless we can make people see sexual processes in all their normal aspects as noble, beautiful, and splendid steps in the great plan of nature; unless we can substitute a philosophical and aesthetic view of sex relationship for the time-worn interpretation of everything sexual as inherently vulgar, base, ignoble, and demanding asceticism for those who would reach the highest spiritual development; unless we can begin to make these changes in the prevailing attitude towards sex and reproduction, we cannot make any decided advance in the attempt to help solve sexual problems by special instruction.

First of all, sex-education must work for a purified and dignified attitude which sees vulgarity and impurity only when the functions of sex have been voluntarily and knowingly misused and thereby debased. Sex-education must work against the idea that sexual processes are inherently vulgar, degraded, base, and impure. Such an interpretation is correct only when sexual instincts are uncontrolled and thereby out of harmony with the highest ideals of life. But control does not mean asceticism which aims at complete subjugation of sexual instincts and would annihilate them if that were biologically possible. The early Christians, disgusted with the sexual degradation of the paganistic and materialistic Romans, preached a doctrine of sexual asceticism as the ideal for those who would rise to the heights of spiritual life. This pessimistic interpretation of the relation of sex and life has persisted even in some ecclesiastical teachings of the twentieth century, and probably has had not a little responsibility for the widely accepted and depressing view that sex is a necessary but regrettable fact of human life.

[Sidenote: Attitude changing.]

Fortunately, the old ascetic point of view is passing rapidly. Nineteenth-century science has given us a nobler view of the physical world. Scientifically considered, matter is no longer base and degraded. Especially has the biological science of the past fifty years made living matter and its activities profoundly impressive. And of the life-activities none are so significant and so all-important as those relating to the perpetuation of the human species. Biological science has taught this emphatically, and the processes connected with sex have been lifted to a place of dignity and purity.

[Sidenote: AEsthetic attitude desirable.]

The old asceticism, with its uniformly dark outlook on life, has no lessons worth while in our modern problems relating to sex.[10] We need severe control and not annihilation of our most powerful instincts. The bright outlook of aesthetics rather than the dark one of asceticism should prevail, for sex-instincts and processes are essentially pure and beautiful phases of that wonderful something we call "life." Sex-education should aim to give this attitude by presenting life as fundamentally free from the degradation arising from misuse and misunderstanding of sex.

[Sidenote: Not a new ideal.]

The aesthetic interpretation of sex is no new ideal. Canon Lyttleton, formerly Head Master of Eton College and later Canon of Westminster, believed that "viewed rightly, the subject of sex, the ever-recurring miracle of generation and birth, is full of nobleness, purity, and health." The late Dr. Prince A. Morrow wrote, "the sex function is intimately connected with the physical, mental, and moral development. Its right use is the surest basis of individual health, happiness and usefulness in life, as well as of racial permanence and prosperity. Its abuse and misuse is the cause of a vast deal of disease and misery." And finally, we may quote President-Emeritus Eliot of Harvard University: "Society must be relieved by sound instruction of the horrible doctrine that the begetting and bearing of children are in the slightest degree sinful or foul processes. That doctrine lies at the root of the feeling of shame in connection with these processes and of the desire for secrecy. The plain fact is that there is nothing so sacred and propitious on earth as the bringing of another normal child into the world in marriage. There is nothing staining or defiling about it, and therefore there is no need for shame or secrecy, but only for pride and joy. This doctrine should be part of the instruction given to all young people."

[Sidenote: Attitude all-important in sex-education.]

If sex-education succeeds in giving young people this enlightened attitude, there will be little difficulty in solving most of the ethical and hygienic problems of sex. A young man who has caught a glimpse of the highest interpretation of sex in its relation to human life, in short a young man to whom all natural sexual processes are essentially pure and noble and beautiful, is not one who will make grave hygienic mistakes in his own life, and he will not be personally connected with the social evil and its diseases, and he will avoid almost intuitively the physiologic and psychologic mistakes that most often cause matrimonial disaster. Everything, then, in successful sex-education depends upon the attitude formed in the minds of learners; and towards this our major efforts should be directed.

[Sidenote: Comparison with animals not helpful.]

The prevailing vulgar attitude towards sex will not be greatly improved by repeated emphasis upon the animal nature of reproduction in attempts at supporting the thesis that propagation is the sole function of sexual processes in human life. Such an interpretation of human sexuality as purely animalistic in function is implied, if not expressed, by some workers for the "purity" movement. I sincerely believe that such a view will inevitably tend to increase the feeling that sexual processes are heritages from the beasts which unfortunately must be tolerated because nature has provided no other way for perpetuating human life.

[Sidenote: Sexual pessimism.]

An intelligent woman, a happy wife and mother, who had accepted this ascetic and pessimistic view of sex, said the other day: "Oh, love and marriage and motherhood would be so beautiful were it possible to escape the unspeakably vulgar facts of physical life!" Poor woman! It must have been some fiend incarnate who in the guise of a prophet of purity preached to her the animalistic interpretation of sex, which made her overlook the fact that the very beauty which she could not quite grasp had its origin in her emotions arising from the despised sexual nature.

This is not an isolated case. Several young women who have graduated from college within ten years vouch for the statement that many thoughtful students are strong in the belief that ideal marriage is platonic friendship and that it is a sad fact of life that husband and wife must lay aside their high ideals in order to become parents.

Such depressing interpretations of life are bound to come from the radical type of "purity" preaching based on the sexual mistakes of the past and on the lives of animals. A similar pessimistic view regarding the function of eating might be based on mistakes of drunkards and gluttons and on the habits of the porcine family. If these are to guide our conduct, then food-taking is to be regarded as a necessary but vulgar habit inherited from our animal ancestors; and if we are to be logical and attempt to rise to ideal purity in eating, we must hasten to dispense with the culinary science and all the aesthetics which have made civilized eating a fine art. Of course, this is just what the strict ascetic does; but such radical disbelievers in the pleasures that we have associated with eating would be declared lunatics in any civilized country.

[Sidenote: Two kinds of hunger.]

I have chosen eating for illustrating my point, for the demands for food and for sexual activity are the two primal and necessary forms of hunger. The hunger for food has led to the refinements of civilized dining, but there has been great evolution. The animals feed (German, fressen) in order to satisfy hunger only; civilized humans eat (essen) not only to satisfy the hunger appetite inherited from the animals, but also for the sake of the concomitant social aesthetic pleasures that add much to the joy of living. Now, if we are logical, we must interpret on parallel lines the sexual hunger that is necessary for the perpetuation of human life. Like eating, it is a necessary function inherited from the animals; but there has been an evolution of greater significance. In the animal world, sexual activity has only one function, reproduction; but human life at its highest has superadded psychical and social meaning to sexual relationships, and the result has been affection and the human family. If we reject this higher view of the double significance of sexuality in human life, and insist that only the necessary propagative function is worthy of recognition, it is almost inevitable that most people will continue to accept the hopeless view that human sexuality is on the same vulgar plane as that of the animals; in short, that it is only an animal function. This, I insist, is a depressing interpretation that will never help overcome the prevailing vulgar attitude toward sex.

[Sidenote: Human sexuality more than animal.]

It is only by frankly recognizing and developing the psychical and aesthetic meanings that are distinctly human and superadded to the merely propagative function of the animals, that people can be led far away from the vulgar outlook on sex and reproduction in human life.

[Sidenote: Relation of attitude and morality.]

There is no question that wholesome attitude towards sex and reproduction is closely associated with the problems of sexual morality, and especially so far as educational procedure is concerned. It is true that large numbers of moral people hold the vulgar attitude towards sex and reproduction; but for people who do not accept the moral code without question there is probably no better way of teaching sexual morality than by influencing the individual's attitude. There are many people who stand for sexual morality for no other reason than that they have a dignified and aesthetic attitude towards sex.

[Sidenote: Sexual vulgarity a stage in evolution.]

