In the leisure-time activities of children, the Sunday supplement or "funny sheet" of the newspaper is of importance. The funny sheet appeals not so much through humor as through glaring color and grotesque pictures which violate every canon of color combination and of art. Exaggerated types of mischievous children and freakish adults, and equally freakish and unthinkable mechanical devices, are favorite subjects. Disobedience of children, premature and unnatural childish love-affairs, domestic infelicity, the privileges and advantages of bachelorhood are paraded Sunday after Sunday before the susceptible minds of millions of children.

* * * * *

Multitudinous as are the private agencies administering to the leisure-time activities of all the people, neither the commercial amusements nor the numerous spontaneous private organizations answer all the requirements of social and recreative needs of the people. On the one hand, commercial amusements, while used and enjoyed by masses of the people, have been objects of danger and distrust because of their anti-social effects. On the other hand, the private society, club, order, and organization are essentially narrow, and formed with other purposes and ideals in view than ministering to the social and recreative needs and desires of the people. The providing of ample facilities for the fullest and most wholesome use of the leisure time of the people is a community responsibility, just as important to the public welfare as a system of public education.

This community sense of responsibility did not in the beginning have the wide constructive vision which characterizes it to-day. It was designed first as a corrective of pathological social ills, especially relative to childhood and youth. Congestion in the modern city, an incident and a result of specialization and expansion of American industrial and commercial life, caused living conditions inimical to the health and morals of all the people. As usual the children suffered most. Deprived of light, air, wholesome living quarters, play space, and the advantages of a real home, they fell easy victims to disease, sickness, death, and, what is worse, to the disease and death of ideals and morals. Juvenile faults and crimes increased at an alarming rate. The therapy of play was applied. It was soon found, however, that the great mission of playgrounds was not as a therapeutic agent, but as a preventive and constructive force. The movement took on large, positive, constructive aims, purposes, and ideals. It expanded into the playground and recreation movement, with emphasis upon the latter, aiming to provide for and direct the leisure-time activities of all the people. Play was restored as the right of every child, without which no wholesome physical, mental, and moral growth is possible.

As constructively related to other great social problems, the playground and recreation movement was found almost universally applicable. Sexual immorality and the white-slave traffic are combated by recreation centers where young women obtain under normal conditions the highest ideals and satisfy the spirit of youth, which is the sign of life itself.

The scope of this larger movement is as follows: It promotes the establishment of playgrounds within walking distance of every child; athletic and sport fields for older boys and girls and for men and women; boating and swimming centers and parks for the use of all; recreation and social centers in municipal recreation buildings and in school buildings, where all the people of a community, irrespective of race or creed, may find opportunity for the fullest possible recreation and social life; it promotes school and municipal camps, tramping-clubs, and other activities that cultivate the habit of outdoor life; physical education and athletics in the schools that reach every child, instead of a few as now; it stands for school playgrounds, in connection with every school; it seeks to provide facilities through which musical, literary, dramatic, and artistic talents of the people may find encouragement and expression, and for a constructive social supervision of all commercial amusements.

Yet playgrounds and recreation centers are not free from social dangers. Many of the moral dangers of commercial amusements may arise in municipally owned and managed systems of recreation. In fact public playgrounds have become such moral menaces as to warrant their closure in the interests of public welfare. Some of the worst cases of sexual immorality coming to the juvenile courts arise in public playgrounds. This is the result of bringing large numbers of young people into a common play place without the most careful supervision, guidance, and direction. The physical growth and health, the morals, the happiness, and the ideals of citizenship of great masses of the people are so deeply involved in the right use of the leisure time of the people that to conduct their activities in any way but according to the highest standards is a civic crime.



CHAPTER VII

EDUCATIONAL PHASES

By Edward Octavius Sisson

The education of youth as it exists has a great gap wherever the subjects of reproduction and sex are concerned. Children are taught at home many things about every other part of their lives, but usually nothing about this; at school they learn the anatomy and physiology of bones and muscles, of sense-organs, and nervous system, of glands and alimentary canal, of respiration and circulation; but a sudden silence falls just before sex is reached. We study everything about life except its origin, and in ignoring that we lose a most fascinating and beautiful field of inquiry, an essential part of knowledge, and a vital element in moral intelligence.[30]

The aims of sex education may be stated in the main as follows:—

(1) The first aim is individual prudence. Every normal human being must undergo crucial tests and solve vital problems in his own sex life. The most beautiful successes of life and its most conspicuous failures are both exceedingly frequent in the realm of sex. The conditions of the sexual life are sufficiently alike in all normal cases so that the experience of the race is valuable to the individual in meeting his own problems. Each child as he passes onward through youth to maturity is treading a road new to him, not lacking in danger and pitfalls, nor without opportunities for great reward. Education must give him all the available advance information concerning the road he is to travel.

(2) The second aim is general intelligence. Sex is a universal element in all living beings, with the exception of the very lowest; it pervades the life of the spirit as well as the life of the body. No man, therefore, can be intelligent concerning things in general without a clear, definite and accurate knowledge of the fundamental facts of sex. One of the strongest new visions concerning sex is the marvelous way in it ramifies into all fields of thought and action. Not a few of the most eminent workers in modern science incline to consider all aspects of human life, including even religion itself, as emanations or processes from the sex basis. Such in particular are G. Stanley Hall in America and Freud in Germany. Without going to such extremes we may still recognize the fact that in all sorts of physical and psychic problems in morals, religion, and sociology, sex plays an important part and must be understood if we are to grasp the situation and its meaning.[31]

(3) The third aim is social enlightenment. The human spirit in our own day is manifestly addressing itself to the solution of the special social problems which involve the sexual life of men. Three of these problems may be specified: (a) The so-called "social evil," including not merely prostitution, but also all other forms of waste and injury through sexual errors; (b) the problem of family life, including marriage and the rearing of children, as well as pathological aspects such as desertion and divorce; (c) the vast problem of eugenics or race culture.

In all these fields the problems of sex are involved. Men and women who desire to bear their whole burden as members of a progressive society must contribute to the solution of these great social problems, and to do this wisely must know something about the basic facts of sex life.[32]

The first and basic part of sex education is bodily regimen: children and youth must live an abundant, vigorous, wholesome physical life.[33] Cities have threatened to be the "graves of the human species" in this respect. Sedentary life chokes and misdirects the currents of nervous energy and the very circulation of the blood. The lad who plays vigorously, even violently; who can "get his second wind," turn a handspring, do a good cross-country run, swim the river, possesses a great bulwark of defense against sexual vice, especially in its secret forms.

The revival of play, of play for all, boys and girls, weak as well as strong, is one of the most hopeful movements on foot to-day. Let us base our promotions from grade to grade, and especially for "graduation" from school, partly upon physical tests, requiring each student to make of himself physically, not a record-breaking athlete, but the best that can be made out of the stuff in him.

Food, sleep, clothing, bathing, fresh air,—all these are vital also; whatever turns the flow and thrill of life into wholesome channels, abolishes indolence, stagnation, morbidity, and fosters abundance of bodily life,—such is the regimen of sex health.

No bodily regimen can be effective without mental control. Nowhere does mind affect body more immediately and powerfully than in the realm of sex. The educator has two great tasks in this respect: first to improve the general environment in which the young must live and develop. As things are, our streets, store-windows, books and magazines, and especially public amusements, such as theaters and dance halls, abound in sexual suggestion and stimulation.[34] These agencies stimulate an excessive stream of sexual desire, with all its physical accompaniments, in boys and men: the natural and inevitable result is an overwhelming impulse toward illicit satisfaction in self-abuse or sexual immorality. Society in self-defense and the interest of its youth must wage war upon this mercenary exploiting of the sex impulse. Licentious thinking is the great foe of continence; the saying of Jesus may be paraphrased thus with physiological correctness: "He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed the sexual act in his nervous system."

Hence, the second task in this connection is to arouse and arm the youth against the lusts of the mind, and lead him in a resolute fight for mastery over his own thoughts. "Do not harbor in your mind anything you would fear to have your enemies know, or blush to have your friends know," is a good motto for boys and youth.

