The Eighth Yearbook 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC 
 STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 PART II 
 
 EDUCATION WITH REFERENCE TO SEX 
 
 AGENCIES AND METHODS 
 BY 
 
 Charles Richmond Henderson, Ph.D. 
 
 Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago, President of Chicago Society of Social Hygiene 
 Associate Member of American Academy of Medicine 
 
 WITH A PAPER ON 
 
 SEX INSTRUCTION IN HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 BY 
 HELEN C. PUTNAM, A.B., A.M. 
 
 President of the American Academy of Medicine and chairman of its 
 standing committee on teaching of hygiene 
 
 THIS YEARBOOK WILL BE DISCUSSED AT THE CHICAGO MEETINGS OF 
 THE NATIONAL SOCIETY. FEBRUARY 22 AND 24, 1909 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS 
 
COPTKIQHT 1909 BT 
 
 Manfred J. Holmes 
 
 BECBETART OF THE SOCIETT 
 
 Published February 1909 
 
 Second ImpreBsion October 1911 
 
 Third Printing March 1937 
 
OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 Charles McKenny, 
 
 State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wis, 
 
 President 
 
 W. S. Sutton, 
 University of Texas, Austin, Texas 
 
 J. Stanley Brown, 
 Township High School, Joliet, 111. 
 
 Henry Suzzallo, 
 Columbia University, New York, N. Y. 
 
 Clarence F. Carroll, 
 Superintendent of Schools, Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Manfred J. Holmes, 
 
 Illinois State Normal University, Normal, 111. 
 
 Secretary- Treasurer 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PART L PATHOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 7 
 
 Wisdom, timeliness, and necessity of this study for the teachers — 
 General considerations — Testimonies in respect to this particular book 
 — The purpose and scope of this study — Historical precedents: 
 the philanthropists. 
 
 Chapter I 21 
 
 Social loss from sexual vice — Neglect of well-meaning citizens largely 
 due to ignorance of the facts. 
 
 I. Medical authorities on the nature of the social damage from sexual 
 vice. Section i, Solitary vice, .excess, and precocious sexual activity; 
 Section 2, Venereal diseases and prostitution; gonorrhea, nature, cause, 
 and effects; syphilis, nature, cause, and effects; no sexual necessity; 
 prostitution not a desirable social institution. 
 
 II. Economic loss by sexual vice. 
 
 III. Moral degradation. 
 
 Chapter II 53 
 
 Methods of social control and movements for amelioration. Relation 
 of legal and administrative measures to education. 
 
 I. The sanitary point of view and the policy of reglementation; the 
 policy of toleration and of license, on the basis of medical inspection and 
 certification; arguments pro and con. 
 
 II. The policy of repression; the "abolitionists." 
 
 III. The policy of moral regulation; its principles and methods; various 
 experiments in cities; societies and movements; all legal methods de- 
 pend for efficiency in the last analysis on general enlightenment; hence 
 the duty of educators to be leaders in this movement for public health 
 and morality. 
 
 PART II. AGENCIES AND METHODS 
 I'rkface 7 
 
 1 s TRODUCTION 9 
 
 Definition of "education." 
 
 The end of education: (i) personality, (2) social obligation, (3) religion. 
 
 Scope of educational activity: (r) control, (2) instruction, (3) nurture 
 
 Co operating agents: parents, teachers, church, physicians, authors, and 
 
 editors. 
 
6 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 rAG£ 
 
 Chapter I 13 
 
 Care of infancy, with particular reference to sex life — Duty of parents — 
 Who shall teach ignorant parents ? — Personal hygiene and training. 
 
 Chapter II 15 
 
 Ideal interests. 
 
 Chapter III 17 
 
 Formal instruction in matters of sex — Ignorance part of cause of vice 
 and disease — Call to give information — ^The appeal of the bishop of 
 London — Action of the diocese of Massachusetts. 
 
 I. Necessity of instruction. 
 
 II. Legitimate scientific interest of every person — child, youth, adult. 
 
 III. DiflBculties in the way of formal instruction in this subject. 
 
 IV. Paths of approach for formal instruction: (o) nature-studies, 
 biological sciences; (6) hygiene; (c) physical culture; (d) morality. 
 
 V. Selection and adaptation of materials of instruction; stage of develop- 
 ment of pupil. Section i. Childhood; Section 2, Puberty and early 
 adolescence — boys; question of separation of boys from girls from the 
 twelfth year; agricultural schools; suggestive counsels of experts; "the 
 boy problem," by a member of the American Society of Sanitary and 
 Moral Prophylaxis; passages from Lyttleton, "Training of the Young 
 in Laws of Sex;" citations from President G. S. Hall's Adolescence; 
 Section 3, Puberty and early adolescence — girls; Section 4, High-school 
 years; instruction of apprentices; high schools; principles; methods; 
 night schools as an opportunity; continuation schools; Section 5, College 
 years — ^young men; illustrations; "the venereal peril;" letter from a 
 physician to his son in collie. 
 
 VI. Training of teachers for this task; normal-school preparation; 
 plea for more biology and hygiene. 
 
 VII. Preparation of young parents for their duties; review. 
 
 VIII. The religious organizations. 
 
 Appendix • :)9 
 
 Summary of the discussions of the German society for fighting venereal 
 perils on Socialpadagogik; theses and conclusions in illustration — Paper 
 by Dr. Helen C. Putnam on "Sex Instruction in Schools," written for 
 
 this volume — Bibliography. 
 
 List of Active Members of the National Society for the Scien- 
 tific Study of Education 85 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In Part I of this study evidence has been offered to prove 
 that education in matters of sex is demanded by justice to child- 
 hood, to youth, to womankind, and to the race. Hitherto too gen- 
 erally educators — parents, pastors, teachers, and publishers — have 
 shifted the responsibility from one to another, and tacitly agreed 
 to neglect it. With what results may be seen by those who will 
 take the pains to read the scientific statements cited and sum- 
 marized in Part I, published separately, and in the medical works 
 there abundantly quoted. It is indeed a sad and revolting 
 story, but patriotic and philanthropic service frequently requires 
 the subordination of aesthetic tastes to the demands of a world of 
 suffering. To be too nice may be brutal cruelty. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO THE SEXUAL LIFE 
 
 Definition. — The word "education" is here used in a very wide 
 sense, yet it is Hmited to the conscious and purposeful efforts of 
 adults who seek to guide children and youth. Unquestionably 
 nature and social life give instruction and shape character, quite 
 apart from any intentional labor of parents and teachers; but we 
 shall refer to these forces only so far as they may be directed and 
 controlled by persons having an educational purpose. 
 
 The end of education, as here concerned, is found in the mean- 
 ing of life itself. 
 
 I. Personality. — We may first think of education as the process 
 of developing all the powers of a human personality. Only as we 
 gain an adequate and worthy conception of man himself do we 
 realize the sigfnificance of the teacher's work. In no field of edu- 
 cation is it more vital to have a clear and well-grounded conception 
 of the end of all educational work than here. The very springs 
 of action and power are m our convictions as to the dignity and 
 worth of the human person. Many of the most fatal fallacies and 
 sophistries which confuse men's judgments in relation to sex 
 morality thrive in the noisome swamps of unworthy notions of the 
 rights of even the lowest of human beings, the weakest, the most 
 ignorant, the most vile. One cannot despise even a harlot without 
 lowering his moral vitality. 
 