There is much evidence that the world is rapidly improving in this respect. Sexual vulgarity seems to represent a stage in the evolution of human life from the barbaric to the fully civilized. The sexual vulgarity of primitive peoples, both ancient and modern, has been all too frequently recalled by writers whose pseudo-scientific superficiality leads them to believe that knowledge concerning barbaric and ultra-bestial sensuality will help solve modern sex problems. In the classical days when Venus and Bacchus and other deities of sensuality were worshipped by their devotees, there was sexual vulgarity in action and language such as now exists only among the most ignorant or depraved people in civilized lands. The advent of Christian civilization in Europe left no place for temples and worship of sensuality, but still the age-old tendency towards a crude and barbaric kind of sexual vulgarity and obscenity has continued in folklore, in colloquial language, and in literature. However, there has been a vast change in the attitude of the best people within the last two centuries. Once many English writers, many of them now deservedly obscure, published prose and poetry that would now be criminal. An unexpurgated edition of Shakespeare's "Complete Works," or of Boccaccio's "Decameron," could not be circulated through the United States mails, and there are many good people who are asking how long we shall continue to allow the unexpurgated "Old Testament" the privilege of circulation. It is not simply prose and poetry that has been purified. Scientific literature has shown the influence of the reaction against obscenity. Linnaeus and other naturalists of the past were fond of giving scientific names that perpetuated vulgar comparisons with sexual organs, but no naturalist of the present day would dare suggest such designations for unnamed animals and plants. The older medical literature contains abundant obscenities; but scientific dignity, as well as the refinement of modern medical writers, has tended to compel the elimination of vulgarity. However, there are still too many physicians, especially those working with venereal and genito-urinary diseases, who go out of their way to illuminate their conversations, lectures, books, and magazine articles with veiled vulgarity. Even high-class medical journals occasionally contain illustrations of this tendency. However, the medical profession as a class stands for dignified scientific presentation of facts, and obscenity will soon be tabooed in medical and all other reputable literature. Save for occasional emanations privately printed by and for degenerate persons, public obscenity will soon be unknown. Its complete disappearance will have a vast influence upon the problem of sexual attitude.

Sec. 12. The Seventh Problem for Sex-instruction: Marriage

[Sidenote: Physiology and psychology of marriage.]

It is the consensus of opinion of numerous physicians, ministers, and lawyers that a very large proportion of matrimonial disharmonies have their foundation in the common misunderstanding of the physiology and especially of the psychology of sex. In the opinion of many students of sexual problems, this is the strongest reason for sex-instruction. It is certainly a line in which limited spread of information has already given some definite and satisfactory results. Many of my friends and former students have helped me accumulate a long list of cases in which scientific knowledge regarding sex has prevented and corrected matrimonial disagreements; and having easily found so much definite influence of sex-science upon marriage, I am forced to believe that sex-instruction specially organized for people of marriageable age is already giving results of tremendous importance to very many individuals. Large numbers of young people are already awake to the need of scientific guidance in marriage, and there is a great demand for helpful information.

Advanced sex-instruction with reference to the problems of marriage need not wait for general establishment of elementary instruction for children of school ages. Lectures and books are already reaching large numbers of adults. Such enlightenment will help in two ways, by the influence on marriage and by preparing adults to teach children.

[Sidenote: Other knowledge needed.]

There is another side to the problem of marriage that points to need of the larger sex-education. Physiology and psychology of sex are fundamental; but they alone are not sufficient to complete that mutual adjustment and understanding which marriage at the full development of its possibilities involves. Matrimonial harmony cannot be entirely a problem of applied science, as some superficial devotees of science seem to think; for science can never analyze those subtle and ever-varying qualities that go to make up what we call personality, and marriage in its largest outlook is the intimate blending of two personalities. Psychological and physiological knowledge will undoubtedly help the two married individuals in their progress towards the harmonious adjustment of their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of sex cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be developed by any formal instruction.

[Sidenote: Helpful literature.]

Probably there is no better way to help young people realize the possibilities of matrimonial harmony than by suggesting wholesome literature. Some of this is a part of the world's general treasure of books that in prose and poetry, in history and romance, hold up a high ideal of love with marriage. There is much such literature that gives young people inspiration, but too much of it, like college life, ends with a commencement. "And then they were married and lived happily ever after"—is the familiar closing as the novelist rings down the curtain after reciting only the prologue in the life drama of his two lovers. We need more literature that does not end with the wedding march, but which gives young people the successful solution of the problems after marriage. Some such is available in history and biography; some in essays. As I write there come to my mind several books that have impressed me: Professor Palmer's "Life of Alice Freeman Palmer"; Leonard Huxley's "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," which gives many intimate glimpses of the ideal home life which the great biologist centered around Mrs. Huxley; William George Jordan's "Little Problems of Married Life"; Orrin Cock's "Engagement and Marriage"; and that much misunderstood[11] but helpful book "Love and Marriage" by Ellen Key. Many of the stories by Virginia Terhune Van de Water, published in the magazines and collected in a book entitled "Why I Left my Husband" (Moffatt, Yard), deal with real problems of married life.

[Sidenote: Similar education of the sexes.]

The problems of co-education and coordinate education have not a little bearing on the adjustment of the two sexes in marriage. In these days when vocational education is fashionable in theory and is attracting attention in practice, we are told that co-education and coordinate education are mistakes because they provide the same training for both sexes. We are told that girls must be educated for their vocation of home-making, while boys must be educated for business, trades, or professions. Everywhere in this current movement for vocational education we find the emphasis placed on making education for the two sexes just as dissimilar as possible. Fortunately for the educational adjustments of the two sexes to each other, much of the present-day discussion that demands extensive sex specialization of education cannot be made practical and the training of the two sexes will inevitably continue to be quite similar, with at most a limited amount of time spent on application of certain knowledge to practical ends that are chiefly of interest to one sex only. By far the greater part of education from kindergarten through the university is in the nature of the fundamentals of knowledge and will continue to be essentially similar for both sexes. For illustration, the writer happens to be connected with a college which offers a four-year course and graduate work specially arranged with reference to household arts. Surely here is an opportunity for education far different from that of the typical college for men. As a matter of fact, there is great similarity. The greater part of the four years is filled with general courses in English, modern languages, chemistry, biology, physics, sociology, economics, and fine arts, while a minor part of the curriculum consists of courses in cookery, clothing, and household administration. The general courses are in essentials not different from courses in colleges for men. Here and there instructors select materials and in other ways relate the general courses to household arts, but after all a girl who completes these courses has acquired the same educational fundamentals that her brother gets in Columbia College or in any other standard college for men. It is only, then, in the cookery, clothing, and administration that there is sex-differentiated education, and even in these the practice necessary to acquire proficiency in technique is the chief peculiarity. So far as fundamental knowledge is concerned; cookery is chiefly an application of chemistry, physics, and physiology that could easily be made clear to one who had completed courses in these sciences in a college for men; dress design is an application of fine arts and its construction is a mechanical problem. The mental problems involved in dress design and making cannot be far different from house design and construction which are supposed to be primarily adapted to men.

[Sidenote: Little differentiation.]

On the whole, then, there is really little possibility of sex-differentiated education. This, I insist, is a fortunate fact of vast importance in the mutual adjustment of the two sexes in marriage. There could be no adjustment on an intelligent basis if education could be utterly dissimilar. There can be perfect adjustment only when the two individuals are adjusted harmoniously, and that means similar outlooks on life's problems.

[Sidenote: Need of sex-education for feminism.]