When we come to instruction in matters of reproduction and sex, the first principle is that it should be given in organic relation with the rest of life and thought. It arises naturally in two main connections: in response to the child's own questions and problems; and as part and parcel of biological science. The common questions of the little child, "Where does the baby come from?" or perhaps even earlier, "How does the hen make the eggs?"—an actual question of a four-year-old—are the signal and the open door for easy and natural enlightenment. Seize the opportunity: tell the truth, as simply and briefly as possible, and the beginning is made; watch for and utilize all such opportunities, as they come, and the main road of the task is marked out; shock is minimized, if not eliminated, mutual confidence is engendered, and a priceless reward may be won. But if at that first question we falter, quibble, blush, lie, jest, or repel, we have entered the wrong road which leads eternally astray. Let no question ever be either ignored or neglected, least of all repelled. It is the golden opportunity for parent, teacher, or friend. To guarantee against the child seeking promiscuous and irresponsible sources of information, let his questions ever find the warmest welcome and kindest response at the parent's knee.[35]

Now the movements of the child's own mind in matters of sex and reproduction may either be actual questions more or less explicit, or they may be subtler seekings for light,—hints, vague inquiries, gropings after what he cannot phrase or hesitates to utter; these inward stirrings are vital, and the alert and sympathetic and patient parent can in the main perceive them and bring them to light. But success need not be hoped for in this respect unless first the beginnings are attended to; uncounted parents can testify to the infinite difficulty of breaking to the boy or girl the silence long practiced with the child. Nor will occasional or spasmodic fits of interest and action by the parent achieve much; Emerson's proverb holds inflexibly here; "What wilt thou have?" quoth God; "pay for it and take it." Pay we must in time, in thought, in perseverance and patience, in study of the problems and self-preparation for the task. Happily the progress of sex hygiene among adults is yearly increasing the number of fathers and mothers who are awake and active.

We have spoken of meeting the motions of the child, as though the educator might never need to take the initiative; in all probability that might be true in an ideal state. As things are it would be unsafe to rely absolutely upon questions; the parent and on occasion other educators must take the initiative in some cases. In doing so, however, the most scrupulous care should be taken to be sure that the mind of the learner is ready for the particular instruction.

* * * * *

In biological instruction what is needed is not an artificial appendix or addendum, but simply that we should cease to mutilate science by omitting its most fruitful and essential elements. Nature study for little children is the first available field; it should begin even before the kindergarten age, with the simplest and easiest observations, and proceed by gentle gradations of progress; it finds abundant and fascinating material in growing plants, eggs, brooding chickens, kittens, puppies, and, best of all, the new baby, where the home questions and the nature study meet in a profound emotional and intellectual experience.[36]

The botany, zooelogy, physiology, and hygiene the upper grades and the high school the natural mediums for further scientific treatment.[37] It will probably be found advisable to separate the sexes for this part of the work, and have boys taught by men and girls by women. Not a few high schools and colleges are already carrying on such instruction with entire success.

It seems quite clear that the school must set itself, wisely, indeed, but also resolutely and effectively, to provide clear, true, scientific knowledge of the origin of life and the laws of sex. The educator can, must, and will answer truly and purely, all questions in these matters on which the child and youth are now left to random, miscellaneous, clandestine sources, and get vile, false, and pernicious answers.

* * * * *

As childhood passes into youth and the pubertal changes begin, the objective curiosity of the earliest years passes gradually into the intense concern of personal problems. The general principle is the same: do not drag in the subject of sex and reproduction, but do not evade or ignore it when it appears; deal with it truly, purely, honestly, fearlessly, as an essential and organic part of truth and life.

The safe and happy outcome in these personal problems can be guaranteed in only one way—that the young person should be able to turn with complete confidence and little embarrassment to some trusted and intimate counselor, preferably the parent, but otherwise physician, pastor, older friend, with whom he has already discussed sexual questions, and who he knows will receive his advances with sympathy, answer his questions with frankness and intelligence, and hold his confidence sacred. Happy the youth or maiden who has such a guide in the crises of unfolding powers and perils.

The chief problem of this part of the education is the accurate and timely adaptation of what is taught to the needs of the successive periods of development. Hence chronological or "calendar" age and school grade are both unreliable guides to the educator: a group of fifteen-year-old boys, or of eighth grade boys, includes some who are children not yet entered upon pubescence, others who are mature,—that is, have attained the power of reproduction,—and still others who are in process of change. These three groups cannot be treated identically; each period has its own peculiar needs. The problem of sorting out the individuals and meeting the needs of each group is difficult because of our traditional neglect of the whole task. But of any particular lesson we may agree with him who says, "Better a year too early than an hour too late."

The earliest safeguard, rather regimen than instruction, is the inculcation of the idea and habit of "Hands off" the sex organs. The little child is taught this by his mother, and it becomes second nature. The pre-pubescent boy and girl may receive some slight but impressive additional perception as to the danger of meddling in any way. They should also be warned strictly against any other person who offers to tamper with their sex organs or adjacent parts of the body. Let them understand that they are justified in any means of defense, the fist, a club, or a stone; and that the offender is forever damned by his act and must never again be trusted; and, of course, that they should at once lay the whole case before their parents or other persons in authority.

The special instruction of the pre-pubescent and pubescent periods is as yet by no means fully agreed upon among experts. We can give here only a few points that seem fairly clear.

(1) Girls should know in advance enough of the general facts of menstruation so that the onset of the period may not cause, as it now does in thousands of cases, shock and sometimes dangerous errors of conduct. They should also know that the sexual nature of men is active and aggressive instead of passive and defensive as in the woman; and that hence the woman must in general take the leading part in the control of the sexual relation, or, at least, of those preliminary intimacies that tend to culminate in sexual union. If it be contended that this is a delicate and difficult idea to convey, liable to be exaggerated and to produce false attitudes, the answer is that if difficulty is to deter us we may as well stop the whole task of sex education before we begin; and moreover that the disasters now resulting from ignorance are ten times worse than any probable results of instruction.

This sexual difference means not only that the girl must be intolerant of improper advances, but also that for her own sake and that of her sister women she must beware of conduct, attitudes, or forms of dress that tend unduly to excite the sexual impulses in boys and men.

In view of the enormous morbidity and mortality inflicted upon innocent women and their children by sexual disease, the girl should learn the main facts concerning the nature, effects, and incidence of gonorrhea and syphilis. Health certificates of prospective bridegrooms will probably be more easily enforced if such intelligence becomes general. The time for such instruction is difficult to state, and would vary with the social environment; probably late adolescence would be early enough in most cases; earlier information is indispensable for girls who by reason of their economic or social status are peculiarly exposed to sexual temptation and danger.

Training for motherhood, a great gap in our educational system, is a closely related theme, of incomparable importance, but beyond the scope of this work.

(2) Boys should learn early the rewards of continence: that the conservation of the sexual secretions is the indispensable condition of manly growth in stature, muscular powers, voice, heart, and brain. They should learn the possibility and healthiness of continence—always understanding that mental continence is the prerequisite of physical continence.

They should know in good time that nocturnal emissions are quite normal, when not too frequent, and indicate not lost manhood or the danger of it, but merely the fact that the sexual glands are now for the first time all developed and active. This is one of the simplest and most commonplace facts in the whole range of sex knowledge, yet, through ignorance of it, unknown multitudes of boys have suffered anxiety sometimes amounting to terror, have become moody and dejected, lost interest in work and studies; and finally thousands of them, ashamed to ask counsel or enlightenment from any decent source, have had recourse to the venereal quack, who so artfully spreads his snares for them in daily paper and widely circulated pamphlet. Once the victim is in his hands there is almost no limit to the evil that may result.[38] High-school principals tell of watching the faces of their boys during a lecture on sex hygiene and noting the visible signs of relief and new hope when the lecturer explained the true nature and meaning of emissions.

So far as the so-called "sexual necessity" is concerned, let boys understand that it is unknown among animals; that its completest embodiment is found in degenerates and imbeciles; and that athletes, thinkers, priests, scholars, warriors, the finest men of every type, hold their passions strictly subject to their wills. Let them know that the world is well supplied with wretches whom this very "sexual necessity" has robbed of their precious virile powers, but that the cases of impotence through chastity are certainly unproved and probably non-existent except in the imagination of people who want to believe in them. And finally that numberless fathers of big healthy families were as chaste as the wives who bore their children.

Boys should learn that the man who insists on premarital sexual necessity has two roads open to him—one that of the libertine and seducer, the most contemptible of creatures; the other that of the whore-follower, whom nature perpetually menaces with vile and pestilential plagues, making him a misery to himself and menace to all clean persons who associate with him, especially his future wife and unborn children.

This involves, at least for the present state of society, some information regarding the two chief venereal diseases: that all prostitutes, professional or otherwise, are sooner or later infected, and that no reglementation can give security. They should know something of the horrors of syphilis, its loathsomeness, its extraordinary power to penetrate to the physiological Holy of Holies, poison the germ cells, and damn in advance the unborn children of its victim. They must know the fatal treachery of gonorrhea: how it lurks unsuspected in the victim who supposes himself cured, and strikes, like a bolt out of clear sky, blinding newborn infants, and robbing innocent wives of motherhood, health, or life itself.