 The entire movement of recent years started from the medical 
 profession, because physicians were alarmed at the horrible conse- 
 quences of venereal disease, at the physical miseries which spring 
 from prostitution, and especially the sufferings of good women. 
 But suppose it were possible to prevent venereal disease by the 
 general use of precautions already known to physicians, while 
 illicit pleasures went on; would our goal be reached? Is the pro- 
 phylaxis of gonorrhea and syphilis the final end of this effort? The 
 very title of the great and useful German society goes no farther: 
 "Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Bekaempfung der Geschlechtskrank- 
 heiten." The medical origin of the society is clear, and it has full 
 justification, since physicians are the men whose social duty it is 
 
 9 
 
lO THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 to combat disease. A few — a very few — physicians have written 
 on the subject in a manner to give the impression that the chief 
 social task is to make sin safe ! Not until we study the effects of 
 venereal excesses and abuses on the personality, on the soul, can 
 we understand and fully realize the purpose of this crusade, this 
 contest for possession of the holy land of the spirit. 
 
 Even from the medical standpoint, that of solicitude for public 
 health, the moral factors are of supreme importance. Every phy- 
 sician worthy of the honored name will insist that the best and the 
 only sure and final prevention of these diseases is not a chemical 
 bactericide, or mercury, or iodine, but a noble purpose, a dean 
 character. 
 
 It is not a preacher but a physician in a medical discussion who 
 voices this profound truth : 
 
 May state and society accept this spiritual and moral condition of 
 prostitution simply as something given and unchangeable, and declare that 
 this lost outcast is good for nothing but for satisfaction of male lust? No 
 one can deny that this were scorn of the essence of the moral doctrine of 
 Christianity, which we, in my opinion, must protect from destruction as 
 the pillar which supports our entire civilization. The gospel teaches that 
 we are all "called," that all men are children of God, that is, that every 
 man preserves the power to rise out of the animal into something higher, 
 and, in the measure of his faculties, to be the vessel and bearer of culture, 
 which is in essence morality, and thereby to acquire freedom from the 
 blindness and soul poverty of daily existence; that therefore every man 
 represents an independent worth, an end in himself, and no man may be 
 used as a thing; not even for a social end.^ 
 
 Of syphilis and venereal diseases in general, the true prophylaxis lies in 
 self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, combined with a due regard 
 for the inalienable rights and the deepest interests of others, the claims of 
 the weak and the dictates of honor.* 
 
 2. Social obligation. — While a human being cannot be made a 
 mere thing, a means to the satisfaction of selfish gratification, nor a 
 slave of society, yet personality is incomplete in isolation; individu- 
 ality is not synonymous with selfishness. He is poor, starved, and 
 mean as well as miserable who does not joyfully find his best self 
 
 ' Dr. W. Gruber, Die Prostitution, etc., p. 32. 
 
 *R. J. Pye-Smith (at the seventy-sixth annual meeting of the British Medical 
 Association, 1908), British Medical Journal, August i, 1908, p. 259. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS H 
 
 in free service to others, in a course of conduct which contributes 
 to the well-being of his fellows. 
 
 Education must aim to furnish discipline for a rational com- 
 munity life; and the most important part of that life is the pro- 
 duction, maintenance, and proper education of children and youth. 
 Artificial avoidance of the responsibilities of having children in 
 many well-situated families is often due to the fact that considera- 
 tions of selfish comfort and ease determine the conduct, and men 
 and women ignore their obligations to the race. 
 
 It is a pressing problem to know what to do to increase the birth rate 
 of the superior stocks and keep proportionate at least the contribution of 
 the inferior stocks. One of the most promising influences is the Eugenic 
 movement started in England by Galton and Pearson to make proper pro- 
 creation a part of religion and ethics, rather than a matter of whim only.* 
 
 According to the general belief of our nation each man has 
 relations with God and obligations to him. Religious education is 
 an essential part of general education ; for personality is unde- 
 veloped while the religious nature slumbers, and social duties are 
 imperfectly felt and valued apart from consideration of the Per- 
 fect, the altogether Good, the heavenly Father. In religion, as the 
 supreme and comprehensive experience, the significance of per- 
 sonality, the worth of the individual, the sanctions of social duty 
 come to the finest flower and sweetest fruit. 
 
 We do not reject the help of any right-minded man or woman 
 who cannot travel with us so far; we gratefully accept all the help 
 a merely ethical or aesthetic culture can give us ; but those who have 
 had one vision of God can never think, or act, or teach again as if 
 that vision had never been at least momentarily in their experience. 
 
 Scope of educational activity. — In this discussion of educational 
 methods to correct evils and guide conduct in a rational path we 
 mean to include three aspects of spiritual action: control, instruc- 
 tion, and nurture. Other words may be used for the same things, 
 and no classification can be made satisfactory to all ; but the methods 
 we are to consider may fairly be brought under these titles as con- 
 venient signs. 
 
 I. We shall see that control is especially necessary in infancy 
 
 •Report of the Committee on Eugenics, American Breeders' Association, 
 Vol. IV, 1908 (President D. S. Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, chairman). 
 
12 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 and early childhood, and also in reformatory education where 
 vicious habits must be broken and new habits formed after years 
 of perverted conduct. Under this head belong the care of infants 
 by parents and nurses before any formal instruction or conscious 
 self -direction can be employed. 
 
 2. Instruction is here used to designate the process of communi- 
 cation of knowledge; and, in particular, in this discussion, knowl- 
 edge of the conditions and laws of wholesome living in relation to 
 sex. It is the intellectual or rational aspect of education. 
 
 3. Nurture is here meant to indicate all that part of education 
 which is due to the personal influence of teachers, companions, and 
 associates, to the force of choice in acts of will and formation of 
 habits, and the use of ideals of character from history, literature, 
 and all the arts. 
 
 Each of these methods of shaping thought, feeling, and will 
 must be employed wisely, persistently, and systematically in order 
 to arm and equip the youth for self-direction, self-control, and 
 worthy character. 
 
 Co-operating agents. — In the educational process, whether 
 general or special, we have need of a systematic, sympathetic, 
 unified co-operation of all the social agents of control, instruction, 
 and nurture. Every one of these agencies has a certain peculiar 
 force and function of its own. We mention here: (a) parents; 
 (&) teachers, from kindergarten to university; {c) church and 
 Sunday school; {d) physicians; {e) authors and editors. There 
 are other powerful social agencies whose part in the educational 
 process is great, but whose conscious effort is less directly educa- 
 tional, as actors, painters, business and political leaders. In certain 
 particular fields and for particular parts of our task we have a right 
 to claim the helpful co-operation of such agencies as : parental 
 associations in connection with schools, teachers' associations, medi- 
 cal societies, societies of social hygiene or moral prophylaxis, health 
 boards and commissioners, state and national health leagues, juve- 
 nile courts, reform societies for promoting personal purity, night 
 missions, refuges for girls, dispensaries and hospitals, library cen- 
 sors, police censors of places of amusement, the Young Men's 
 Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
 tion, girls' clubs, women's clubs, churches, and adult Bible classes. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 cAre of infancy with particular reference to sex life 
 
 There are able writers who refuse to discuss the care and con- 
 trol of infancy in connection with education, since the element of 
 formal instruction is wanting and the subject is relatively passive. 
 We need not here quarrel with this view, and we do not insist that 
 this early regulation of life should be called education. Thus we 
 avoid a fruitless controversy. We are sure that all well-informed 
 teachers will recognize the immense importance of those habits 
 which are started in infancy, even from the hour of birth or before. 
 Citations from medical authorities will make the nature and extent 
 of this factor very clear. 
 
 On the care of infants Dr. Griffith^ recommends the avoidance 
 of local irritation, as phimosis, worms in the bowel, inflammation, 
 and constant supervision to guard against masturbation which some- 
 times begins very early with both male and female infants. 
 