Many of the problems of the modern feministic movement are such as to demand rational education of both women and men with reference to sex and marriage. Let me quote C. Gasquoine Hartley, whose suggestive Chapters VIII and IX in her "Truth About Woman" (Dodd, Mead) deserve to live long after the readable but unscientifically applied earlier chapters are consigned to oblivion:

"To hear many women talk it would appear that the new ideal is a one-sexed world. A great army of women have espoused the task of raising their sex out of subjection. For such a duty the strength and energy of passion is required. Can this task be performed if the woman to any extent indulges in sex—otherwise subjection to man? Sexuality debases, even reproduction and birth are regarded as 'nauseating.' Woman is not free, only because she has been the slave to the primitive cycle of emotions which belong to physical love. The renunciation, the conquest of sex—it is this that must be gained. As for man, he has been shown up, women have found him out; his long-worn garments of authority and his mystery and glamour have been torn into shreds—woman will have none of him.

"Now obviously these are over-statements, yet they are the logical outcome of much of the talk that one hears. It is the visible sign of our incoherence and error, and in the measure of these follies we are sent back to seek the truth. Women need a robuster courage in the face of love, a greater faith in their womanhood, and in the scheme of Life. Nothing can be gained from the child's folly in breaking the toys that have momentarily ceased to please. The misogamist type of woman cannot fail to prove as futile as the misogamist man. Not 'Free from man' is the watch-cry of women's emancipation that surely is to be, but 'Free with man.'"

[Sidenote: Sex and intellectualism.]

And further on the same author, considering the problem of the women of the common type that are classified as a "third sex," that of temperamental neuter, says:

"Economic conditions are compelling women to enter with men into the fierce competition of our disordered social state. Partly due to this reason, though much more, as I think, to the strong stirring in woman of her newly-discovered self, there has arisen what I should like to call an over-emphasized Intellectualism. Where sex is ignored there is bound to lurk danger. Every one recognizes the significance of the advance in particular cases of women towards a higher intellectual individuation, and the social utility of those women who have been truly the pioneers of the new freedom; but this does not lessen at all the disastrous influence of an ideal which holds up the renunciation of the natural rights of love and activities of women, and thus involves an irreparable loss to the race by the barrenness of many of its finest types. The significance of such Intellectuals must be limited, because for them the possibility of transmission by inheritance of their valuable qualities is cut off, and hence the way is closed to a further progress. And, thus, we are brought back to that simple truth from which we started; there are two sexes, the female and the male, on their specific differences and resemblances blended together in union every true advance in progress depends—on the perfected woman and the perfected man."

[Sidenote: Young women misled by sexual pessimists.]

One who studies carefully the various aspects of the extreme feministic movement must admit that there are many signs of the dangers which the above quotations point out so clearly. Of course, we cannot believe in the sincerity of all of the numerous women of thirty-five to fifty years who pretend to ignore sex completely. Probably most of them have discovered that they have misunderstood themselves; but it is also probable that they have discovered too late for making a readjustment in their own lives. However, it matters little whether such women have really succeeded in ignoring sex. The real problem for educational attack lies in the fact that such women often succeed in proselyting young women under twenty-five, and these in turn may not come to see the real truth about sex and life until ten or fifteen years later. Clearly, organized education must protect young women against such influences.

[Sidenote: The greatest good in sex-education.]

The greatest good which may come from the sex-education movement is not prevention or elimination of social diseases, it is not improved health, it is not general acceptance of the moral law of sex, it is not one or all these that are devoutly to be hoped for; but far greater than such possible results from sex-education, it will bring to many a man and woman a deeper, nobler, and purer knowledge of what sex means for the coming race and of what it means now to each individual who realizes life's fullest possibilities in conjugal affection which culminates in new life and new motives for more affection. Such an understanding of sex in relation to home life will help this old world more than anything else which sex-education may accomplish.

[Sidenote: The greatest sex problem.]

The problems of sex and marriage deserve far more attention than can be given in this lecture. I am convinced that knowledge of sex in its physical, psychical, social, and aesthetic aspects is the only sure foundation for harmonious marriage under modern conditions. Therefore, I believe this to be the greatest sex problem open to educational attack.

Sec. 13. The Eighth Problem for Sex-instruction: Eugenics

[Sidenote: Meaning of eugenics.]

Eugenics, or the science of human good breeding, is just now the most popular of the problems concerning human sex and reproduction. In recent years, the biological investigators of heredity have published some startling facts which show that the human race must soon check its reckless propagation of the unfit and encourage reproduction by the best types of men and women. This is not the place for a review of the eugenic propositions. Those interested will find them in non-technical form in many books (see the bibliographical chapter of this book, page 248).

[Sidenote: Eugenics in biology.]

Some of the chief facts of eugenics should be a part of every well-organized scheme of sex-instruction, and taught through biology (Sec. 17). Probably no other topic in biology is so likely to make an ethical-social appeal, for the central point of eugenics is the responsibility of the individual whose uncontrolled sexual actions may transmit undesirable and heritable qualities and bring a train of disaster to generations of descendants.

[Sidenote: Relation of eugenics and sex-hygiene.]

At this point we digress to correct the widespread error in confusing sex-hygiene and eugenics. Many people who ought to know better use the two terms synonymously, perhaps because they are afraid of that comparatively novel but frank prefix in "sex-hygiene." The fact is that eugenics and sex-hygiene have little in common. Eugenics is the science of reproducing better humans by applying the established laws of genetics or heredity. In brief, it means, on the positive side, selecting desirable people as parents; and, negatively, preventing propagation by the undesirables. This is the sum total of the task of eugenics in the accurate sense of the term.

[Sidenote: Facts of heredity.]

So far as we know, each coming generation will inherit only qualities that the parents inherited from their parents. It is a well-known principle of biology that changes in the bodies of human beings during their lifetime (dating from the fertilized egg that produces the individual) are never in any noticeable degree inherited by descendants. In short, acquired characteristics of the body tissues do not influence the germ plasm, the living matter concerned with heredity and reproduction, but the germ plasm that determines what the next generation will inherit is fixed at birth. Thus tuberculosis, alcoholism, gonorrhea, and syphilis may be acquired during the life of an individual, but do not become fixed in the germ plasm. If the infants show effects of any of these diseases, it is not because of true heredity but because they were infected or influenced before birth. Rarely does this happen to children of a tuberculous mother, but often to those of a syphilitic mother. In a gonorrheal ophthalmia neonatorum (specific inflammation of infants' eyes) it is a case of infection during birth.

[Sidenote: Sex-hygiene and eugenics parallel.]

Thus, it appears that sex-hygiene either personal or social (concerned with venereal diseases) is not a part of eugenics. It is, however, a phase of euthenics, which deals with the environmental factors that affect the individual life. It is clear, then, that sex-hygiene (in the strict medical sense) and eugenics are parallel and not conflicting. Eugenics aims to select better parents who will transmit their own qualities genetically. Sex-hygiene in its personal and social aspects will make healthier parents able to give their offspring a healthier start in life, especially because the offspring is free from the prenatal effects of disease.

The teaching of heredity and eugenics is intended to develop a sense of individual responsibility for the transmission of one's good or bad inherited qualities to offspring. The teaching of sex-hygiene, either personal or social, looks towards improving personal health and preventing infection and injurious influence on the unborn next generation. Obviously, we need both sex-hygiene and eugenics as part of the larger sex-instruction.

Sec. 14. Summary of Lectures on Sex Problems

[Sidenote: Problems of health, attitude, and morals.]

We have made a general survey of the problems that offer reasons for sex-instruction. We have noted that some of the problems are concerned with health and, hence, lie within the scope of sex-hygiene in the strict sense of that term; but some of them have only the remotest relation to health and hygiene. On the contrary, they relate to the ethical, social, and aesthetic attitude of individuals towards sex and reproduction. Obviously, these touch problems not of sex health, but of sex morality. In their educational importance I believe them as great, perhaps even greater, than those of sex-hygiene. In fact, I have come to believe that many individuals can best solve all their own sexual problems on the basis of moral and aesthetic attitude.

[Sidenote: Many-sided instruction needed.]