To object to this instruction because it is gruesome, or because it may seem like intimidation, is sentimentalism: in this matter, as elsewhere in the realm of knowledge, the truth should scare no one who does not need to be scared. It is better to be safe than sorry; and it is better to be scared than syphilitic. "I dare do all that may become a man," says Macbeth; "who dares do more is none"; let a man dare if he will with his own body, aye, his own soul; he is but a coward who does not shrink from buying voluptuous moments with the hazard of wife and child. Hydrophobia is far less perilous than venereal disease, and if one hundredth as many were attacked by it the world would be placarded with scarlet danger signs; the man who decried the precautions as intimidation would be shut up in a home for imbeciles. If this is intimidation, let us have more of it.

Above all, boys should learn the beauty and glory of the true relation of the sexes; the bond of love and unity between man and woman truly married—in soul as well as body. As he cherishes and vindicates the honor of his father and mother and sisters, so should he be taught to use his intelligence and heart to hold sacred in youth the powers and functions that will enable him to become in turn husband and father, to give a clean soul and body in marriage to a pure woman, and to pass on the germ of life to the children of his body. A few lessons on heredity will show him that he is but the steward of an inheritance that has come down from a thousand ancestors and may well be perpetuated through generations to come. Prudence is good; but no narrow selfish motive will meet the need. The lad who is "good" merely for the sake of his own skin is usually a poor creature; the finest lad—who might perhaps hazard his own individual fate—will refuse to gamble with the souls and bodies of those others who shall be his own flesh and blood. No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic: and only altruism is truly enthusiastic.

The boy and girl, now young man and young woman, must both learn that prostitution is a social sin:[39] the "scarlet woman" has been truly called the eternal priestess bearing the sins of humanity. This is a vast theme; we have got beyond the realm of mere sex education;—but truth is one, and life is one, and neither logic nor humanity will consent to our stopping short of the whole truth. Social intelligence—the illumination of man's life with man—the scientific and spiritual comprehension of the apostolic dictum, "We are all members one of another"—and "if one member suffer, all members suffer with it"—these are the great arrears of education. But there never was a time when the spirit of man moved so rapidly forward as here and now, and the movement for sex education is but one striking phase of the great advance.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] An examination of tables of contents and indexes of standard school texts in nature study and biology will reveal the almost universal absence of all ideas relating to sex and reproduction. There are two or three recent exceptions.

[31] G. Stanley Hall, Educational Problems, vol. I, pp. 388-97, Thomson and Geddes, Problems of Sex, pp. 5-17.

[32] Thomson and Geddes, op. cit., pp. 46-52; Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture; Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage; Hall, Educational Problems, vol. I, pp. 424-43.

[33] Fisher, National Vitality; Hall, Youth, chaps. II, V, VI, XII.

[34] "What makes a Magazine?" Twentieth Century Magazine, September, 1912, pp. 11-20; The Exploitation of Pleasure. Russell Sage Foundation.

[35] See Mrs. Woodallen Chapman, The Moral Problem of the Children, esp. pp. 61-93. Also the chapter in this book on the education of children.

[36] An epoch-marking book in this field is Miss Torelle's Plant and Animal Children and How They Grow. (Heath.) See also pamphlet, The Origin of Life, by R.E. Blount. (Scott, Foresman & Co.)

[37] "The Teaching of Sex in Schools and Colleges," Social Diseases, October, 1911. Addresses by G. Stanley Hall, Maurice A. Bigelow, Josiah Strong, Charles W. Eliot, and Mary Putnam Blount, Sexual Reproduction in Animals: the Purpose and Methods of teaching it. Proceedings N.E.A., 1912, pp. 1324-27.

[38] Hall, G.S., Adolescence, vol. I, pp. 459-62.

[39] Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.



CHAPTER VIII

TEACHING PHASES: FOR CHILDREN

By William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr.

My children when they were little were fascinated with a book which their mother used to read to them, called Mother Nature and Her Helpers. Each chapter or lesson was made up of interesting information and ideas suggested by the pictures. At the head of the first chapter was a picture of a mother sitting by a cradle with every surrounding and circumstance of humble, happy home life. Succeeding chapters were upon the cradle and the home of plants and animals. Ovaries of plants and nests of birds and squirrels were all set forth in terms of the child's experience of home life, home-building, home-protecting, and feeding the baby. Doubtless the design of the author was to lead the child to an understanding and appreciation of its own home life and love by showing it home life in its origins and elements. But an equally important implication lay in the fact that the child was brought into its intimacy with plant and animal life along the angle of its own human experience and of its own home ideals. After such an introduction to the homes of plants and animals, whenever it should seem best to apprise the child of the details of plant and animal reproduction, the additional facts would instantly find their places in close relation to facts already familiar and already related to his highest childish affections and ideals.

For the basis of sexual instruction for a child should be the difference, not the similarity between man and animals. If the basis is made the similarity between man and animals, the child, as time goes on and as its own sexual life increasingly awakens, may tend to imitate animals, may attempt to justify the natural and unrestrained promiscuousness of its own instincts, may justify unrestrained sexual life in the name of nature as against the alleged artificialities of civilization. The basis must be human, not animal; moral, not biological.

Biology goes far to explain humanity, but the interpretation is found in the spiritual affections, experiences, and implications of family life. The family life of animals is constituted of animal instinct freely followed. The family life of man would be ruined by the free following of animal instinct. There is a distinct danger in all so-called sex instruction of children which makes plant and animal life the norm.

The definite and clean instruction of children in the physical facts of reproduction may rightly and wisely begin with the simple facts, anatomical and functional, of plants and animals; but it is important that a true philosophy lie back of this instruction. Man is not only a higher order of mammalia; he is a worshiper of God and capable of practicing his presence. And from this base our instruction to children, drawn from the anatomical and functional life of plants and animals, must always subserve the moral, the spiritual superiority of man and the human family.

The little child will understand and even idealize plant and animal life if he learns of plant and animal life first in human terms. His moral development is menaced if this process is reversed so that a counter-tendency is set up,—a tendency to interpret the human functions in animal terms. It is better for the child to humanize animal relationships than to animalize human relationships,—and this can be achieved only through a constant observance of the human basis in the sexual as indeed in all phases of a child's education. The little book which I mentioned at the beginning does just this,—it introduces the child to the home life of animals, it interprets animal life in ideal terms. It lays a basis for relating later information of sex functions to the home life of plants and animals. At the proper time in a child's development, he is prepared to place a true and intelligent value upon the differences between the home life of animals and the home life of human beings, and to justify intelligently and with full consent of mind and sanction of conscience the differences of sexual practice as between plants and animals on the one hand and human beings on the other. He is prepared to see that it is enough for the sex life of plants and animals that it be physically and biologically normal. It is not enough for the true and ideal family life of man that the sex relation should be biologically normal. It must be morally normal—normal, that is, to the highest human interests.

The more concrete and detailed problems of method would not be serious if every child's mind were a blank or even if its instincts were analogous to normal animals. But neither is the case, and the problem of method and means of instruction is therefore amazingly complicated. If the sex life of a child were analogous to that of normal animals, it would not awaken at all until puberty. And if the child's mind were a blank on sex matters, it need only be kept from the invasion of wrong ideas from outside. But the sex life of a child begins long before puberty,—both physically and mentally. In the child, the physical signs are more or less detached from the mental signs,—at this or that phase of a child's life, the one or the other may have precedence; but the two are subtly interrelated, and tend to contribute to each other. In the human being a sex life that is normal, both biologically and morally, is an achievement; not a thing which would take care of itself if the child were left alone and merely kept ignorant of the abnormal. The human child is born abnormal,—that is to say, with latent possibilities of sexual abnormality, physical and mental,—and this by virtue of the mere fact that he is not only with animals a creature of instinct, but with humanity a being with ideas.

This statement is doubtless oftener true of the sex life of boy children than of girl children; but it is a fact and a very important fact, and it lies at the bottom of the problem when we come to consider the details of instructional method. If it were not for these facts, it would make no difference who imparted sex information to the child, so the facts were accurately told; and it would make no difference what facts were given, or at what age the child received them, if no lies were conveyed. But because the child's physical and mental sex life awakens early, and because every child has latent tendencies to abnormality and latent responsiveness to the abnormal, it is of critical importance that we decide who shall teach the individual child, when the child shall be informed, and what the child shall be told. It is of critical importance because, if the instruction comes wrongly, we may, even with good intentions, contribute to the very abnormality that we wish to forefend or overcome. With some children we could perhaps safely take chances so far as the self-awakening sex life is concerned if we did not know that it is impossible, without more harm than good to keep the child from such perfectly normal relations with other children as almost certainly will expose it to disastrous misinformation a suggestion.

Whatever ought to be said of the importance of the home tradition and ideals and the general physical and moral regimen of the child (and these are of supreme importance), the facts of the last two paragraphs lay the ground for this general statement: that in the case of a child whose moral and sexual environment has been bad and perverting, proper sex instruction cannot make matters worse, whereas in the best families much harm may arise from the lack of such instruction.