 Masturbation is the most injurious of all the bad habits, and should be 
 broken up just as early as possible. Children should especially be watched 
 at the time of going to sleep and on first waking. Punishments and mechani- 
 cal restraint are of little avail except with infants. With older children 
 they usually make matters worse. Rewards are much more eflficacious. It 
 is of the utmost importance to watch the child closely, to keep his confi- 
 dence, and by all possible means to teach self-control. Some local cause 
 of irritation is often present, which can be removed. Medical advice should 
 at once be sought.' 
 
 The necessity for right care of infants and young children in 
 the home being admitted, we are brought face to face with serious 
 educational problems: How can parents be taught this duty and 
 the best way to perform it? Is there not a social need for classes 
 of young women before and after marriage, where they can be 
 
 'J. P. C. Griffith, M.D., The Care of the Baby, p. 358. 
 
 *L. Emmett Holt, M.D., The Care and Feeding of Children, p. 188. The 
 two books here cited contain a valuable fund of information on all matters of 
 the hygiene and care of infants and young children. Cf. Mme. Augusta Mott- 
 Weill,. Le foyer domestique, and La femnte, la mh'e et V enfant. 
 
 13 
 
14 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 taught the principles and methods of care of infants? Whose duty 
 is it to organize such classes and who should conduct them? 
 
 Personal hygiene and training in relation to sexual inhibition, 
 control, and health. — After the care of infancy the child and youth 
 must be taught and trained to take care of the body in all respects, 
 for sexual hygiene is only a part of wholesome living in general. 
 At a later point more specific suggestions will be made. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IDEAL INTERESTS 
 
 Ideal interests are necessary to conquer and rule lusts. 
 
 Only some other passion will accomplish the desired control. With 
 the Greeks, it was aesthetic passion, love of the grace and beauty, the 
 rhythm and harmony, of a self-controlled life. With the Romans, it was 
 the passion for dignity, power, honor of personality, evidenced in rule of 
 appetite. But the passion for purity, the sense of something degrading and 
 foul in surrender to the base, an interest in something spotless, free from 
 adulteration, are, in some form or other, the chief resource in overcoming 
 the tendency of excitement to usurp the governance of the self.^ 
 
 The gifted Dr. F. H. Montgomery, in a conversation with the 
 author shortly before the death of that honored physician, urged 
 the preparation of a circular for the Society of Social Hygiene 
 which should make its appeal more directly to the ethical, aesthetic, 
 and religious interests of boys and men. His worthy life and his 
 professional position gave weight to this counsel. Some parts of 
 this volume are written in response to his earnest charge. 
 
 In the Star of Hope, a paper published by convicts in a New 
 York prison, one of the articles begins with this citation: ''Trust 
 in God and think of your mother, and evil will be powerless to 
 tempt you." This advice was imparted by a noble sage to a class 
 of Oxford graduates. Once, also, a moral philosopher was asked : 
 "What memory, if any, would check a man's pursuit of sin, if 
 religion failed?" And the answer promptly came, "Mother." 
 From persons as widely separated as the sage and the convict comes 
 the same testimony to the power of an ideal, especially when em- 
 bodied in a fine personality. 
 
 It is in this sphere of influence that teachers may best work 
 for purity and health ; and, on the whole, even without systematic 
 moral instruction, this self-denying, laborious, and useful pro- 
 fession has labored for worthy ideals and not in vain. Many a lad 
 can testify that the refining influence of a woman teacher has helped 
 
 * Dtwey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 410. 
 
l6 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 to keep him far from the base influence of unfit associations. The 
 poetry and noble prose, the music married to immortal verse, made 
 familiar and attractive even in humble elementary schools, and the 
 unselfish, patriotic sentiments kindled at these altars, have made 
 a career of impurity morally impossible for multitudes of men. 
 Therefore, if some teacher feels herself unfitted, from ignorance of 
 biology and hygiene, or from unconquerable timidity, to help 
 tempted children and youth by specific instruction, let her never 
 for a moment be discouraged or conscience-hurt. She may do 
 something, indirectly and unconsciously, by her beautiful life, and 
 by her enthusiasm for noble literature and biography, which the 
 most scientific physician might be utterly unable to accomplish. 
 
 The brevity of these hints must not be interpreted as an indi- 
 cation that the subject is of minor importance. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FORMAL INSTRUCTION IN MATTERS OF SEX: NORMAL SATISFAC- 
 TION OF THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST 
 
 Having already considered what needs to be done in relation to 
 personal hygiene and general training, we now approach the deli- 
 cate problem raised by a theoretical interest, never entirely free 
 from a prurient element caused by specific appetite in youths and 
 adults.^ Ignorance is not the only cause of excess, abuse, and vice; 
 for natural appetite, especially when perverted, is a force even in 
 spite of knowledge, and many a man gratifies his impulses although 
 he knows well all the evil consequences. Yet ignorance is one 
 important factor, and knowledge, if rightly imparted, is a help to 
 the nobler life. 
 
 I am now convinced that the uplifting of the morality of our people 
 lies, above all and everything else, in educating the children, rationally and 
 morally. I believe that more evil has been done by the squeamishness of 
 parents who are afraid to instruct their children in the vital facts of life, 
 than by all the other agencies of vice put together. I am determined to 
 overcome this obstacle to our national morality. I have not the slightest 
 hesitation in saying that the right way has been found at last. Thousands 
 of men have asked me why they were not taught the danger of vice in their 
 youth, and I have had no reply to make to them. I intend now, with 
 God's help, to remove this reproach from our land.* 
 
 The interest awakened in England is significant and encourag- 
 ing for us. The story is told in the Ladies' Home Journal in the 
 issue just cited. 
 
 When the popular Bishop of London was in this country, last year, he 
 became intensely interested, it is said, in the awakening that had been 
 created here as to the subject of the false modesty of parents with their 
 children on the mystery of sex, and subsequent events seem to prove that 
 the matter made a deep impression on the famous prelate's mind. 
 
 After the Bishop got home he grouped around him a company of the 
 most distinguished men and women of England : the venerable Archbishop 
 
 ^ On the task of a good "sexual pedagogics," see A. Blaschko, Sexualpada- 
 gogik, 3 Kong. Deut. Gesell. B. G. p. 4, 1907. 
 
 *The Bishop of London, Ladies' Home Journal, May, 1908. 
 
 17 
 
1 8 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 of York; the Bishops of Ripon, Southwark, Durham, and Hereford; the 
 Dean of Canterbury; Canon Scott Holland, of Saint Paul's Cathedral; the 
 Honorable E. Lyttleton, head master of Eton, the great English school; 
 such foremost Nonconformist clergymen of England as the Reverends 
 Thomas Spurgeon, F. B. Meyer, John Clifford, R. J. Campbell: such lay- 
 men, famed for philanthropy and wealth, as George Cadbury, W. T. Stead, 
 Grattan Guinness, and before these men of influence he laid his conviction 
 that the root of the "social evil" lay in this so-called "parental modesty," 
 and that in the quickening of the parental conscience lay the remedy for the 
 lifting up of England's moral tone which has for so long been the despair 
 of England's foremost men. The Bishop offered to place himself at the 
 head of a great moral crusade, the like of which has never before been seen 
 in England, that would seek mainly to awaken the conscience of the parent- 
 hood of England, and point out to every father and mother that the future 
 moral welfare of the United Kingdom rested in doing away with the 
 present false modesty, and in the frank and honest instruction of their 
 children. 
 
 Every man in that notable meeting in London saw the force of the 
 Bishop's idea; thousands of dollars were immedately subscribed; the per- 
 sonal co-operation of everyone present was gladly offered ; men at the 
 head of great commercial affairs promised their time, money, and services, 
 and today a great crusade is under way in England. 
 