Considering, as we have done, the sex problems in their many aspects, we are forced to the conclusion that sex-education will prove adequate only when it combines instruction from the several points of view. It must be much more than the sex-hygiene with which the sex-instruction movement started. We need sexual knowledge that will conserve health, that will develop social and ethical and eugenic responsibility for sexual actions, that will lead to increased happiness as well as to improved health, and that will give a nobler and purer view of life's possibilities. In all these lines in which sex influences human life profoundly, sex-education holds out the hope of help towards a better life for all who receive and apply its lessons.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the American Journal of Public Health for July, 1913, Dr. John S. Fulton, Director General of the XV International Congress on Hygiene and Demography, criticized severely the extremely radical statistics that were presented on charts at the sex-hygiene exhibit of the Congress, and were later published in Wilson's "Education of the Young in Sex-hygiene."

[2] There is danger in quoting to young men the estimates as to prevalence of social diseases and, therefore, of promiscuity. Fear of consequences will not control one who is led to believe that he is doing what most men do. (See Parkinson in Educational Review, Jan. 1911, pp. 44-46.)

[3] Many writers have discounted the value of warnings involved in sex-instruction concerning social disease (see especially Cabot's papers referred to in Sec. 46, and Parkinson in Educational Review, January, 1911).

[4] Louise Creighton, in her excellent little book on "The Social Disease and How to Fight It" (Longmans), has well presented the problems of social impurity from woman's point of view.

Dr. W.S. Hall, in "Life's Problems," has given in a few pages the necessary protective knowledge.

[5] See "The Sexual Necessity," by Drs. Howell and Keyes.

[6] See also, Henderson's "Education with Reference to Sex."

[7] See chapter on "Motherhood and Marriage" in Foerster's "Marriage and the Sex Problem."

[8] As an illustration of this fact, out of 558 Pittsburgh professional prostitutes, 406 had never had children. Of the 152 who were mothers, only 24 had two or more children.

[9] Many thinking men and women now agree with Ellen Key that "marriage is immoral without mutual love," that "love is the sole decisive point of view in questions concerning this relationship," that "it will come to pass that no finely sensitive woman will become a mother except through mutual love," that "everything which is exchanged between husband and wife in their life together can only be the free gift of love, can never be demanded by one or the other as a right." (Key—"The Morality of Woman.")

[10] Foerster, in his "Marriage and the Sex Problem," urges that self-control over sexual passions is the working of the old idea of asceticism, which he believes "should be regarded, not as a negation of nature nor as an attempt to extirpate natural forces, but as practice in the art of self-discipline. Its object should be to show humanity what the human will is capable of performing, to serve as an encouraging example of the conquest of the spirit over the animal self." My personal view is that nothing is gained by confusing self-control and the old asceticism.

[11] Misunderstood, it seems to me, because her philosophy demanding that marriage begin with, exist with, and end with love means freedom in love, and this has been misinterpreted as "free love" in the sense of promiscuity. I know of no writer who stands for marriage on a higher plane than that advocated by Ellen Key. Her lecture on "Morality of Woman" (Seymour Co., Chicago) is a good condensed statement of her largest ideas and a helpful introduction to "Love and Marriage."



III

ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL ATTACK ON THE SEX PROBLEMS

Sec. 15. The Task of Sex-education

[Sidenote: Pragmatic solution of sex problems.]

In the preceding series of lectures we have surveyed eight important sex problems that can never be solved, even in part, unless by widespread information that specifically guides the individual and organized society in the adjustment of sexual instincts to the peculiar conditions that obtain in our modern civilized life. To spread the knowledge that will help civilized humanity on towards the best possible adjustment of sex and life, and therefore to a pragmatic solution of sexual problems, is the task or the chief aim of sex-education.[12]

[Sidenote: No hope for complete solution.]

[Sidenote: Constant advance towards ideals.]

Of course, only the ultra-Utopian dreamer claims that sex-education can solve all the sexual problems of civilized life, but even the most pessimistic disbeliever in the new movement admits that knowledge of sexual life will be helpful to the great majority of people. Hence, it is worth while to organize the educational attack on the sex problems which we have considered in the preceding lectures. It seems to me that we may gain an advantage by frankly admitting that the educational attack is not expected to solve all sex problems for all people, for by such admission we put to flight those shallow cynics who have opposed the sex-education movement because they think (and probably correctly) that immorality and social diseases and all other sexual disharmonies will continue to exist as long as the human species does. Likewise, there will be dishonesty and murder and preventable diseases and all other human troubles in spite of education; but the advancement of learning has slowly and progressively reduced the sum total of all the disharmonies of life until now civilized people are largely free from many of the original or barbaric conditions. Along similar lines we may confidently think of sex-education as making a constantly advancing and victorious attack on the problems of life that have grown out of our primitive sexual instincts. Sex-education, like all other education, strives towards ideals that individuals and society may always approach but may never reach. It is only another case of Emerson's advice, "hitch your wagon to a star," which means the adoption of high ideals that lead ever on and on towards better life.

With this understanding that the task of sex-education is the ever-advancing improvement of sexual conditions in individual as well as in social life, let us turn now to consider the possible lines for definite educational attack on the chief problems of sex. It will be most helpful if we first analyze the general task of sex-education into some specific aims that may definitely guide instruction, and then in later lectures consider the methods and detailed subject matter of sex-instruction.

Sec. 16. The Aims of Sex-education

[Sidenote: Emphasis on social disease.]

Since the revelations concerning the disastrous physical effects of sexual immorality, especially as it exists in the commercialized conditions of the social evil, have had the chief influence in awakening intelligent people from their age-long ignorance and indifference concerning the great sex problems, it was natural that those who first proposed special instruction should have emphasized the social evil and its diseases so much as to create the widespread but erroneous impression that the great aim of sex-education is to teach the distressing facts concerning the pathological consequences of immorality.

[Sidenote: Other problems need emphasis.]

Now, without in the least underestimating the vast importance of the emphasis placed on sexual immorality and social diseases in the splendid pioneer work of the late Dr. Morrow and others for the sex-education movement, and without suggesting that these topics should be neglected while reorganizing the educational attack on sex problems, I believe that so far as formal instruction in homes, schools, and colleges is concerned, we may gain a decided advantage if we now recognize and declare boldly that the physical effects of the diseases arising from the social evil constitute only one of several groups of sex problems that organized education should attempt to solve.

Concerning the other problems that sex-education should touch with great definiteness, it is my personal view that most of those outlined in the preceding lectures will be affected by instruction along five important lines, as follows:

[Sidenote: Five lines of instruction.]

(1) The scientific truths that lead to serious and respectful attitude on all sex questions. (2) The personal sex-hygiene that independent of social diseases conserves individual health directly or indirectly through sexual normality. (3) The ethical responsibility of individuals for the physical or social or psychical harm of their sexual actions upon other individuals, e.g., in prostitution and illegitimacy. (4) The hygienic, ethical, and psychical laws that promote physical and mental health in monogamic marriage. (5) The established principles of heredity and eugenics which foretell the possible coming of a better race of humans. I believe that in these five lines there are educational problems of present and future greater significance to human health and happiness than are found in the social evil and its diseases, commandingly important though these be. Therefore, in viewing the field of sex-education with reference to the possible usefulness of knowledge in helping individuals solve the vital problems that have grown naturally out of the reproductive function, I believe that we are logical only when we organize our educational aims so as to give scientific instruction concerning the problems of sex in the several lines in addition to the physical or hygienic aspects of the social evil and its diseases.

[Sidenote: Four aims.]

As I now see in the large the sexual problems which scientifically organized education should attack, the educational aims may be grouped under four general headings as follows:

First and most important, sex-education should aim to develop an open-minded, serious, scientific, and respectful attitude towards all problems of human life which relate to sex and reproduction.

Second, sex-education should aim to give that knowledge of personal hygiene of the sexual organs which is of direct value in making for the most healthful and efficient life of the individual.