If any information is imparted to the child at all, the first instruction should properly come from one or other of the child's parents. It is sometimes the case that opportunity for the first information is presented when the child asks questions. And the supposed question of the child is, "Where did the baby come from?" Our course would be much smoother if every child asked its mother or father this question, or if every child began with this particular question, or if every child asked any question at all. Sometimes the child asks the nurse this question; sometimes the child is an only child or for some other reason this question never occurs to it; sometimes the child's first question pertains to some curiosity about its own navel, or "where eggs come from," or "why the hen makes them," or "how they get into the hen," or what is meant by "half shepherd and half St. Bernard." But children do not ask the questions that the books say they ask, and ready-made answers do not always apply.

Whether a child asks the conventional questions or the unexpected questions, and whether it asks questions or not, the parent ought to have some pretty definite notion of when, what, and how to tell a child. A child's questions about the baby should be answered truthfully; all such replies as escape by the stork, cabbage-patch, or grocer-boy route should be avoided. It goes without saying that children's questions should be met seriously and even reverently, and that parents should never speak of nor allude lightly, jokingly, or irreverently to sex relationships in the child's presence.

A child may ask a question prematurely, or at a time when the parent finds it impossible to answer in such a way as to make the desired impression or to avoid the undesirable impression. The postponement should be frankly a postponement, and the parent should answer the question at some later time chosen by the parent and upon the parent's own motion. If the child never affords the parent a natural opening for the first or later conversation, the parent should make the opening by reference to the recent arrival of a baby in the child's home, or in some neighbor's family, or even to the arrival of kittens or chicks.

Such preliminary information should come at or near the first asking of questions, or if no questions are asked, at any convenient time between the ages of six and eight years, and in any case before the child goes to school or mingles much away from home with other children. It is a mistake to suppose that very much need be said to the young child. If the child's normal curiosity is satisfied in a clean way from the right source, that is sufficient. Especially should it be advised of the truth about those facts concerning which it is liable be misinformed in its contacts with other children. Only, parents ought to remember that their child, however carefully brought up and protected, at any time and of its own motion, may itself be that corrupting "other child" against which we are so sedulously warned!

Or, again, the child when it has been duly instructed by parents may without harmful intentions talk too freely with other children. It may do some harm to other children in this; but what is more likely, it may receive harm by calling out uninformed and hurtful conversation from the other side. For this reason, a parent in talking to children should be careful to explain that they should not talk to others. If they are properly brought-up children, their modesty will respond, and their trained obedience will keep faith.

This is the place to try to make clear the importance of such secrecy and confidence between parents and child. There is a secrecy which adds a glamour of pleasurable naughtiness, leading straight to prudery and pruriency with all their consequences. Such secrecy is the sort that develops when parents do take the child into their confidence. Such harmful secrecy is not to be confounded with the confidence between parent and child. In opposing the harmful kind of secrecy, there are those who very wrongly, as I believe, object to any secrecy; who say, "All things are clean; why should any difference whatever be made between the lungs or the stomach, and the sex organs; it is often the very making of any distinction that causes and helps cause all the trouble." Now the case against all secrecy would be valid if the premises of the argument were sound. Roughly speaking, lungs are lungs, and stomachs are stomachs, but the sex organs and their impulses, reflexes, and irradiations are connected with the subtlest complexes of mind and affections, inextricably connected with everything human, with further irradiations into the entire social body.

By all that makes it important to prevent the private and mutual secrecies of children, by so much and ten times more is it important to establish confidential secrecy between parent and child. For in so doing, you not only prevent the undesirable secrecy, but you build normally on modesty; you lay foundations for a true sense of shame, disgust, and disgrace; and in doing so, set up one of the strong defenses against perversions and prurient allurement and seduction.

Prudery should be made impossible and true modesty conserved by proper secrecy in sex matters, and back of that by the proper attitude, conversation, and practice in the child's familiar domestic functions. Prudery and modesty must not be confounded; for by as much as we condemn the one, ought we to value the other.

Up to the time, then, that a child goes to school, everything has probably been done that can be done so far as its instruction is concerned, (1) if the child has been kept as far as possible from foul suggestions from others; (2) if the child has had its questions honestly answered or temporarily though unevasively postponed; (3) if the child knows from its parents' lips that it came into the world from its mother's body, first growing there "beneath its mother's heart" until it was strong enough to be born; and that the mother would never have wished to have her child grow in her body had it not been that there was a strong man who would care for both mother and little child with great love and tenderness; that there has to be a father to love the mother and child, and that, therefore, mother and child must love the father, and the child must love both father and mother, and that this love is what makes the home; and (4) if in the process of imparting information, confidence has been established and modesty conserved.

Anyone who has ever seen a group of six- to ten-year-old boys and girls stand side by side and gaze with rapt but natural wonder and delight at a bureau drawer or chest full of the beautiful little garments waiting and ready for an expected child can never doubt the wisdom of a child's knowing from the start some better version of the story than any of the evasive temporizings of the conventional parent.

What shall the parent do who has never spoken of these things to his child until now the child is ten, eleven, or twelve years of age, and especially if the parent has given the child one of these evasive answers in reply to its innocent questions? It may be said in passing that if the parent has thus evasively answered the child's first questions, he will never be bothered in all probability with any more questions. For the best way to set up the barrier is to answer questions falsely; and one way to establish confidence and to facilitate further communication is to answer truthfully.

The child may know more or less than you think it knows. The parent does not know what a ten- or twelve-year-old child knows or does not know. Again, a parent does not know at what time or in what way or to what extent the child's sexual life and impulse have already awakened. And the parent does not know to what extent the child may know "what ain't so." It is a mistake in most cases for the parent to try to find answers to these questions by questioning the child. For just as a parent may start wrong by deceiving the child, so the child may start wrong by deceiving the parent, and even a pretty good child, especially after it has been deceived by the parent, is likely to follow the same cue when it is questioned by the parent. The parent should not tempt the child to such a misstep.

Again, the parent, whether mother or father, should never try to open the conversation or resume it at a time when the boy or girl is likely to be interrupted or distracted or is eager at the moment to be somewhere else and doing something else. The mother and daughter quietly sewing together, or the father and son off for a walk, or sitting on a log, or lying on the grass, are ready for a confidential talk.

If the boy or girl was deceived in response to its first questions, the father or mother may retract in some such way as this: "Do you remember, Molly, that when you asked me where your baby brother came from, I told you the doctor made us a present? Well, that's the way fathers and mothers answer little children, just as we told you that Christmas presents came from Santa Claus. You came to know that papa and mamma are Santa Claus and that Santa Claus is a fairy story—and so you have probably already learned how the baby came. The baby really grows in the mother's body—did you know that? Do you know how long it takes for it to grow there? No? It takes nine months. Before you were born, you were growing inside of your mother's body. The blood from your mother's body flowed into your body; in this way your body grew. When the baby comes out of its mother's body, it does not hurt the baby, but it hurts the mother. It was so when you were born, but your mother was so happy to think she was to have a baby and to feel it growing inside her body that she did not think much about the pain. If your mother is ever a little tired and cross, you must remember that she loves you beyond anything that pain can measure and that she deserves your tenderest care."

At this or some other fitting time, the father or mother may give the child some further intimation of the process by which the child comes to grow in the mother's body, and in some such way as follows: "Some one may have told you how babies come to grow in their mothers' bodies. But most people are ignorant about these things. I think I can explain it to you a little if you will look for a moment at this flower that I have in my hand, because the coming of a baby in the mother's body is in some ways like the coming of the seed in the body of the flower. You have probably learned at school in your nature-study work that these are—what? Yes, the petals. And these stamens, and this is the pistil. Do you notice the powder on the end of the stamen? That is called pollen. If you put that powder under magnifying glass, each grain will look like a grain of wheat. Now, do you notice that the pistil spreads out here at the base like a vase with a narrow neck and big bowl? I am going to cut the thick part open. Do you notice those tiny things like seeds? Yes, those are seeds, but they would not grow just by themselves. A grain of that pollen gets on to the end of the pistil (sometimes the wind, sometimes a bee puts it there), and immediately it begins to send a long thread from itself right down the center of the pistil, and this thread carries at the front the heart of the pollen grain, and when it reaches the tiny seed the two go together and the heart of the pollen joins with the heart of the seed and then it is a true seed and can grow,—and can grow into another plant that can have flowers that can have seeds, and so on almost forever. No one fully understands this very wonderful fact. We only know that it is a fact,—that the heart of a seed from a father flower had to join to the heart of a seed of a mother flower before a true seed that can grow into a plant is born. And we only know that something like this is true about father and mother animals, and that something like this is true of our own human father and mother."