 More than one hundred meetings in London alone have been arranged 
 for, in addition to several hundreds of meetings in every town and village 
 in the kingdom ; pamphlets are being prepared and will be distributed by the 
 million ; the head master of every great college and school will take a per- 
 sonal part; a special periodical called "Prevention" will be issued and dis- 
 tributed to every parent in England. And at the head and in the midst of 
 this wonderfully well-conceived and far-reaching movement stands the 
 Bishop of London uttering the words printed in the center of this page as 
 the slogan for the campaign upon which he has entered for the good of 
 England, and also these further words : "There shall be plain talking," 
 says the Bishop of London ; "the time has gone by for whispers and para- 
 phrases. Boys and girls must be told what these great vital facts of life 
 mean, and they must be given the proper knowledge of their bodies and the 
 proper care of them. No abstractions : the only way now is to be frank, 
 man to man." And to this important work are now to be devoted the great 
 energies and widespread influence of this distinguished English prelate; 
 probably, nay, unquestionably, the most popular man in the Church of 
 England today. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS I9 
 
 The action of the Diocese of Massachusetts is worthy of men- 
 tion as an indication of the interest of thoughtful leaders of the 
 churches whose attention has been called to the facts. 
 
 Report of the Committee on Public Morals 
 
 To the Convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts: 
 
 Your Committee were appointed to make inquiry into the prevalence of 
 immorality and its results; to recommend what, if any, measures are ad- 
 visable to awaken a sense of responsibility among parents, teachers, phy- 
 sicians, and clergymen for the instruction of the young in personal purity; 
 and to recommend any means which may help to diminish corrupting agencies 
 or to build up a healthy antagonism to whatever undermines public morals. 
 
 The appointment of this Committee was largely due to the statements 
 made in publications of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Pro- 
 phylaxis and in recent discussions of medical associations. As these 
 declared a condition which implied a wide spread of immorality, your 
 Committee felt that it was their first duty to learn the facts. 
 
 They therefore addressed a circular to a number of the leading medical 
 authorities in this part of the country, asking their belief as to these facts, 
 and also requesting recommendations as to abating immorality. They have 
 received replies from thirty-seven leading physicians, some of whom are 
 recognized authorities upon these subjects. As these authorities are well 
 nigh unanimous in condemning silence and the resulting ignorance to which 
 in large measure these evils are due, your Committee feel it to be their 
 duty to speak plainly. 
 
 It is agreed that venereal diseases are very widespread. Of these dis- 
 eases, syphilis has always been recognized as highly infectious and dangerous 
 involving both the guilty and innocent in its consequences. Gonorrhea, how- 
 ever, has been so generally regarded as easily cured and attended by no 
 serious results, that most of the physicians whom we have consulted urge 
 that the recent discovery of its malign effects ought to be widely made 
 known. They say that it is the most widespread of all diseases among the 
 male adult population. 
 
 That it has serious consequences upon innocent wives. 
 
 That about one-third of all venereal infections in women in the records 
 of private practice are communicated by husbands. 
 
 That gonorrheal infection is responsible for nearly one-half of sterile 
 marriages. 
 
 That it is as powerful a factor of depopulation as syphilis. 
 
 That one-fifth of all cases of blindness is due to gonococcic infection. 
 
 That the number of separations and divorces on account of marital 
 
20 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 infection from venereal disease is much larger than is commonly supposed; 
 and 
 
 That these crimes against women are largely due to ignorance. 
 
 The only apology for the open statement of facts like these is that in 
 no other way can the public be aroused to combat the evil. The policy 
 of silence has been an utter failure. 
 
 We therefore call upon parents to feel their sacred responsibility for 
 judicious instruction of children as to sex and the relation of personal 
 purity to health and happiness. With boys especially, it is not, as is too 
 often supposed, an alternative of knowledge or ignorance, but of proper 
 instruction from those they love and respect, or of partial, distorted, and 
 vicious knowledge. 
 
 It is the business of fathers and mothers to know these things and to 
 be perfectly frank with their children. If for any reason they feel them- 
 selves unable to do this, let them take counsel with the family physician 
 upon the subject. Mothers especially should instruct their daughters, for 
 young women are strangely ignorant in these matters. They should tell 
 their daughters the fearful risk they undergo if they marry men who have 
 led immoral lives. Parents should know the companions of their children, 
 especially the young men with whom their daughters are acquainted. 
 
 A responsibility also rests upon teachers for their moral example and 
 influence. There should be education of boys and girls as to sex by some- 
 one, outside the home if it cannot be had there. Careful instruction should 
 be given by physicians, competent to teach biology and physiology, in high 
 and preparatory schools, and to the freshmen classes in colleges and uni- 
 versities. 
 
 A greater responsibility rests upon physicians. One who is an authority 
 upon this subject says: "The ignorance in regard to these diseases is very 
 great, and general ignorance is to some extent based on inaccurate and 
 incomplete knowledge in the medical profession. Within the last few 
 years, and since the advent of bacteriology, these diseases are found to be 
 more serious and far-reaching in their effects than was formerly believed." 
 
 Physicians should demand proper hospital treatment for the infected, 
 both for their relief and for the safety of the innocent. Additional separate 
 hospital provision ought to be made for this purpose, as at present such 
 cases are generally refused. Opportunities for the hospital study of such 
 cases, which are now very meagre, could thus be had. 
 
 We expect of physicians explicit and positive contradiction of the 
 fallacy current among m'en, and sometimes sanctioned by pretended medical 
 authority, that sexual continence is ever harmful to health. They should 
 also tell patients in private practice how dangerous these maladies are and 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 21 
 
 how long, after persons fancy themselves cured, they may still be a menace 
 to others. 
 
 Physicians should educate patients in hospitals and dispensaries by 
 means of printed or other definite instructions. 
 
 A serious responsibility rests upon the church. Clergymen should teach 
 positively the glory of purity. They should insist upon a single standard 
 for men and women, and urge the reformation of the social code in this 
 respect. The instinct of chivalry and heroism in men should be appealed 
 to, to protect and defend womanhood. There should be dear and positive 
 instruction in these matters to boys in confirmation classes. 
 
 Especially should clergymen hold up the Christian ideal of the body 
 as a sacred thing — because it is the temple of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul 
 asks: (I Cor. 6:15) "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of 
 Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the 
 members of an harlot?" It should always be recognized that fornication is 
 sacrilege in God's eyes. 
 
 In order to awaken this deeper sense of responsibility among parents, 
 teachers, physicians, and clergymen, there should be carefully prepared 
 literature, which should not be too technical nor diffuse. Such literature 
 should be widely disseminated either by Societies of medical men for Sani- 
 tary and Moral Prophylaxis, or by such organizations as the New England 
 Watch and Ward Society. 
 
 As means for removing corrupting agencies, the following measures 
 have been recommended by physicians : 
 
 Every wise effort against intemperance is an aid to purity. The role 
 of alcohol in instigating immoral relations and spreading venereal diseases 
 is very little appreciated. "A large proportion of men and a still larger 
 proportion of women owe their initial debauch to the influence of alcohol." 
 
 The ambitious standards of social life and the increased cost of living 
 are largely responsible for the postponement of marriage; and late mar- 
 riages are in part answerable for immorality. The average age of the first 
 marriage of men has within a century changed from twenty-two years to 
 twenty-seven years, and it is during these five years that a vast amount of 
 incontinence occurs. Public sentiment should honor young people who are 
 willing to endure comparative poverty and privation in order to establish 
 a home. 
 
 Another reform which should be undertaken is the suppression of 
 medical advertisements. The scoundrels who thus attract the victims of 
 these diseases either excite undue fears, or by pretended cures produce 
 undue confidence. Persons ill with venereal diseases should put them- 
 
22 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 selves under the care of reputable physicians. Legislation should be sought 
 to forbid the demoralizing advertisements of quacks. 
 