Third, sex-education should aim to develop personal responsibility regarding the social, ethical, psychical, and eugenic aspects of sex as affecting the individual life in its relation to other individuals of the present and future generations; in short, sex-education should consider the problems of sexual instincts and actions in relation to society.

Fourth, sex-education should aim to teach briefly to young people, during later adolescence, the essential hygienic, social, and eugenic facts regarding the two destructive diseases which are chargeable to sexual promiscuity or immorality.

[Sidenote: Order of importance of aims.]

For emphasis, let me briefly summarize these aims of sex-education: (1) Serious, scientific, and respectful attitude of mind on sex questions; (2) personal sex-hygiene; (3) social and ethical and eugenic responsibility for sex actions; (4) relation of immorality and social diseases. I have deliberately, placed these educational aims in this order because it is the order of greatest permanent importance in the sex-education movement; it represents the greatest value to the largest number of individuals who may learn the scientific truth; and it is the order most natural, most logical, and most effective in pedagogical practice with young people.

[Sidenote: Relation of aims to problems of sex.]

Sex-education organized with regard to these four aims will touch definitely all the eight problems of sex that have been discussed in preceding lectures. The first aim will directly affect the problem of vulgarity and indirectly touch those stated under the third aim. The second aim is obviously directed to the problem of personal health as it may be influenced by the sexual processes of one individual independent of others. Of course, there is also the personal aspect of social diseases, but it is clearer to consider both personal and social aspects of these diseases as a unit in the fourth aim. The third aim is based on five of the eight great problems which involve individual responsibility for the social evil, for illegitimacy, for sexual immorality, for matrimonial harmony, and for eugenics. The social aspects of the venereal diseases obviously involve personal responsibility of the individual in relation to society as well as a personal hygienic problem. Thus, six of the eight great sex problems are essentially social and only those relating to personal hygiene and individual attitude are so distinctly personal as to have only an indirect relation to other individuals, as might be true in case of unharmonious marriage of individuals who are vulgar minded or who have been injured by unhygienic personal habits. Finally, the fourth aim provides for teaching the essential facts that may help individuals protect themselves directly, and society indirectly, against the diseases that awakened the world to the need of sex-education.

Let us turn now to analyze the aims of sex-education and consider how they may be connected with a definite scheme for sex-instruction.

Sec. 17. The Aims as the Basis of Organized Sex-instruction

I have placed first the aim to develop a serious and respectful attitude toward sex and reproduction because at the root of the sexual problems of our times is the prevailing vulgar interpretation of sex and life discussed in a preceding lecture (Sec. 11).

[Sidenote: Biology and attitude.]

Recognizing the great importance of attitude, how may it be influenced by instruction in home or school? The most widely accepted answer is that the best beginning may be made through study of biology (including botany, zoology, and physiology) and through nature-study and hygiene taught on a biologic basis. No other method of introduction to sex-instruction is so natural and so likely to lead to a serious, scientific, and open-minded attitude concerning sex. In fact, a large part of the study of reproduction of plants and animals in courses of biology in schools and colleges has its value chiefly in the overwhelming evidence that problems of sex and reproduction are natural and dignified aspects of life. Such biological study determines attitude in no small degree. This is the chief justification for study of the reproductive processes in a series of animals and plants representing stages between the complex development of the highest animals which parallel human life and the lowest forms which the microscope reveals. In all my classes of twenty years in high school and college I have noted a marked development of serious, scientific, and open-minded attitude in response to natural and frank presentation of animal and plant life-histories. Moreover, I have many times requested large groups of students to write freely and frankly concerning the influence of biological courses upon their own attitude; and their papers have strongly supported my observation that study of animal and plant life-histories exerts a profound influence upon the attitude of students towards the human problems of sex and reproduction. If I were stating a defense for biology as one of three or four essential science courses for general education, I should place the greatest emphasis upon the study of animals and plants as a foundation for sex-instruction. Certain critics would reply that all the biological facts that are actually used in the direct human application of sex-instruction could be taught in a few lectures without a year's course in biology; but it is a demonstrated fact that a few isolated lessons do not give the attitude that comes from a good course of biology taught with the view to culminating in special sex-instruction.

[Sidenote: Literature and attitude.]

Only recently has it been pointed out that one's attitude towards sex may be profoundly influenced by reading certain general literature that holds up high ideals of love and sex and life. It will be most convenient to consider the influence of literature on sex-instruction in another lecture (Sec. 23).

[Sidenote: Teaching personal sex-hygiene.]

Now let us consider the general bearings of the personal sex-hygiene demanded by the second aim. For children under ten and twelve the necessary hygiene should be presented personally (see Sec. 25). For young people of adolescent years there are four possible ways of instruction in personal sex-hygiene: (1) It may be added naturally to a course or series of lessons in general hygiene including the problems of health for all systems of organs. (2) It may be included in a study of vertebrate and human reproduction in a course of biology or zoology. (3) It may be presented by a special lecture that is independent of all regular courses of study. (4) Special booklets may be put into the hands of young people. Let us now examine each of these ways:

[Sidenote: Sex-hygiene in general hygiene.]

(1) Sex-hygiene as a natural part of a series of lessons in general hygiene is most satisfactory when preceded by biological nature-study or high-school biology in which life-histories of organisms have been studied for the sake of attitude. At present we lack satisfactory textbooks for this kind of correlation. There is a strong reaction against independent courses of hygiene in high schools, and the next plan is becoming more common.

[Sidenote: Hygiene in biology.]

(2) The inclusion of the necessary hygiene of all organs in courses of biology or zoology that have emphasized physiology and its bearings on health is the best arrangement so far proposed and tested in practice. It has been tried with success by Dr. W.H. Eddy in the High School of Commerce, New York City, and by other high-school teachers working along the same lines. The arguments for teaching general hygiene on a biological basis have been presented in the last chapter of "The Teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools" by Lloyd and Bigelow, and put in textbook form in the "Applied Biology" and "Introduction to Biology" by M.A. and Anna N. Bigelow. However, personal sex-hygiene is not included in these textbooks, because educational and public opinion do not yet stand for such radical lessons in books for schools.

[Sidenote: Special lectures on hygiene.]

(3) Special lectures on sex-hygiene independent of biology or general hygiene are at best makeshifts, and not without dangers. I fear the effect of the abrupt introduction to sex problems by special lectures, especially for girls who may be shocked much more than the average boys can be. I heartily sympathize with parents and school officials who object to special lectures that suddenly focus attention on problems of sexual health. It seems to me that special lectures should be given only when no other method of teaching is possible. This applies especially to young people who are not in schools. While I have stressed biological nature-study as offering the ideal basis for the broadest kind of sex-education, I realize that there are cases where such study cannot be held prerequisite to some aspects of sex-hygiene that young people should know. However, we should aim to make such cases the exceptions and not the rule. Some good may be accomplished by teaching certain facts of sex-hygiene frankly and directly to those who have absolutely no knowledge of nature-study and biology; but after watching the reactions of groups of boys who were receiving such information, I have been convinced that even with a limit of one hour for instruction a biological setting is decidedly important in that it gives an indirect approach.

(4) Special books and pamphlets are useful when, and only when, the above methods are impossible, but certain cautions are desirable (see Sec. 22).

[Sidenote: Difficulty in ethical-social teaching.]

The third aim involves some difficult educational problems. Since we confess that we know so little concerning efficient methods for ethical, moral, or social teaching, it is evident that we must be far from a satisfactory plan for dealing with instruction which is intended to oppose most powerful instinctive tendencies and long-established habits of sensuality. Clearly the third aim sets no easy task for the educator; but since the possible solution of sex problems must turn on the sex actions of the individual in relation to society, the ethical-social aspects of sex-education must not be evaded because the way is not yet entirely clear. The fact is that a good beginning has been made, especially in teaching concerning social diseases, heredity, and eugenics.