So much to show how the parent may "break in," for that is often the crucial thing. After the start is made, details may be found in the books provided for just this purpose.[40] Indeed, after beginning, it is sometimes better to put the right book into the boy's hands; or better yet to read the book with the child. Especially is the latter course preferable if the book seems at any point unwise,—and there are few books prepared for children which are not at some point or other unwise. Only, in all this process of definite instruction in which analogies from the life of plants and animals are used, the instructor must make sure that the illustrations are thought of as analogies for the anatomy and biology only, and guards must be reserved, implicitly and explicitly, against the child's supposing that everything in plants and animals is normal for human beings. All that the child learns of reproduction of plants and animals should be related to the home and affectional life even of animals, and the analogy between animals and man should stop far short of that to which in all the animal world there is no real analogy—the life and meaning of the higher order of human family life.

If the proper person to teach the child is the parent and if the parent does not know how, the obvious thing to do is to call the parents together and to try to teach them how. Besides meetings for parents (fathers and mothers together), excellent results have come from meetings for fathers and sons addressed by a man, and from meetings for mothers and daughters addressed by a woman.

The following details as to arrangement and conducting of parents' meetings may be of value. For such meetings in the public school, the consent of the local school board must be obtained. This ought not to be granted if those seeking permission are either cranks or quacks. The Viavi people are said to be obtaining such permission for use of schoolhouses under the specious plea of social hygiene. Others, well intentioned but with extreme purist ideas and unwise methods, occasionally volunteer their services. The school authorities should be cautious. But when those who apply are intelligent and honest and above question as to their standing and judgment, school boards ought not only to consent, but to support and cooperate. A grudging consent, mixed with indifference, finds its way by capillary attraction to the school principals and teachers and constitutes a real hindrance. When the consent of the school authorities has been obtained, the next step is the selection and training of speakers and the notification or the parents. Where permitted, the notices or invitations should be sent out by the school in which the meeting is to be held, by mail, sealed, to every home in the district whence pupils in that school come. This should be done even if the local society has to pay the postage. If the school authorities will not or cannot do this, then cards of invitation should be sent home through the pupils. In either case, the invitation should be so worded as to do no harm to the children who may read it.

Parents' meetings may be addressed by two speakers, a physician and a layman. The two speakers should get to the schoolhouse in time to see that the speaker's desk and chair are not on a high platform too far from the little group of parents. The chair and table should be brought down to the floor close to the seats and the parents brought forward. The principal of the school should introduce the layman, accompanying the physician, to be chairman of the evening. The chairman should make a brief address, as outlined in the syllabus provided by the Committee on Education of the Society, introducing the physician. The physician should make a brief address as outlined in the syllabus, and then, after proper explanations, the physician should resume his chair. Both physician and layman, seated, should engage in a dialogue, in which the layman should endeavor with all the intelligence, sympathy, and skill at his command to put himself in the place of the humblest parent in the room and ask such questions of the physician as such a parent might ask or ought to ask. For example:—

Layman, "Doctor, I have a little boy four years old. When ought I to talk to him about sex matters?"

Physician, "When the child asks questions."

Layman, "What do you mean by that?"

Physician, "Well,—suppose the child asks where the baby came from?"

Layman, "What do you say if the child asks that?"

Physician, "I would tell it that the baby grows in its mother's body," etc.

Layman, "I have a little boy eight years old to whom I have never talked about these things. What do you advise?"

Physician, "I would take the first opportunity, some time when the boy is not likely to be interrupted. Refer to some newly arrived or expected baby and tell him frankly where the baby comes from."

Layman, "But Doctor, I have already told him that a stork brought the baby."

Physician, "Then tell him you told him that as a fairy story like the Santa Claus story, but that now he is old enough to know the truth. Then tell him the truth."

Layman, "But I find it hard to talk about these things and I am afraid my child might ask me questions I could not answer."

Physician, "There are books, a list of which will be handed you, which you can read, and parts or all of which you can read to your child."

Layman, "What if my child asks me a question I can't answer."

Physician, "Don't dodge or evade. If you must postpone an answer, do so frankly with a promise that when you can you will answer, or that you will put him in the way of getting good information by reading or otherwise."

This conversation should be extended to apply to adolescent boys and girls and to young men and women. Enough has been given to show the nature and spirit of the dialogue. The people's interest never flags. The layman must ask all the strategic questions, and he must keep at it until he gets answers in simple, understandable terms. If the physician uses "function" or "coordinate" or "puberty" or "adolescence" or other academic terms, the layman must force simple words at every turn; and in any attempts to describe what a parent should say to a child, the layman should take care that a child's comprehension is reached and that the parent is guided as, to vocabulary. Both speakers should lift the level of their counsels above that of mere physical prudence; they should explain and duly emphasize the moral issue.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] A classified bibliography is provided at the end of this volume.



CHAPTER IX

TEACHING PHASES: FOR BOYS

By Harry H. Moore

The adolescent boy is the hope of our race. He is the man in the making. Whether he is to be a constructive force, a nonentity, or a destructive force depends largely on influences during this period. In adolescence the processes of destruction are quick and sudden. Statistics of reformatories and prisons show that either crime itself or the moral breakdown which leads to crime begins in boyhood. A study of the lives of great constructive characters shows that their success was largely determined by influences during this period. Certainly, there is no more important task for our nation than the training of our boys.

Adolescence begins at puberty, the transition period during which the sex functions come into full prominence. Its beginning is marked by great physical changes. There are also mental and psychic changes. This fuller development of sex means for the youth new power, new emotion, new capacities for enjoyment of life. At this time the will should emerge as an asset of character. The boy now desires more knowledge of the new world in which he finds himself. He wants to see it by day and by night. He wants to be physically active, or entertained. He belongs to some sort of gang and is loyal to it. His is an age of hero worship.

If the knowledge and the entertainment he finds is wholesome, if the gang is a good one, if the hero is a noble character, if, with emotion and new powers, there is also a strong will, all goes well. But if these influences are not helpful and the will is weak, the result may be quickly disastrous.[41]

Inquiry into the lives of any considerable number of adolescent boys leads one to believe that there exists what almost might be called a conspiracy of silence, misinformation, and bad influence against most boys of this age. Parents for the most part either evade or answer untruthfully the questions of their six-, seven-, and eight-year-old boys regarding birth and reproduction. From this time on, nearly all boys receive many false and low ideas regarding sex, marriage, and the relationship between men and women.

After the stork story, there come incorrect versions of reproduction from boy companions. Then come notes at school, picture cards, comic weeklies, quack advertisements, and unwholesome vaudeville acts. These destructive influences come, for the most part, entirely unsolicited, in response to a normal desire for knowledge and clean entertainment. Boys seldom go to their first shows to see what is vulgar or sensual. They go for clean fun, gymnastics, magicians, and other legitimate amusements. The unwholesome features are thrust upon them.

As a result of these influences on the impressionable mind of the growing boy, he comes to regard sex as low and vile instead of sacred. He acquires a vulgar vocabulary which he necessarily uses in his thinking and sometimes in his conversation. The silence and evasive answers of adults withhold healthful knowledge and increase curiosity. Curiosity often leads to investigation, which often results disastrously.

The specific evil results are of three kinds: (1) masturbation; (2) needless mental suffering due largely to ignorance; (3) illicit intercourse.

Masturbation is prevalent among boys. Two hundred and thirty-two replies were received to a question asked college students regarding their severest temptations of school days. Of these, one hundred and thirty-two said that masturbation had been one of their severest temptations and one hundred and thirty-one said they had yielded to it.[42] Similar inquiries have brought similar results. The sum total of vitality lost to humanity by this practice is great.

There is much needless mental suffering among boys and young men due to ignorance and false ideas advanced by quacks. Groundless fear, brooding anxiety, and despair sometimes start before adolescence and often last into the twenties. Physical peculiarities of no consequence sometimes cause boys to fear that they are abnormal. Unaware of the fact that spontaneous nocturnal emissions are to be expected, many suffer mental anguish. According to one writer, a single New York dealer had 3,000,000 "confidential" letters, "written to advertising medical companies and doctors, mostly by youth with their heart's blood."[43] Large sums of money are obtained by quacks everywhere for treating normal conditions. Many men have applied to the Advisory Department of the Oregon State Board of Health after years of worry. Although those who apply are no longer boys, most of their troubles began in boyhood. A large proportion of the suffering could have been avoided by simple instruction in sexual hygiene.