 Public morals are also helped by every effort to improve industrial con- 
 ditions and so to lift the pressure from many poor young women. Some 
 shops, department stores and factories, through poor pay and the heartless- 
 ness of employers, expose the girls in their employ to strong temptations. 
 
 One of the most corrupting agencies of the present day is the sensational 
 newspaper, whose exciting tales of vice and reports of crime have a 
 demoralizing influence upon all who read them. Christian people have a 
 duty here, and should not buy, and still more, should refuse to advertise 
 in such papers. 
 
 The church cannot afford to be remiss in this every-day fight against the 
 world, the flesh and the devil. Your Committee respectfully urge that this 
 convention should beg Christians everywhere to join in a more open, explicit 
 and earnest battle against the organized forces of evil. 
 
 Frederick B. Allen, 
 Alexander Mann, 
 Charles N. Field, 
 George L. Paine, 
 Jeffery R. Brackett, 
 M. Grant Daniell, 
 Robert Amory. 
 
 I. NECESSITY FOR GIVING INFORMATION 
 
 The necessity for giving some kind of instruction is now more 
 generally acknowledged than it was a few years ago. It is seen 
 that the child and the youth, from curiosity and wonder, are sure to 
 inquire and learn the facts of sex. It is also only too painfully 
 manifest that almost uniformly the information gained is partly 
 false, mixed with base suggestion, expressed in coarse and salacious 
 terms, and connected with unworthy and debasing ideas of sex. 
 It is not a question of whether children and youth will learn, 
 but only of the manner of their learning. 
 
 One important consideration in determining the ages for different details 
 of instruction is the limitation of the opportunity for giving them. Nine- 
 teen-twentieths of children, and they of the poorer families, never go 
 beyond grammar grades. Of 730,000 in the seventh and eighth grades only 
 390,000 continue, nearly one-half dropping out at twelve or thirteen years 
 of age. Of 245,000 in the ninth grade (thirteen to fourteen years of age), 
 only 74,000, the remnant of the 5,000,000 entering eight years before, are 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 23 
 
 graduated (sixteen to seventeen years of age). If saving knowledge of the 
 Creator's laws is to reach his people it must be adapted to these conditions 
 as far as possible.^ 
 
 II. SCIENTIFIC INTEREST 
 
 The theoretical interest in the phenomena of sex which asks for 
 rational satisfaction in true science arises in connection with: (a) 
 the anatomy and physiology of the human body; (&) the origin of 
 living beings — birth and generation; (c) the explanation, after 
 puberty, of sexual sensations and experiences — erotic dreams, noc- 
 turnal emissions, menstrual periods, sexual desires; (d) the truth 
 about sexual commerce, illicit and legitimate ; its purpose and use ; 
 its dangers, effects; temptations and ways of escape; modesty, etc. 
 
 Now it is manifest that theoretical interest is not concerned 
 with all of these problems at once. The little child asks questions 
 of its own ; youth raises entirely new problems ; while adult experi- 
 ence with marriage and parenthood demands still further knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 III. DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAYS OF IMPARTING CORRECT INFORMATION 
 
 1. The excitement of erotic appetite is one of the chief dangers 
 encountered. However strongly we may be convinced that instruc- 
 tion is needed we cannot safely conceal from ourselves the perils 
 of even well-intended efforts. After puberty the images and ideas 
 connected with sex tend to awaken specific sensations by acting on 
 certain nerve centers, to increase the circulation of blood in the 
 organs of reproduction, and to quicken secretion in the glands con- 
 nected with these organs; and all this is followed by demand for 
 relief in satisfaction of the sexual appetite, especially with boys. 
 An eminent teacher said wisely: Never put into the mind any- 
 thing which you do not want to remain there. 
 
 2. Unless knowledge is very carefully presented the teaching 
 may stimulate prurient curiosity, which again may lead to perilous 
 experiments of boys and girls, with danger of life-long injury and 
 disgrace. 
 
 It is said that when little children are told in school any facts 
 about sex they go out to tell them, often in perverted form, to 
 
 • Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex (by a member of the 
 Society of Social and Moral Prophylaxis), p. 19. 
 
24 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 Other children. Perhaps occasionally some harm arises from this 
 fact. But would not the same children quite naturally talk over 
 these matters together under any circumstances, and is it not better 
 their conversation should be guided by adult science than by igno- 
 rance, fable, lies, and vulgar speech of unfit persons? Something 
 can be done to dissuade children from talking unnecessarily on the 
 subject, just as they can be taught and trained to modesty and 
 good taste in regard to other matters. 
 
 3. The difficulty in the case of parents is very great, because 
 the information must suggest a personal element which fathers and 
 mothers hesitate to disclose to their children. The art of teaching 
 is here put to its severest tests by the necessity to make this very 
 personal factor a means of giving sacredness and dignity to facts 
 which are too often associated with merely animal impulses and 
 acts. 
 
 4. Another difficulty of very serious nature is that, in common 
 speech, we have a very imperfect vocabulary to make known the 
 facts about the organs, parts, and functions of reproduction. The 
 unwritten vocabulary of childhood and coarse associations is itself 
 an incitement to lust, a debasing and soiling agency. In nature- 
 study the child may unconsciously be accustomed to a precise, clean, 
 and digfnified vocabulary which may be used for our purpose. 
 
 5. One difficulty of teaching in school is the irrational oppo- 
 sition of parents and others. Part of this opposition is well- 
 grounded: the teachers are seldom prepared, seldom have the fun- 
 damental biological knowledge to do it perfectly. 
 
 If we are to attain any practical result, we must carefully heed actual 
 conditions, set aside merely future requirements, and limit ourselves to that 
 which the authorities and all parents of insight after fair trial can approve.* 
 
 IV. PATHS OF APPROACH IN FORMAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 I. Through nature-study, biology, botany, zoology. From a 
 very early period of childhood the person may, at a time when 
 erotic appetites are unfelt, gradually become familiar with the life 
 cycle of plants, growth, flower, fertilization, formation of seed, re- 
 production of the species, and so on over and over through genera- 
 tions. The window garden is large enough to recite the story of life 
 
 * Professor Schafenacker, Sexualpddagogik, D.G.B.G., p. 94. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 25 
 
 in fair and charming forms, processes, and colors, in winter or in 
 summer, even in the poorest tenement. But here the mother often 
 needs the help of a teacher because she may know nothing of the 
 revelations of modern biology. 
 
 All the essential facts and principles may be made familiar to 
 young children where pet birds, poultry, dogs, and cats are kept 
 in the household. In fact, children usually do discover, in a frag- 
 mentary and often undesirable way, much more than their parents 
 give them credit for ; and they will talk freely with each other when 
 they will not talk to adults, because they soon discover that in the 
 world and society of grown-ups the whole matter is tabu. Reti- 
 cence is not due, in the case of young children, to any sense of 
 moral wrong, but simply to an artificially induced fear of offending 
 elders for some mysterious and unknown reason. With ignorant 
 and rude servants they are often more at ease, unfortunately. 
 
 It is impossible to treat thoroughly the life history of plants 
 and animals and ignore the reproductive system. If any school 
 authorities determine to keep the discussion of sex out of their 
 schools they must simply refuse to introduce modern biology and 
 to resist the movement in favor of scientific instruction which has 
 done so much for modern education. Any prudish attempt to ignore 
 the reproductive organs in class will excite a morbid interest in 
 them and defeat the moral purpose of the teacher. 
 