[Sidenote: Social hygiene and ethics.]

The value of all the proposed teaching concerning the relation of immorality and social diseases is more ethical than hygienic. Read any of the standard literature on the social side of venereal diseases, especially the masterly writings of the eminent physician and chief organizer of the American movement for sex-education, the late Dr. Prince A. Morrow, of New York City; and one notes that the medical facts have bearings in two directions. First, they indicate the desirability of morality as a protection of personal health; and second, they teach that the pathological results of the individual's immoral living may be passed on later to innocent wives and children. The first is as clearly personal hygiene as teaching that impure water may cause typhoid; but the second is social hygiene and ethics. The second is more impressive to all but the most selfish people.

There is good reason for believing that information concerning the social diseases is more likely to impress the average young man through the social-ethical appeal much more than as a matter of personal health. Therefore, a biological lesson on social diseases, which may be presented most logically in connection with other germ diseases, may have its chief value in that its meaning is social and ethical.

[Sidenote: Biology and ethics.]

As another illustration of biology touching ethics, I have recently come to believe that the teaching concerning heredity and eugenics, which should be a standard part of the best sex-instruction, has its greatest value in the ethical appeal, and not in the direct biological application of the laws of heredity which underlie eugenics. I realize that this statement is likely to be disputed by those biologists who see in eugenics only the possibility of controlling heredity so as to propagate better strains of humans, just as breeders of plants and animals have produced better domesticated varieties. A biologist naturally believes that the ultimate aim of eugenics is improvement of physical and psychical qualities; but considering the ethical-social-biological complications of human sex-problems, it seems improbable that any decided and extensive improvement is likely to come if we continue to limit our interpretation of the principles of eugenics to the purely biological standpoint of the breeder of plants and animals. Let me illustrate by some concrete facts from eugenics:

There is a widespread opinion among science teachers that high-school biology should present some of the best established facts of heredity; and that these should be eugenically applied to human life by means of such illustrations as those afforded by the histories of certain degenerate families, such as the well-known Jukes and Kallikaks. A brief sketch of the history of the latter family, as described in Dr. Goddard's interesting book, "The Kallikak Family" (Macmillan), will make clear my point as to the ethical appeal of eugenics.

[Sidenote: Eugenics and ethical teaching.]

A young man of good ancestry broke the moral law about one hundred and forty years ago and became the father of an illegitimate son by a feeble-minded mother. Of 480 descendants of this son, there have been 46 normal, many immoral, many alcoholic and 143 feeble-minded. The same man who back in the revolutionary days made a moral mistake which led to such awful consequences, later married a woman of good family and became the progenitor of a second line of 496 descendants of whom 494 have been normal mentally, while two were affected by alliance with another family; and all have been first-class citizens, many of them prominent in business, professions, etc.

Even making due allowance for the depressing influence of the environment in which most of the down-and-out descendants in the degenerate line lived, the comparison between the normal and the abnormal lines from the same ancestor gives the most convincing eugenic evidence that has been discovered in the human race. Doubtless it will long be used as a basis for attempted biological control of the propagation of the unfit. Many similar cases of hereditary degeneracy are recorded in books on eugenics.

Such a eugenic record as that of this Kallikak family should be reviewed in every high school and college in connection with the topic "heredity" in a course of biology, for it will teach two important lessons: (1) The biological principle that defects, both physical and mental, are highly heritable, even for many generations; and (2) the ethical responsibility for the sex actions of the individual who may start a long train of human disaster that may visit the children unto even later than the third and fourth generations. The first lesson is a purely biological one which suggests the eugenic argument that defective humans, like undesirable animals and plants, should not take part in the perpetuation of the species. The second lesson is not biological but ethical, suggesting individual responsibility for conduct which may disastrously affect other individuals' lives. It seems to me that so far as general education is concerned, the ethical lesson is the more impressive and more likely to lead to voluntary eugenic practice by individuals. It is my observation that even many intelligent people are not seriously impressed by the biological evidences for eugenics considered as a general problem, but their reaction is one of interest when one begins to present the question of ethical responsibility for the transmission of physical and mental defects to future generations. Such considerations have led me to the view, already suggested, that eugenic studies in courses of biology have their greatest practical value in their ethical implications, which, of course, by influencing individual responsibility for reproduction may lead to the desirable biological improvement of the human race. Teachers of biology should present, as an economic problem, the facts which will make better breeds of plants and animals by direct application of the biological laws of heredity; but they should present and apply parallel facts to human life in order to influence first of all individual responsibility for ethical control of reproductive activity, and thus indirectly work eugenically for an improved human race.

[Sidenote: Aim of eugenics.]

Thus the aim of eugenics is most likely to be attained through ethical rather than biological application of the teaching which our schools can give. The men and women who view life selfishly with no feelings of ethical responsibility towards others of the present or future will take no practical interest in the biological problems of human eugenics, although the economic problems of plant and animal breeding may interest some of these same people.

[Sidenote: Education and other aspects of sex problems.]

In addition to the ethical-social bearings of biological teaching, our sex-education will be incomplete until we learn how to attack the sex problems directly and effectively with reference to the ethical, social, psychical, and aesthetic aspects. Perhaps we may be able to do this only with mature people; probably it is too much to hope that even a serious impression will be made on all intelligent people; but somehow sex-education must be completed by adequate presentation of these aspects, for the problems of sex are satisfactorily solved only in the lives of those fortunate individuals whose vision of the relation of sex and life combines the viewpoints of biology, hygiene, psychology, ethics, religion, and last—but far from least—aesthetics.

[Sidenote: Only essential knowledge of social diseases.]

Finally, the educational application of the fourth aim demands some explanation. Sometime in the adolescent period all young people should learn the essential facts regarding the two social diseases and their relation to immoral living. There is the widespread impression that those advocating sex-education believe in giving great prominence to the social diseases; but in opposition to this I cite the report of a committee of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene, published in the Journal of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, January, 1913, and later reprinted as a pamphlet by the American Social Hygiene Association. In that report there are twenty-three recommendations concerning sex-instruction; but only one mentions social diseases and in these words: "During the later period of adolescence ... there should be given ... special instruction as to the character and dangers of the venereal diseases." That seems sufficient. It is not desirable that young people should review the horrible facts relating to perverted sexuality. Ten or twenty brief and authoritative statements quoted impressively from medical and social literature ought to give fair warning of lurking dangers in immoral living. More extensive information has often proved dangerous. I would gladly advocate that this dark side of life be kept in sealed books if I did not know that so many young people need forewarning and definite guidance. Our educational system will not do its full duty if it fails to offer the needed help so that it may be obtained by all adolescent young people who are not so fortunate as to be guided by parents and other personal teachers.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] To avoid misunderstanding, let me repeat from the first lecture that I am constantly thinking of sex-education in the larger sense; and instruction in schools can be, at best, only a part.



IV

THE TEACHER OF SEX-KNOWLEDGE

Sec. 18. Who Should Give Sex-instruction?

A large number of people have been convinced that young people need knowledge which will help them face the great problems of sex; but they withhold their approval of the sex-education movement because they are not satisfied that proper teachers exist. It is, therefore, evident that we cannot make permanent progress by emphasizing the need of sex-education unless we can give assurance that qualified teachers are available.

[Sidenote: The teacher most important.]

The situation as regards teachers of sex-instruction is very different from that of all other subjects concerning which young people should be taught. We cannot safely plan the teaching regarding sex until we know the teacher. This will be evident, I think, after some general considerations concerning selection of teachers and some discussion of problems such as the first teacher, teachers for classes, and some undesirable teachers. The general rule should be, first, find the safe and sure teacher and, second, select the facts and plan the lessons that the chosen teacher may give effectively.

[Sidenote: Teachers of same sex for children.]