Social vice often occurs in adolescent boyhood, both as a direct result of unmastered passion and as an indirect result of individual vice. In some cases, the habits a boy forms in his early 'teens make him a subject of venereal disease in later life. A doctor writes, "I am aware that it is popularly supposed that self-abuse and sexual intercourse are antagonistic—by many, the one is regarded as a necessary alternative of the other. So far from being a protective, the former is a most powerful provocative of the latter. According to my own observation, it is not the strongly sexed, the most virile young men, who are most given to licentiousness, but those whose organs have been rendered weak and irritable from this unnatural exercise—in whom the habit of sensual indulgence has been set up, and in whom self-control has not been developed by exercise."[44] This combination of silence, misinformation, and bad influence causes a damnable attitude of mind on the part of the boy toward women, love, marriage, and the home.[45]

The experience of a Chicago business man with his sixteen-year-old son is told in a recent popular magazine. Whether an actual occurrence or not, it is typical of conditions in most any city.

I do not desire to convey the idea that our boy was a wicked boy. He was not. He was just the average type of what we call the "upper middle-class" boy. He was merely tuned to the low moral tone of the city. Vice to him was not a monster of hideous mien. He had seen it from childhood.... I knew that a greater part of his ideas on patriotism, on women, on the sanctity of marriage were but reflections of views he had heard expressed, often tritely and cleverly, and cynicism born of hearing such things flaunted over the footlights or dished out as "clever" in the newspapers.

In the father's earnest efforts to understand the remedy for the situation, he is reminded of his own experience when he began life in the city. He continues:—

The boy's words awakened memories. I recalled the sense of shocked and shamed decency I felt when first I came to the city, a boy almost, and fresh from the country; how I tossed in my bed trying to see as right things that every one in the city appeared to accept as a matter of course, but that, from earliest boyhood I had been taught to regard as wicked. I could not for many months become accustomed to seeing immodestly dressed women on or off the stage, or to hearing half-veiled indecency flaunted from the stage, blazoned in the newspapers, or used even in ordinary conversation. I could not get used to ... scenes and actions directly forbidden as unforgivable at home.[46]

We are horrified by certain vices, the public now and then cries out against specific manifestations of lust, and sometimes it is with difficulty that mobs are restrained from violence But about much of our immorality there is an attractiveness that has made it acceptable and even wins for it applause. The influence is there, and it is insidiously and perniciously working itself into the minds of our boys Many commercialized amusements now exploit the sex impulse. It is impossible to measure the effects of such exploitation.

There are brighter pictures. Those who have intimate relation with hundreds of boys learn to admire the American boy for his earnest desire to be clean and strong and for his attitude toward the sacred things of life. If we give the boy positive help, we may expect him to grow into noble manhood. We would not remove him from all the evil in the world, but we may expect a minimum of harm as a result of contact with evil. We may not expect to keep him away from all foul talk; but we may make foul talk disgust rather than attract him. The American boy is normally clean. If we will do our part, he will respond.

William Holabird represents a type which may well be taken as an example in sex education.

While chiefly known to the public as a golfer, Holabird was catcher on the school baseball team, half-back on the eleven, held the gold medal for the inter-class track meet, and, in fact, excelled in all athletic sports. As a scholar he always ranked high. He was devotion itself to his parents, his brothers and sisters, respectful to his elders, a leader among his associates, and beloved by all who knew him; tall in stature and muscled like a Greek god, with clear-cut, delicate, refined, and manly features.... With a rare combination of strength and gentleness accompanied by a bearing and life well illustrating "He was one of nature's noblemen."... A splendid athlete, with a life without a spot or stain, he was a natural leader and a model for all the fellows in the school. The younger boys followed and imitated him.... He hated everything false or unclean or vulgar. To us all, men and boys alike, it was an inspiration to know him.[47]

Our standards for boys and men have been too low. Charles Wagner says, in writing of youth and love:—

Chastity has a host of enemies.... These enemies are quick to throw at your head, as an unanswerable argument, "He who tries to play the angel, plays the fool."

But he continues:—

Many play the fool who have never tried to play the angel. They have not fallen into the mud because they tried to fly too high, but because they began too low down.... A society which permits license in youth, and counsels it, degrades love.... Sin against love at its base,—in youth,—and the life of the whole nation is torn, and suffers immeasurably.... The rule of conduct here is chastity Every infraction is a sin. Though this law may seem difficult and severe, it is the only safe one. Morality without it is but rubbish.[48]

A start has been made. During the last decade, we have declared that we must no longer have two standards of purity, one for the man and another for the woman. We recognize a difference between the nature of the man and the nature of the woman; but as our goal and as our standard for practical life, we have abandoned "the double standard." This is a great advance, for our young people as a whole measure up fairly well to standards which society as a whole sets for them. It is entirely within reason to expect a large majority of our boys to reach full maturity and marriage with an absolutely clean record, as far as personal and social purity are concerned. In fact, we should be constantly working toward a time when the personally impure boy and the socially impure young man will be eliminated. Both the men and the women of our nation must demand this.

There are many ways by which we may guide and help the adolescent. Only the abnormal boy is not active and curious. If we do not provide wholesome activity, boys are likely to find activity which is destructive in its influence. Therefore, we must do far more than mitigate bad influences. We must plan proper regimen. We must supply a steady succession of constructive activities as well as definite instruction to satisfy curiosity. No other course will do.

In the matter of regimen, wholesome food, sufficient sleep, proper clothing, bathing, fresh air, and physical exercise are of great importance. The life and energy and passion of the adolescent boy must not be checked, but diverted into wholesome and constructive channels.

Excessive mental labor, a sedentary life, pernicious reading, idleness, can transform into a tormenting and persistent desire that which, without it would have been easily mastered. On the other hand, a healthful regimen, energetic habits, amusements and physical fatigue are diversions so useful that, thanks to them, the most critical years pass by unnoticed.[49]

A daily cold shower, followed by a vigorous rubdown, is beneficial if the boy reacts favorably to it. The bath, acts as a sedative.

The value of gymnasium work, track and field athletics, swimming, and "hiking" is constantly demonstrated in the lives of American boys.

Athletics are to be recommended as possessing a positive prophylactic value against the indulgence of sensual propensities. Physical exercise serves as an outlet for the superabundant energy which might otherwise be directed toward the sexual sphere. In the period of "storm and stress" which characterizes pubescence and which often leads to nervous perturbation and excitement ... there is no better divertitive from sexual thoughts than active athletic exercises pushed to the point of physical fatigue, as a relief to nerve tension.[50]

In addition, physical exercise tends to develop an ambition to excel, to become physically strong and robust. With such an ambition, boys realize, intuitively to a certain extent, that to succeed they must refrain from vice. Physical exercise has a fourfold moral value: it substitutes wholesome activity for vice; it serves as an outlet for excess of nervous energy; it develops the will; it develops ambition to be virile. All wholesome recreation is an enemy of impurity. Jane Addams says that recreation is stronger than vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice.[51] Recreation which involves physical activity is the most helpful to the adolescent boy.

The boy's companions are important. Emerson says, "You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him."[52] Books which contain high ideals of manhood and also of womanhood are obviously helpful, as are also dramas of this character. And finally those general principles of moral and religious education must be used, without which we can have no strong foundation for clean living.

If we have failed to give proper instruction previous to adolescence, we now have a golden opportunity (and in thousands of cases, our last opportunity) to save the adolescent to a life of purity. As a rule, he has ideas of sex life which are, at least, unwholesome. Curiosity is at a high pitch, and passion is likely to be strong. Nevertheless, the ambitions and ideals of a boy at adolescence are high. He will fight to be clean if he understands that clean living means the acquisition of strength. He would rather have virility than anything else in the world.

As to method, let us deal with the boy as a creature with reason. The best plan is to place before boys a standard of virile manhood, and then to show how such a standard may be met by clean living. Real characters who have achieved high standards of vigor should be shown as heroes worthy of imitation. Lincoln is known by most adolescent boys to have been a man of great physical strength. He was "a man without vices, even in his youth, but full even in ripe age of the sap of virility."[53] The effect of clean living upon nations may also be spoken of. Charles Kingsley writes of the Teuton:[54]—

It was not the mere muscle of the Teuton which enabled him to crush the decrepit and debauched slave nations.... It had given him more, that purity of his: it had given him, as it may give you, gentlemen, a calm and steady brain, and a free and loyal heart; the energy which comes from self-restraint; and the spirit which shrinks from neither God nor man, and feels it light to die for wife and child, for people and for Queen.

Because thousands of our boys are now growing into manhood who will never receive the advantages of such a plan as we hope will be worked out during the next decade,—boys who are now at the danger point,—an emergency exists that must be met in the best way possible. For these boys, we are now forced to give single talks or short series of talks. Just what facts should be mentioned in a talk to any particular group of boys is a matter which must always be governed by the age, development, and environment of the boys concerned.