 Assuming for the moment that botany and zoology, whether as 
 nature-study or in systematic form, are to be taught by modern 
 methods and by competent teachers, let us consider what is involved. 
 The entire plant or animal lies on the table and is carefully 
 examined with the aid of lenses, and microscope.'' Does anyone 
 familiar with the laboratory method for a moment imagine that the 
 children and youth will observe the forms and functions of organs 
 of alimentation, digestion, absorption, circulation, excretion, sensa- 
 ticm, motion, and co-ordination and not have the slightest curiosity 
 about the form and function of the organs which secure the perpe- 
 tuation of the species? If the teacher attempts to conceal these 
 parts and to intimate that the study of them is improper, he cor- 
 
 * It is assumed here that the textbook method, without dissections, is aban- 
 doned by all competent teachers. 
 
26 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 rupts the moral sense, kindles prurient interest, and loses the con- 
 fidence of his students. 
 
 Much may be said in favor of having young people taught 
 biological subjects in separate classes, with teachers of the same 
 sex as the members of the class ; but no sound argument can be 
 advanced for a study of these subjects merely by means of expur- 
 gated textbooks without observations and dissections of the organ- 
 ized living creatures themselves. At least I shall not occupy any 
 space in this volume to plead for truly scientific methods in nature- 
 study. 
 
 a. Nature-study is a good introduction to sexual pedagogy, but 
 it is not adequate and complete. This is because man is not only 
 an animal, a nature-object, but vastly more ; he is a person, a moral 
 being, self -directed and also under social law and spiritual obli- 
 gations. If instruction stopped with explaining that reproduction 
 is "natural," just as it is with animals, the youth might infer, is too 
 likely to infer, that as soon as appetite and opportunity meet, the 
 sexual act is legitimate. This would of course be ruinous. The 
 youth needs to know the historical origin of the social inhibitions — 
 shame, modesty, marriage, etc. — and their reasons in physiology, 
 and economics, and the necessity of building up character by self- 
 control. Animals have only appetite to move, direct, and control 
 them; human beings have conscience, law, reason, science, customs, 
 religion to guide them. For animals appetite is enough; for man 
 appetite is only one factor among many legitimate factors. 
 
 These considerations lead one to think that the pedagogical 
 task is far more complex than it is sometimes represented, especi- 
 ally by some biologists and physicians. It is true, and important 
 to show youth, that appetite should be held in bounds by physio- 
 logical considerations, such as the need of maturity and full growth 
 of organs, the accumulation of tissue before reproduction begins, 
 the imperfect fruit of precocious reproduction, etc. It can be 
 shown that in case of animals the stock-breeder finds it well to 
 keep the sexes apart, to delay reproduction, to prevent it entirely in 
 case of "scrubs," as by castration, isolation, etc. But human con- 
 trol must come from the widest possible survey of all the consider- 
 ations which come from the entire spiritual, moral, aesthetic, reli- 
 gious, and social worlds. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 27 
 
 b. Another path of approach to sexual hygiene is in connection 
 with the general subject of human anatomy, physiology, and per- 
 sonal hygiene. 
 
 c. A third avenue is that opened by the director of physical 
 culture in family, kindergarten, school, high school, Young Men's 
 and Young Women's Christian Associations,® clubs of boys, girls, 
 and adults. In all these circles, physical vigor, grace, power are 
 more and more esteemed. Girls as well as boys have set before 
 them an ideal of bodily force and health which can readily be uti- 
 lized. The ambitions of the athlete can easily be shown to be incon- 
 sistent with sexual excess and venereal diseases; a choice must 
 be made in view of the total situation. Frequently the most influ- 
 ential lessons in morality are given by a blunt word from the 
 physical director, if he is of the right character. 
 
 d. Instruction in matters of sex should be made a natural part of 
 the whole system of instruction in science and morality, and not a 
 subject apart. Thus in connection with lessons upon filial duty, 
 self-respect, personal dignity, patriotism, obligations to posterity 
 and to the race, conscience, purity, and religion the facts of sex 
 life have their proper place. 
 
 V. SELECTION OF MATERIALS AND ADAPTATION OF METHODS OF 
 INSTRUCTION TO STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 It is evident that the selection of the particular facts and princi- 
 ples to be taught must be governed by the stage of development 
 of the pupils. We may therefore roughly classify and analyze the 
 facts to be taught according to the approximate age of the person : 
 (i) the young child, (2) child at puberty, (3) adolescents, (4) 
 adults about the time of marriage, (5) parents. 
 
 The materials of instruction should be presented in view of 
 the discovered interests of the person. It is hurtful to anticipate 
 the scientific curiosity and the practical needs of the pupil. So 
 far as possible the right moment should be chosen and what is 
 necessary to say should be said once for all, and so clearly that it 
 will be known forever. When any statement of this order is given 
 
 • See paper of George J. Fisher, M.D., in Transactions of the American 
 Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, VoL II, 1908, pp. 130 ff. 
 
28 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 it should be correct, scientific, precise, and notice should be served 
 that it will not frequently be repeated, if at all. 
 
 Section i. Childhood. — The interests of young children in 
 this field relates primarily to the origin of life, and it is awakened 
 in the form of curiosity by the birth of a baby in the family or in the 
 family of a neighbor, or by the birth of kittens, puppies, colts, chick- 
 ens, canary birds. The child in normal surroundings early becomes 
 familiar with some of the main facts of maintenance and care, such 
 as nourishment of the infant at the mother's breast, the presence 
 of the father as earner of income and source of supplies for the 
 house, and the control, affection, and sympathy of both. Quite early 
 the young child asks: Where was baby before we saw it? How 
 did it come to us? Who brought it? Why did it come to this 
 house? and so on in multifarious forms. 
 
 The most common methods of quieting the persistent demands 
 of this purely scientific interest is a myth or a theology: "The 
 stork brought it;" "the doctor gave it to us;" "God sent it by an 
 angel;" "it came from heaven." Sometimes the answers graze 
 the lie direct; and the whole process may easily become a lesson 
 in falsehood, evasion, and insincerity. There are many reasons for 
 believing that the plain, simple, direct answer of truth is, on the 
 whole, the most satisfactory. Many parents already have from 
 the first told their little ones simply the fact that the baby grew 
 under mother's heart, as a chicken grows in an tgg, and that she 
 then gave it life apart, at cost of great pain. Of course the chil- 
 dren thus instructed will speak of what they know to others and 
 will shock adults with their direct and matter-of-fact way of talk- 
 ing; but no injurious results will come. Indeed the parents win at 
 once the confidence of the child and the mother is loved all the 
 more when her sacrifice is even dimly understood. This is the 
 testimony of numerous competent parents who have, with some 
 misgivings at first, given this method a fair trial. 
 
 Adults are very apt to have groundless and unreasonable 
 anxieties about this method because they are ignorant of the 
 psychology of childhood and falsely imagine as existing in the 
 minds of young children feelings which never come into conscious- 
 ness until puberty arrives. The words which excite specific appe- 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 2g 
 
 tite in an adult have no such effect when used by a person under 
 ten years of age. 
 
 That which stimulates the adult sexually leaves the sexually immature 
 child completely indifferent Therefore one can talk with them about these 
 matters very well in a certain way, and give them information without stir- 
 ring in them specific sexual feelings.' 
 
 As the child grows older, especially if, as in the country, it 
 plays with pets or goes about in fields with domestic animals, it 
 is likely to inquire as to the part of the father in the origin of the 
 child. Here again the rational interest is best satisfied by the truth. 
 To tell a lie is corrupting ; to evade the question is to send the eager 
 child to some unfit teacher and to destroy confidence between 
 parent and child. Surely there is nothing shameful in the relation, 
 and it should never be treated as a mystery of doubtful significance. 
 The child owes its very being to the father as well as to the mother 
 and should be told this by father and mother when asked. Per- 
 haps this general statement will meet the demands of the search- 
 ing intellect for several years ; after that the whole truth must be 
 told in season. The most difficult and critical question usually 
 comes later, but may at any time be urged under the pressure of 
 some unexpected discovery, as the copulation of domestic animals, 
 although this for a long time may have no meaning beyond a play 
 for the child's mind. 
 