So far as young children are concerned, the needed instruction is so general in character that the sex of the competent teacher is of little importance, but the information that ought to prepare for and guide through the mazes of adolescent youth should come to young people from teachers of the same sex. If exceptions must be made rather than omit instruction altogether, some very mature women may safely guide both boys and girls through adolescence; but men, even physicians, should not undertake instruction of adolescent young women, unless parents and other mature people are present to help with attitude. That women may well instruct boys I know, because the most impressive sex lecture I ever heard was given by the late Dr. Mary Wood-Allen to the boys of the freshman class when I was a college student. But note that I have said "some very mature women." The fact is that I fear danger for some boys if they are frankly instructed by attractive young women who are only ten to fifteen years older than their pupils. Hence, I urge great caution if there must be any exceptions to the general rule that teachers and pupils should be of the same sex.

[Sidenote: Coeducational classes.]

I realize the difficulty of applying this rule in many high schools where the foundations of sex-education are well laid on the biological basis. There is no reason why the biological studies should not be coeducational through nature-study and biology as far as the development of frogs and birds and, in a general way, of mammals. In fact, both of my textbooks, the "Applied Biology" and the "Introduction to Biology," which emphasize reproduction of organisms more than other high-school books, have been used throughout in coeducational classes. However, these books stop where the problems of human life begin and should be supplemented by lessons for sex-limited classes. There are writers who suggest that segregation of the sexes for teaching concerning human life may be at present a necessity because complete frankness on sexual questions is certainly obstructed by tradition; but we must not ignore the deep social reasons why, in general, there must be maintained a certain amount of reserve between the sexes in the consideration of some important problems of life. No educational theory or practice can possibly alter the fundamental physical or psychical relations of the sexes which nature seems to have fixed immutably.

[Sidenote: Married women as teachers.]

One other point that deserves attention in this connection is the common statement that only married women, preferably mothers, can be competent instructors of young women. This strikes me as more than absurd. Personal experience is not always necessary for teaching in any line. The greatest medical teachers have not had the diseases they describe so clearly. The best elementary teachers and specialists on the care of children are not always mothers; on the contrary, some of these are men. The fact is that these teachers have learned, not from personal experience, but from the great accumulations of scientific knowledge of medicine, hygiene, and education. There is an abundance of such knowledge relating to sex that may be clearly understood by bright women who have no bi-personal knowledge of sex. Therefore, I believe that it is nonsense to insist that only women with complete sexual experiences can be efficient guides for other women.

Sec. 19. The Child's First Teachers of Sex-knowledge

[Sidenote: Mothers and other first teachers.]

The first instruction which may begin to lay the foundation for the individual's sex-education should be given in early childhood by parents, or by other adults, who happen to be on the most intimate personal terms with the child. Usually this means the mother; but there are numerous cases of teachers, governesses, grandmothers, and even fathers who have greater personal influence with certain children than their mothers have. The essential point is that the child should be instructed only by an adult who can exert the greatest personal influence.

[Sidenote: Mothers and adolescent boys.]

Many parents who believe in sex-education for their children hold that the mothers should give all necessary hygienic guidance and teach the elementary facts of life to the children of both sexes in the pre-adolescent years, but that with the dawn of adolescence the girls should continue to be instructed by their mothers, while the boys should be guided by their fathers. So far as girls are concerned, this seems to be a fairly good plan; but nine times out of ten it is not best for the boys for several reasons: First, the sudden change of attitude on the part of the mother will surely impress upon the boy that there is something about sex in boys that even his mother dares not talk over with him. At about this same time when the mother begins to avoid the sex question with her boy, he will surely begin to get vulgar information and impressions from his boy companions. He will in all probability begin to hear the impure and obscene stories and vulgar language that are so common among many men and boys, and he will be sure to learn that the vulgarity which he hears must not be repeated in the presence of his mother and sisters. It is a most critical time in the mental attitude of the boy. His mother has so far been directing him towards purity and then suddenly sets him adrift. If there is ever a time in a boy's life when he needs intimacy with his mother, it is in the early adolescent years of twelve to fourteen. A strong mother's heart to heart guidance at that time will influence the boy more than all the sex-education which the schools and colleges combined can ever hope to offer. Such is the problem of home teaching for adolescent boys. I emphatically protest against the foolish and even dangerous idea that because a boy is beginning to metamorphose into a man his mother should cease to help him with the problems of sex. Lucky is that adolescent boy whose mother realizes her duty and her opportunity and holds him as intimately as if he were a girl of corresponding age.

Sec. 20. Selecting Teachers for Class Instruction

The references to "the teacher" in the following are primarily applicable to those who may be called upon to give sex-instruction as class work in schools, colleges, churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and other educational organizations.

The chief question for discussion in this lecture is that of selecting the teacher of those phases of sex-instruction that are directly related to human life, that is, personal sex-hygiene and sex-ethics. So far as biological facts of sex are concerned, there are no special problems such as may not be handled by teachers of biology in general according to the accepted methods (see Lloyd and Bigelow, "Teaching of Biology in the Secondary School" and Bigelow, "Teacher's Manual of Biology").

[Sidenote: Regular teachers if possible.]

As already suggested, a large part of the sex-instruction is simply an extension of biological science, hygiene, and ethics; and in secondary schools and colleges should be given by selected teachers of the regular staff and whenever possible as a part of regular courses. There may be some necessary modifications to this plan; for example, in Teachers College the course on sex-education and another series of lectures on sex-physiology and hygiene for women are open to students who do not take the biology courses in which the sex-instruction logically belongs.

[Sidenote: Sex-hygiene and ethics.]

The culminating stages of any complete scheme for formal sex-education of young people will be sex-hygiene considered in its strict sense as that special phase of sex-education which deals with problems of health, and sex-ethics which determines the responsibility of individuals for control of sexual instincts. While nature-study and biology and general hygiene may be organized so as to present the major portion of the facts which should be included in a complete scheme of sex-instruction in schools and colleges, the application of these facts to personal life is the most difficult problem of sex-education. In fact, it is the only real problem, for long before sex-education became a definite movement the most efficient science teachers were presenting the fundamental facts on which we now propose to build with certain hygienic and ethic instruction which directly touches the personal life of the student. As already said, the human application will require only a few lessons, preferably in connection with nature-study, biology, ethics, or hygiene. But although brief, such instruction is the keystone in the arch of sex-education, and it is very important that there be no serious mistakes in selecting the teachers.

[Sidenote: Sex specialists not desirable.]

I have mentioned special teachers as necessary for instruction with direct reference to specialists human life. I hasten to add that I still agree with the report of the special committee (Morrow, et al.) of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene that it is not desirable that any teacher should make a specialty of this type of instruction and of no other. We do not want "sex specialists" in the schools (see pp. 10 and 20-23 of the Report of the Committee). It is important that all teachers should have general information regarding the sex problems of young people in order to be able to help individual pupils.

Sec. 21. Certain Undesirable Teachers for Special Hygienic and Ethical Instruction

It will be most helpful if we consider the problem of selecting teachers with a view to rejecting those who certainly should not undertake the special hygienic and ethical teaching, for teachers who are good in other subjects and who are fortunately free from certain disqualifications discussed in the following, may by means of study adapt themselves for the final and most important stages of sex-education.

There are five types of teachers who should be regarded as disqualified for teaching personal sex-hygiene and sex-ethics.

[Sidenote: Embarrassed teachers.]

First, those men and women who are unable to speak of sex-hygiene as calmly and seriously as they do of any other phase of hygiene had better not undertake the instruction of young people. There are many such men and women among teachers who, so far as scientific training is concerned, ought to be good teachers of sex-hygiene. As an illustration of this attitude that leaves the wrong impression with students, it is reported that a good teacher of hygiene recently prefaced a brief talk to college girls as follows: "I shall now consider a process that no cultured woman ever mentions except with bated breath. I refer to menstruation."