The first task for a teacher or a speaker giving a single lesson or a series of lessons is to set up a high standard of manhood. The lessons may concern the development and the conservation of virility. The teacher may explain that virility means not only muscular strength but endurance, energy, will power, and courage; and that in addition to these, a true man has chivalry,—he is concerned for the welfare of others, especially for the safety of women and children. He must possess more than physical prowess; he must possess human virtues or he is no better than a brute. The need for the conservation of virility in the race as well as in the individual should be explained. Boys should see that the conservation of virility in men is of far more importance than the conservation of our water-power or our mines,—that we owe a duty not only to ourselves, but to the nation and to the next generation.

A statement somewhat like the following can then be made: "It is our duty to pass on to the next generation at least a little more vitality than we inherited from the past generation. It is, therefore, important that we understand the main facts of reproduction, so that now we may live right and make no mistakes which may cause us to reproduce inferior children when we mature." The speaker may then describe the wonderful and beautiful process of reproduction in plants, and explain that human reproduction is a similar process.

Under the subject of the development of virility, much time should be spent upon a discussion of various ways by which virility can be developed. The relative values of various kinds of physical exercise, proper eating, the value of fresh air and of sufficient rest should be emphasized. It may then be said that in addition to these things an important source of virility is the absorption of the secretions of various glands by the blood.

The speaker may make a statement similar to this: "When our bodies were designed, we were given reproductive organs for two different and distinct purposes. We have referred to the second and final purpose of reproduction. You already knew more or less about that. The earlier function of the reproductive organs is not understood by most boys. It is this: the rebuilding of boys into men. The first purpose and, in some respects, the most important purpose of the reproductive organs is to rebuild a boy into a man. It would be absolutely impossible for us to become men were it not for these organs. I will explain this by three illustrations."

These three illustrations are generally very effective: an explanation of the influence of the thyroid gland upon development; a comparison of two horses, one of which was castrated when a colt; and the effect of castration upon boys in Oriental countries.

The speaker may then say that the testicles do two things: first, manufacture the male germ cells, spermatozoa, which are the most highly potentialized and highly energized portions of matter in all living nature; and, second, secrete a substance that is absorbed by the blood, giving tone to the muscle, power to the brain and strength to the nerves. It should be made clear that this is one of the great sources of virility. From the illustrations referred to, a boy is likely to draw conclusions regarding the vital importance of the functions of the testicles and regarding any possible misuse of them. It may be well at this point to use a cross-section drawing showing the scrotum, the testicle, the seminal vesicle, and the bladder.[55] Some teachers will consider it desirable to add that some boys, who do not understand the high purposes of these organs, misuse them; that when such boys realize their mistake, if they stop absolutely and at once, nature comes to the rescue and restores virility.

The talks should be essentially constructive. To warn boys against horrible effects of masturbation and to tell them things not to do is a poor method. It is far better to explain that by keeping clean a boy may acquire virility. The boy can draw conclusions.

In referring to the normality of seminal emissions, it should be explained that the fluid excreted by a nocturnal seminal emission comes from the seminal vesicles up in the body. This will show that the loss of fluid involved in a nocturnal emission is different from the loss caused by masturbation.[56] In this connection, boys should be warned against quack doctors; also against their advertisements which are often worded to scare the ignorant.

The venereal diseases should be referred to in talks to adolescent boys. In this connection, the four sex lies may be vigorously contradicted. These are (1) that gonorrhea is no worse than a bad cold; (2) that sexual intercourse is necessary for the preservation of health; (3) that emissions are dangerous and lead to debility, lost manhood, and insanity; and (4) that one standard of morality is right for men and another for women.

It should be explained that although both animals and human beings are endowed with the sex instinct, only human beings have the gift of control. That the sex instinct is a great blessing, and not a curse, should be made clear. It may be stated that various blessings are sometimes converted into sources of destruction when not controlled. A spirited horse is a source of great enjoyment, but if not controlled may maim us for life. Fire is a great blessing and a great joy to us when we are camping by a lake or in the mountains; but, beyond our control, it may cause forest fires. Temper, the capacity for anger, is highly desirable; but it must be controlled or murder may result. We must control the sex instinct, or it may control us and sink us lower than the brutes. On the other hand, if we control this instinct, we gain virility, a keener appreciation of the beauties of life, and life itself becomes richer and fuller.

In conclusion, the appeal should be for clean living for the sake of physical strength and vigor, not for one's own sake, but for the sake of country and future wife and children.

The standard toward which we are working in sex education involves the dissemination throughout the school curriculum of such information as we now give in a single talk. In addition to such nature-study work and simple biology and physiology and hygiene as should be included in the lower grades, there should be instruction in biology and in personal hygiene required for all upper-grammar and all high-school students, as soon as well qualified teachers are available. In personal hygiene a proper amount of sex hygiene should be incorporated; and with the treatment of other diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis should be given adequate attention; the idea of the whole plan being to place all these matters in their proper setting, without undue emphasis on matters of sex.

Either (first) as a part of one of these courses or (second) as a part of some other general course, or (third) as a separate course, the following subjects should be considered:—

1. What is virility? (a) Virility and the next generation. (b) Virility and our nation. (c) Types of virility.

2. Muscle, exercise, and virility. (a) How, when, and where to exercise. (b) "Second wind." (c) Rest. (d) Will power.

3. Food, good blood, and virility. (a) What to eat. (b) Tobacco. (c) Clogged-up machines. (d) Blood and other body fluids.

4. Fresh air, bathing, and virility. (a) Sleeping-porches, camping. (b) How to bathe. (c) Change of clothes.

5. Virility and disease. (a) Disease generally an unnecessary evil. (b) Relative seriousness of tuberculosis, typhoid, syphilis, gonorrhea, diphtheria, colds, headaches, adenoids, enlarged tonsils. (c) Body and mind.

6. Virility and certain glands. (a) Importance of the thyroid gland and the testicles. (b) Difference between stallion and gelding. (c) Seminal vesicles. (d) Quack doctors.

7. Virility and reproduction.

8. Fatherhood and the next generation.

In our attitude toward the boy, we must show him that we respect him, that we have faith and confidence in him, and expect great things of him. We should meet him on the level of a boy's everyday interests in sport, use simple language, and no unnecessary technical terms. Some workers with boys unwisely force confessions of guilt. We should respect the boy's right of privacy.

When we deal with boys in the mass, the grouping is difficult. Boys who have reached the period of puberty should be in a separate group from pre-pubescents, and boys who are well advanced in adolescence—those who have been pubescent for two or three years—should be taught in still a third group. This applies to single talks as well as to courses of instruction.

As far as we know the best basis of division between the pubescent and pre-pubescent boy (when physical examinations are not possible) is the change of voice. Only one who understands these matters well and knows the boys should do the grouping. Even such a man should not adopt an arbitrary basis of grouping but must take one boy at a time and place him in the group for which he seems best fitted.

We should endeavor to include the father in our plans of sex instruction and be careful not to break down such confidence as exists between father and son. We shall find that only a small proportion of fathers give their sons any instruction in sexual matters, and that it is difficult to stir them to action. In one investigation, it was found that one hundred boys out of one hundred and twenty-one had received no sex instruction from their fathers.[57]

When confidence between father and son does exist, we should help the father rather than relieve him of his task. It is difficult to discover fathers who have confidential relations with their boys unless each family is dealt with separately. The Oregon Social Hygiene Society has conducted father and son meetings, and has required the father either to accompany the boy or sign a card signifying his willingness to have his son attend. Few fathers have attended, sometimes none at all. On one occasion there were thirty-five boys and not one father.[58] Requiring permission may be regarded as an assumption that the talk is questionable; and, furthermore, the requiring of special permission is likely to create an undesirable attitude on the part of the boy. Plans for father and son meetings which will be free from these objections will possibly be developed by other schools or social hygiene societies. Our aim is so to educate one generation of boys that when they become fathers they will inform their son regarding these sacred relationships and functions of life.

* * * * *

The boy is normally clean and wholesome. His first question regarding the origin of life is a good question. When denied wholesome information, the further investigation which often follows is indicative of desirable qualities of character. Later, though disturbed by false ideas which have been forced upon him, he still wishes to be clean and strong. He desires to master low passions. He would rather have muscular strength and endurance and energy and will power and courage and chivalry than any amount of money. He shudders at the thought of causing suffering to an innocent woman or child. He would sacrifice his life for the girl whom he regards as the personification of loveliness and purity. If we will but deal with him fairly and honestly, he will see in birth an ever-recurring miracle; he will regard his body as a sacred temple; he will see in sex power a source of richer and fuller life; he will respect women; he will regard marriage as the most sacred relationship in life. Thus noble manhood, a nation's greatest asset, will in large measure be achieved.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] John L. Alexander (editor), Boy Training. Association Press, New York, especially pp. 11 to 22.

[42] Pedagogical Seminary, vol. IX, no. 3. Worcester, Massachusetts.