 It seems impossible to give any general rule on this subject 
 except the pedagogic principle already stated: the interest of the 
 child in asking a question indicates the stage of mental develop- 
 ment at which the information should be given, but no more than 
 is necessary to quiet the mental unrest. 
 
 It is manifestly desirable that the young inquirer should be 
 trained to seek this kind of information only from the parents or 
 person distinctly authorized by them, but best of all father and 
 mother alone. Nor should this be difficult. In such matters as 
 bathing, dressing, and meeting the demands of nature in urination 
 and movement of the bowels it is not difficult to train the child to 
 go only to the mother for help. The sense of modesty is easily 
 developed under favorable conditions where the residence has enough 
 rooms to furnish privacy. In tenement houses the communistic 
 
 ' Forel, Die sexuelle Frage, p. 512. 
 
3© THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 publicity of personal contacts turns the whole task of cultivating 
 protective modesty into a tragedy. In any case the child should, as 
 far as possible, on certain subjects live in an atmosphere of abso- 
 lute and intimate confidence with parents. Wherever such inti- 
 macy and confidence are secured and maintained the child will be 
 willing to wait for a while for information which it is not yet ripe 
 to receive. And this is often highly desirable, because the mind 
 should be prepared gradually for receiving information in respect 
 to the origin of human life and the actions of parents which 
 tend to a birth. 
 
 This preparation is commonly made by ordinary superficial 
 observation of the anatomy, growth, and reproduction of plants and 
 of domestic animals. Even in a city nature reveals its cycles of 
 birth, development, reproduction, death, new generations. With 
 the extension of small parks, with their flowers, trees, and zoo- 
 logical cages or gardens, this kind of knowledge grows more com- 
 mon in cities; on farms the daily life of children makes them 
 familiar with the whole story. And it is precisely in the country, 
 even without scientific instruction, that children grow up with 
 that healthy view of reproductive processes which protects them 
 in some degree from moral peril, and therefore the sexual appe- 
 tite is less excited and abnormal than in cities. 
 
 But if common observation is valuable, exact and scientific 
 observation would be better. Hence the value of nature-study in 
 this connection ; for this introduction to the knowledge of the 
 phenomena of living organisms gives the child a more precise 
 and accurate idea of the alimentary, circulatory, nervous, and 
 reproductive systems of living bodies, and answers indirectly ques- 
 tions about human reproduction which it would be awkward to 
 answer directly.' 
 
 Section 2. Puberty mid early adolescence — hoys. — It is highly 
 desirable that parents should so direct, guide, and teach their boys 
 that the school teacher may be spared the necessity of giving 
 instruction. Thus intelligent parents could aid the boy very much 
 to pass through the inevitable struggles of adolescence (i) by 
 
 ' Cf. on this subject a valuable little book. Dr. med. Julian Marcuse, Gruf%4- 
 siige einer sexuellenpddagogik in der h'duslichen Erziehung, Munich, 1908 (45 
 pages). As to how Helen Keller, blind-mute, was taught the origin of life in 
 maa, see her autobiography (passage cited by Dr. Marcuse, p. 283, 284). 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 31 
 
 requiring the observance of a few sensible measures of personal 
 hygiene — frequent bathing, swimming, loose clothing, side pockets 
 in trousers, hard bed with not too much cover, well-ventilated bed- 
 room with windows open all the year, total abstinence from alco- 
 hol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, moderation in use of meat; (2) by 
 helping the lad to avoid mental pictures of salacious nature, vulgar 
 and obscene companions, pornographic circulars, vile dramatic 
 entertainments, debasing fiction; (3) by awakening and stinuil 
 ing enjoyment of outdoor life, in both sport and useful work, and 
 so placing an emphasis on the normal boy's desire for physical 
 superiority, industrial efficiency, social consideration. The boy 
 should go to bed at a regular hour and be required to get out of 
 bed the moment he is called and to come down at once. The 
 morning hour in bed is often a moment of severe temptation; (4) 
 by giving him stories of chivalry, in which the youth makes pro- 
 tection of girls and women a part of religion and honor and is 
 induced to regard the soiling of feminine character as beneath 
 contempt; (5) by so frankly, honestly, and completely meeting the 
 questions of the lad about his body that no vague region of mystery 
 shall remain as a haunt of spectral fear or prurient curiosity, so 
 that no quack advertisement can ever gain his credence, and so 
 that he will know a little in advance the nature of the sexual 
 changes through which he is to pass. 
 
 When the right time arrives the boy needs to be told that he 
 should not excite erections artificially by any sort of friction, as 
 this will tend in some degree to form a habit difficult to break and 
 which may seriously injure him if carried too far; that the emis- 
 sion of semen in sleep, accompanied more or less by dreams, must 
 not trouble him or cause a second thought of anxiet}', being merely 
 a natural indication that he is slowly growing into manhood, 
 though for many years will not be fully mature. Under all cir- 
 cumstances the boy should be taught to refrain from talking with 
 others about matters of sex, but to talk with perfect freedom with 
 his parents when he needs to know anything, and that if he suffers 
 pain or weakness none but the trusted family physician should be 
 consulted, and that without shame.® 
 
 •See G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence; and his paper in Transactions of the 
 American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, Vol. II, 1908, pp. 195 flF., 
 as well as other papers in the same volume. 
 
32 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 But how many years must elapse before we can hope for such 
 instruction and training by parents to become general? This con- 
 sideration leads us to inquire what, if anything, the school can do 
 to help parents and boys in this difficult situation. 
 
 Separate Instruction of Boys and Girls After About the 
 Twelfth Year 
 
 At present we are in an experimental stage in regard to methods 
 of instruction in matters of sex; and it is probably too early to 
 anticipate the results of experiments now under trial in different 
 countries. Some teachers of youth believe that boys and girls at 
 the beginning of puberty, or before, should be taught in separate 
 classes, at least in such subjects as biology and human physiology 
 and hygiene, and by teachers of their own sex. They believe that 
 instruction given under these conditions can be made more clear, 
 plain, explicit, accurate, scientific, and that the discussions of pupils 
 in the higher grades will be more free. 
 
 Other teachers, even in Germany, favor frank instruction in 
 mixed classes in biology and hygiene and claim that it is done by 
 many teachers without embarrassment or injury. They reason that 
 if the young people are separated for such instruction it is sur- 
 rounded with an air of mystery and evil, as if there were some- 
 thing debasing per se in the facts of sex, and that this very mystery 
 debases the tone of thought and feeling on the subject. 
 
 Perhaps, since we cannot come to a general agreement at once 
 on this point, we must continue to work as local circumstances per- 
 mit, with a careful regard not to offend local public sentiment. In 
 some regions it would be impossible to introduce these subjects 
 in mixed classes without stirring revolt and opposition and retard- 
 ing real progress for decades of years ; in some cities a good begin- 
 ning has been made without perceptible difficulty. No responsible 
 superintendent will move forward faster than public opinion will 
 warrant. Foolhardiness is not courage. 
 
 Some instruction every boy has a right to receive from his 
 school teachers, in part from suitable persons of his own sex, even 
 if it is necessary to call in a school physician. This necessary 
 minimum of instruction is best given, however, as a natural part 
 of instruction in biology, hygiene, morals, history, and literature. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 33 
 
 In some way every boy should learn in his school the necessity of 
 cleanliness of the entire body, the avoidance of needless friction 
 and excitement, of open-air sports and exercise, of treating girls 
 and women with modesty and respect, of chivalry in guarding 
 innocence, of the effects of vice and baseness on offspring in the 
 future. 
 