[Sidenote: Abnormal teachers.]

The second kind of people who should not teach sex-hygiene are the men and women who are the unfortunate victims of sexual abnormality, either physical or psychical, that more or less influences their outlook on life. Certain neurotic and hysterical men or women who lack thorough physiological training and whose own sexual disturbances have led them to devour omnivorously and unscientifically the psychopathological literature of sex by such authors as Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing, and Freud, are probably unsafe teachers of sex-hygiene. Especially is this true of the women of this type whose introspective morbidity has led them to diagnose their own functional disturbances as the direct result of "over-sexuality" and restraint from normal sexual expression—a diagnosis that is probably wrong nine times in ten cases. Such a woman is a very dangerous teacher of sex-hygiene for adolescent girls; and a positive menace to older unmarried women who, if free from absorbing work, may spend their leisure in becoming more or less restless under the unsocial, if not unphysiologic, conditions of unwelcome celibacy. This is no imaginary danger. The reader of this will not be interested in details, but the author has received from physicians and others reliable information concerning several extremely abnormal women of the above-described type who are taking an active interest in the sex-instruction of young people and are actually suggesting to their friends among young women the dangerous and untrue doctrine that prolonged celibacy for women results in repressed sexuality that surely leads to ill health. Such ideas, it is true, are traceable to certain well-known radical writers on the psychopathology of sex; but we must remember that the great majority of physicians and other scientific investigators who have studied such problems refuse to believe that repressed sex instincts in either men or women do the harm that a few extremists have claimed. But even if it were known beyond the shadow of a doubt that repressed sex instincts may injure people, it would be unwise to intrust young people to instruction by teachers who have a hypochondriacal interest in such a doctrine of repression. Such suggestions can do only harm to the vast majority of persons who receive them. To say the least, it is unfortunate that the psychopathology of sex has become so widely circulated among those who are not well trained in physiology and psychiatry.

[Sidenote: Teachers who emphasize sexual abnormality.]

The third kind of people who should not be intrusted with teaching sex-hygiene are the men and women who, without a scientific perspective, have plunged into the literature of sexual abnormality until they have come to think that knowledge concerning perverted life is an important part of sex-education for young people, especially for those of post-adolescent years. I know of teachers and physicians who advise young people not much over twenty years of age to read such psychopathological works as those of Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, and Freud, and various works dealing with commercialized vice. Here is a grave danger. The less that people without professional use for knowledge of sexual pathology know concerning it, the better it will be for their peace of mind and possibly for their morals. Therefore, I urge that he who enthusiastically studies the abnormalities of sex life without reference to scientific research or professional demands, is not likely to be the kind of teacher who will present abnormal life only so far as is necessary to an understanding of the perfectly normal.

[Sidenote: Pessimistic teachers.]

The fourth kind of people who ought not to instruct the young in personal problems of sex-hygiene are the men and women whose own unhappy romances or married life, or whose knowledge of vice conditions, have made them pessimistic concerning sex-problems. There are in our schools and colleges to-day some such men and many such women, and there will be danger for young people when the growing freedom of expression allows these sexual pessimists to impress their own hopeless philosophy of sex upon students. The educational world does not need such teachers, but rather those who can follow the late Dr. Morrow in seeing a bright side of life that almost dispels the darkness of sexual errors.

[Sidenote: Teachers not respected by pupils.]

The fifth kind of persons who ought not to teach the personal side of sex-hygiene are those who cannot command the most serious respect of their pupils. This applies especially to many men teachers whose flippant attitude and even questionable living are not likely to help their pupils, especially boys, towards a satisfactory interpretation of sex problems. Of course, such teachers ought not be in schools at all, but the fact is that for various reasons they sometimes get there and stay there; and so they must be weighed by the school official who selects the teachers to be intrusted with special problems of sex-education.

[Sidenote: No instruction without satisfactory teachers.]

Summarizing, I have in this lecture aimed to warn the school administrator, and others who must select teachers of classes, against the kinds of teachers who ought not be chosen for presenting the special problems of sex-education, especially those of sex-hygiene and sex-ethics. I have pointed out that there are five serious disqualifications; and it is probable that if strictly applied when choosing teachers for special sex-instruction, there will be elimination of three or four in every ten of those whose training in science might be expected to qualify them as teachers of this special line. It is a fair question as to what a school or other institution should do if it has no teachers who are free from the above disqualifications. My own belief is that it is better to get an outsider for the handling of the special problems. If this is impracticable, then suggest to the students that they read certain books such as are recommended in the last sections of this book. Even entire omission of the study of the personal and social aspects of sex-hygiene and sex-ethics is far wiser than intrusting a class to a teacher with one or more of the negative qualifications that we have been considering in this lecture. The effect of sex-education upon individual lives will in no small degree depend upon the impression made by the living teacher who deals with the difficult problems of sex in relation to hygiene and ethics. Hence, the greatest care should be taken when selecting the teacher for this all-important part of the student's sex-education.



V

BOOKS AS TEACHERS CONCERNING SEX AND LIFE

Sec. 22. Value and Danger of Special Sex Books for Young People

[Sidenote: Books for private reading.]

There are many parents and teachers who believe that young people should get their sexual information by private reading, and numerous books for boys and girls have been prepared to meet such a demand. The desire for such "private" reading undoubtedly exists, especially in boys; but this is part of the general air of secrecy and vulgarity that has enshrouded the truth about sexual matters. Many eminent physicians agree that there are elements of physical and perhaps moral danger when a boy reads a sex-science book secretly, but that there are few such possibilities in frank and scientific teaching by a competent instructor. This is recognized by leaders in the Y.M.C.A., and they prefer to read books with the boys in study classes. Many scientific women think there is no such danger for average girls, but agree that girls as well as boys will gain in respect for the subject of sex if the atmosphere of secrecy can be avoided. Hence, while books for private reading are better than ignorance, they alone will not solve many of the problems at which sex-education is directed. We must cease to foster the secrecy created by an atmosphere of obscenity, and the study of sex must be brought into the light of day. Let good books be recommended through parents and with their approval be issued freely by libraries and without restrictions which suggest something dark and wrong. Let parents and teachers encourage such reading, but not as something requiring secrecy. Rather let such books be read as freely as any other good books, and let parents and competent teachers follow the young readers closely so as to explain facts and help develop the desirable attitude of mind. Especially let parents encourage the idea that approved sex-science books may be read at the family fireside as properly as any other books. Above all, let parents and teachers work in every possible way against the time-worn idea that problems of sex are essentially vulgar and demand secrecy even in scientific study. We must have a nobler and healthier outlook on human life than that which so commonly prevails, and we can never get it by secret study of sex-science by young people. Such study may do some good by warning against unhygienic habits and social diseases; but it is certainly inadequate to give the open-minded attitude needed so much for appreciating the ethical, social, and aesthetic bearings of human life as it is influenced by normal sexual functions.

[Sidenote: Pamphlets vs. books.]

It has been urged by well-known teachers that, for sex-instruction, pamphlets are better than books in that they do not hold the attention too long on topics that may be exciting to some young people. On the other hand, books usually make a stronger appeal, while pamphlets are likely to be regarded lightly, as are magazines and newspapers. There is no doubt that most sex books for young people are too extended, and there is need of condensed forty-and fifty-cent booklets in place of the books commonly sold at one dollar. Three or four small booklets by different authors read at widely separated intervals will interest and influence a young man more than one large and comprehensive book. There is besides great value in the points of view of various authors.

[Sidenote: Better books needed.]

At present there are no thoroughly satisfactory books for adolescent boys and girls. In my opinion, W.S. Hall's books for boys are the most reliable, and his "Life Problems" is the best selection of facts for girls; but some mature readers criticize the style of presentation. Some other books for adolescent young people are mentioned with critical notes in the bibliography at the end of this book. There is still plenty of chance for authors to experiment in writing books of this class.