[43] G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. I, p. 459.

[44] Prince A. Morrow in the Transactions (vol. I, p. 88) of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.

[45] Charles Wagner, The Simple Life, p. 181. (McClure, Phillips & Co.) Caleb Williams Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture. (Moffat, Yard & Co.) Francis G. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 162. (Grosset & Dunlap.)

[46] "What my Boy Knows," American Magazine, New York, April, 1913.

[47] Robert E. Speer, Young Men Who Overcame, p. 21. (Fleming H. Revell Co., Chicago.)

[48] Charles Wagner, Youth, pp. 248-50.

[49] Charles Wagner, Youth, p. 246.

[50] The Boy Problem, Educational Pamphlet no. 4, p. 26, of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 105 West 40th Street, New York.

[51] Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, p. 20. The Macmillan Company, New York.

[52] Emerson, Education, p. 38. Riverside Monograph Series.

[53] Henry Bryan Binns, Abraham Lincoln, p. 356.

[54] Charles Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton, p. 46.

[55] Winfield S. Hall, M.D., From Youth into Manhood, p. 32. Association Press, New York.

[56] Hall, Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene.

[57] From an investigation conducted by Dr. Winfield S. Hall.

[58] "A Social Emergency," First Annual Report of the Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon, and the Bulletin of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society, vol. I, no. I.



CHAPTER X

TEACHING PHASES: FOR GIRLS

By Bertha Stuart

The normality of the reaction to sex knowledge depends upon the physical and mental training of the child. Our thoughts concerning girls run in fixed grooves. We believe that, in babyhood, instinct leads them to prefer dolls to their brothers' guns and a little later renders them less active physically and more gentle and tractable mentally. Because of this supposed difference in instincts and because of a well-defined picture in our own minds of the final product we wish to evolve, we build a structure externally fair, but lacking the foundation to enable it to resist the stress of time and circumstance. Because of our traditionally different ways of dealing with girls and boys, we have produced girls who are not healthy little animals, but women in miniature with nervous systems too unstable to cope successfully with the strain of our modern complex life.

The stability of the nervous system is dependent upon the proper development of the fundamental centers. Incomplete development of the lower parts means incomplete development in the higher. These fundamental centers are stimulated to growth and development especially by the activity of the large muscle masses. Not only is the development of the brain and nervous system dependent upon muscular activity, but the growth and activity of the vital organs as well,—the heart, lungs, and digestive system,—and the normality of sex life.

All this we acknowledge in the case of the boy. Even with him, we fail to live up to our convictions, as is shown by the long hours of inactivity in school and the lack of suitable activities during recess periods. But on the whole we encourage the boy to run and climb and jump and take distinct pride in these accomplishments.

The same accomplishments in our girls occasion alarm; we have an ideal of gentle womanhood. Even though unrestrained up to the time she attends school, the girl then enters upon the long career of physical repression which characterizes her training. Parents, teachers, neighbors, and schoolmates often seem to conspire to curb all the natural impulses upon which her health and rounded development depend.

Aside from the reproductive organs, the physical mechanism of the girl is much like that of the boy. There is no peculiarity in the structure of the reproductive organs to prohibit vigorous activity. The development and health of these organs and their ligamentous supports are dependent primarily upon the quality and free circulation of the blood, both of which are preeminently the result of fresh air and exercise. If the muscular system in general is well developed, there is no reason why the muscular and ligamentous structure of the reproductive organs should not be equally well developed. To insure their proper development, exercise is essential.

A questionnaire answered by girls at the University of Oregon shows that, with few exceptions, plays and games were not indulged in throughout the high-school period and systematic playing ceased for the majority in the seventh and eighth grades. This custom prevails throughout the country. Just at the time when a girl needs abundant and free open-air play to develop the muscles, train endurance of the heart, and increase the capacity of the lungs, she omits it altogether. This is one of the chief factors in the anaemias and poor circulation common in that period. The derangement in the blood results in digestive disturbances and loss of appetite, followed by headache and lassitude which further disincline the girl for activity. Add to this the nervous strain incident to endeavors to carry on a successful social career, the nerve tension resulting from the unhygienic clothing assumed at this time, the lack of the steadying influence of home responsibilities, and we have ample cause for the nervous, high-strung girl who is becoming so common that we are in danger of regarding her as the normal girl.

So greatly has the school curriculum encroached upon the home that the girl has no longer time to share its responsibilities, nor is there longer time for the family reading-circle, or music, or games for the maintenance of the unity and fellowship of the home. This condition cannot but react unfavorably upon the nervous system. If the brain is not rested and the emotions satisfied by the relationships in the home, a feverish unrest, a nervous irritability, a futile search supplant the calmness of spirit, stableness of reactions and depth of contentment which must be long continued to become a habit of mind.

Our school systems of to-day are designed for a girl as strong physically as a boy; in fact stronger than most of our city boys. Our girls should possess as much vitality as our boys; but until we change our methods of dealing with girls, we must treat them as they exist and not as the normal individuals we hope some day to evolve. Most girls have disorders,—"nervousness," headache, backache, constipation, colds, fatigue, or pain at the menstrual period. So common are these disturbances that we consult a physician only in extreme cases, and rarely seek the cause of the condition or attempt more than temporary relief. A pain which under ordinary circumstances would receive medical attention is viewed with resignation when coincident with the menses. As a consequence of this neglect, many girls suffer unnecessary drains upon their vitality.

We find all degrees of menstrual pain. It may be so mild as to be little more than discomfort, or so intense that unconsciousness results. The pain may be sharp and knife-like, or it may be a dull ache. It may be localized, low down in one or both sides, distributed over the whole abdomen or concentrated in the back. With this pain, there may be headache, or a headache may be the only symptom. Frequently there is gastro-intestinal disturbance—nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, or constipation. In anaemic cases fainting is common.

Local or operative treatment is not as a rule necessary, for the majority of cases yield to a strict regime of hygienic living. The regime should include regulation of sleeping, of eating, of hours of work and relaxation, of dressing and of exercise. The exercise should be prescribed and directed by a person trained in medical gymnastics.

Frequently mental disturbances are associated with the phenomenon of menstruation. The most usual symptoms are heightened irritability, hysterical manifestations and depression. Depression is often the only symptom; to some girls the premonitory "blues" signify the approach of the period. Occasionally we encounter the reverse, an excessive stimulation and feeling of well-being and strength. There is some loss in the power of concentration. In normal cases, however, this loss is less than many people suppose it to be. Lassitude and a feeling of general debility are confined chiefly to the anaemic cases.

The mental symptoms clear up as the physical condition is improved, aided by a sensible attitude toward the whole process. Often girls who suffer some pain live through the whole month in dread of the period. This attitude should be changed, by lessening the pain and by psychic therapy. Psychic therapy has proved successful in obstinate cases.

The girl who suffers considerably from any of these disorders at the monthly period should be relieved from the strain of examinations, the classroom, and lessons which must be learned, although mental hygiene requires that her mind be kept active and her interests in quiet pleasures stimulated. She should not be left to introspection and morbidness or to the sickly sentimental thoughts often recommended for her. This alone would cause her to exhibit some of the so-called "phenomena" of adolescence. Many of these phenomena are abnormal and are traceable to low physical vitality and lack of strong mental interests. The menstrual period should not be attended by pain or discomfort; nor should our girls be brought up to regard it as a time of sickness. When our girls are taught that normal girls experience no indisposition at this time, they will not be resigned to pain. The high-school life of the girl below the average in physical vitality cannot be regulated to her advantage in a co-educational school. Cities should maintain girls' high schools, taught by women teachers, for all girls upon whom the stress and strain of competition with normal individuals would react unfavorably. In the majority of cases, menstrual pain in girls is due to nerve tension, anaemia and poor circulation, improper clothing, and mental attitude. The girls who experience no pain are those who have led an active out-of-door life and have never stopped playing.

The character and arrangement of a girl's clothing is one of the most important matters in her whole regimen. Clothing may neutralize the beneficial effects of her otherwise hygienic habits. The long-continued even though light pressure of the corset—and it is seldom light—interferes with the free circulation of the blood. The alteration in intro-abdominal pressure is conducive to misplacements of abdominal and pelvic organs; the anterior pressure on the iliac bones, the result of the modern long hip corset, is a fruitful source of partial separation of sacro-iliac joints—the cause of many backaches. Respiration is limited, the free play of abdominal muscles is prevented, constipation is promoted, and digestion is impaired. The strain on muscles and nerves caused by high-heeled shoes is a prolific source of headache and backache and reduced efficiency. Women have no conception how greatly their susceptibility to fatigue is increased and their total efficiency reduced by their methods of dress. The pity is that the majority will not learn unless the decrees of fashion change.