 I say this much at least should be taught boys in school before 
 and at puberty, because for most of them it is their only chance 
 to learn, and because at this time the school itself offers tempta- 
 tions before judgment and conscience have been formed. If pub- 
 lic opinion among parents will not permit teachers to give this 
 minimum of instruction orally, then the school authorities should 
 call parents and physicians together, discuss with them the neces- 
 sity for such information, and force the responsibility upon them. 
 
 Agricultural Schools 
 
 Forel recommends for boys the rural school home {Landerzic- 
 hungsheim), established by Reddie in England, by Leitz in Ger- 
 many, and by Frey and Zuberbuehler in Switzerland. These 
 schools are based on ideas of Pestalozzi, Froebel, Rousseau, Owen. 
 etc.^° Such schools must be for exceptional cases, as private board- 
 ing-schools ; but public schools, especially in villages and the 
 country, can introduce many of their features, and some have 
 begun to do so. In order to bring out other phases of methods 
 with boys we cite here several important passages from competent 
 authors. We may add here the counsels of a thoughtful medical 
 man: 
 
 The work is especially difficult, as it deals with the individual in that 
 critical period which attends the awakening of sex. During adolescence the 
 boy becomes conscious of the stirring of certain sensations and impulses 
 which center in the sex organs and which may become intrusive in their 
 claim upon his attention. Unless he has been enlightened as to the mean- 
 ing and true use of the sex function and the necessity of its restraint, he is 
 apt to regard these impulses as a sufficient guide for its exercise. It is at 
 this period, also, that curiosity in regard to sex reaches its highest curve, 
 and it is important that it should not be fed from poisonous sources. The 
 social tradition which prohibits sound scientific teaching in sex, entirely 
 
 }" Forel, The Method of Ascertaining Results of Education, Without or in 
 Addition to Examinations. 
 
34 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 ignores the exstence of those secret undercurrents of corrupt knowledge 
 which everywhere circulate. From these sources the vast majority of ado- 
 lescents become indoctrinated with certain erroneous ideas of the sex 
 function and sex relationship which are most pernicious in their influence 
 upon character and conduct: (i) That the purpose of the sex function is 
 sensual pleasure; (2) that one has a natural right to indulge his sensual 
 impulse as he pleases; (3) that such indulgence is a physical necessity, essen- 
 tial to the preservation of virility; (4) that chastity is not possible under the 
 conditions in which the majority of young men live; (5) that this need is 
 recognized in the setting apart of a certain class of women as instruments 
 of sensual pleasure — all dangerous doctrines and absolutely untrue. 
 
 The state, through its educational system, has usurped the functions of 
 parents by concerning itself with the correction of defects of sight, hearing, 
 breathing, as well as the organs concerned in the mastication of food. If 
 these physical defects interfere with the intellectual capacity of the pupil, 
 disorders of the reproductive system are, in many cases at least, no less 
 active causes of the backwardness of children. The important relation of 
 the sex function to mental and physical development cannot be too strongly 
 emphasized, and the effects upon the mind are often more marked than upon 
 the body. Boys who suffer from sexual disorders are apt to be restless, 
 dull, or listless, with an inability to concentrate their minds upon their 
 studies. Memory is impaired, and their capacity for mental work is dimin- 
 ished. There is no other physical cause which has such a pronounced effect 
 upon the morale of the individual as sexual disorders. 
 
 The dangers of the habit at an early age before the secretion of semen, 
 and the consequent loss of seminal fluid occurs, are manifest in local irri- 
 tation of the bladder and urethra, and often in general irritability and insta- 
 bility of the nervous system from repeated nervous shock. If the habit is 
 continued the results are depression, vertigo, palpitations, often a sense of 
 formication along the spine or other portions of the cutaneous surface, 
 accompanied with marked neurasthenic symptoms. It is often the cause of 
 pollutions and spermatorrhoea. 
 
 While epilepsy, insanity, idiocy, etc., have been alleged as the result of 
 this habit, it is probable that they are seldom developed except in cases 
 where there exists a marked predisposition to these diseases. Unquestion- 
 ably many of the more serious results formerly ascribed to masturbation 
 are grossly exaggerated by quacks for selfish and mercenary purposes ; on 
 the other hand there is a tendency on the part of reputable authorities to 
 gloss over and minimize the ill effects. 
 
 As regards the specific diseases incident to sexual vice, the experience 
 of physicians both in private and public practice shows that these diseases 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 35 
 
 are not infrequently contracted through attempted sexual intercourse by 
 boys in their early teens, and, exceptionally at an almost incredibly early 
 age. This precocity of sexual vice is most often seen in street boys and 
 among the classes that visit the dispensaries. Specific diseases are more 
 often contracted by boys from sexual perverts who use them in an un- 
 natural way. 
 
 The teaching of purity has long been practiced by various purity feder- 
 ations and leagues both in this country and abroad. While too much credit 
 cannot be given the high motives which actuate this teaching, it may be 
 questioned whether the method employed is the wisest and best. The incul- 
 cation of purity as an abstract principle, without an understanding of the 
 bodily conditions to which it relates, often fails of efifect. Unfortunately, 
 in these exhortations to purity the impression is often given that the whole 
 question of sex is unclean, something shameful and even sinful; further, 
 that punishment for sexual sin is reserved for the hereafter. Unfortu- 
 nately the penalty is not sufficiently proximate to act as a deterrent. The 
 force of this teaching would be enhanced by perfect intelligence of the laws 
 of sex and their relation to physical health and well-being. Sensuality is a 
 sin against the body which always carries its punishment with it, and can- 
 not be atoned for. The individual is punished by his sins, and the penalty 
 is personal and often immediate. 
 
 The teachings of science in regard to the sex function are always in 
 accordance with the physical interests of the individual. Who shall teach 
 the teachers is largely a pedagogic problem. There is no doubt an urgent 
 need for the organization of a course of special training for teachers for 
 this work. In my opinion no better solution of the problem could be found 
 than the establishment in schools of pedagogy of a special course of instruc- 
 tion in the difficult art of teaching a delicate subject." 
 
 The effect of the use of tobacco on young lads, though not so 
 .serious as that of alcohol and certain drugs, seems to be serious. 
 Some candid cigarette smokers will admit that the practice creates a 
 
 liking for the effects of alcohol Further, writers of authority say: 
 
 "It is said to induce premature puberty; by its depressing and disturbing 
 effects on the nerve centers it increases sexual propensities and leads to 
 secret practices, while permanently imperiling virile powers." 
 
 "Educational Pamphlet No. 4, The Boy Problem, by a member of the 
 American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. 
 
 "Alfred A. Woodhull, A.M., M.D., LL.D. (Prin.), sometime lecturer on 
 personal hygiene and general sanitation, Princeton University, in American 
 Health, September, 1908, p. 37. 
 
36 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 A very suggestive book by an eminent English teacher brings 
 out certain aspects of our problem in a helpful way: 
 
 One or two broad principles may be laid down. The first is that matter 
 is not evil. The time-honoured doctrine which affirms the contrary is, it is 
 true, less confidently stated than formerly, and physical science with its 
 revelation of the nature of our bodies — scarcely less than Christian teach- 
 ing as to their destiny — has saved us from any formulated heresy in these 
 days. Yet it remains a fact that in the popular view of this subject there 
 is much that tends to depreciate one of the greatest of all divine or natural 
 laws — the law of the propagation of life. To a lover of nature no less than 
 to a convinced Christian the subject ought to wear an aspect not only 
 negatively innocent but positively beautiful. It is a recurrent miracle and 
 yet the very type and embodiment of law; and it may be confidently 
 affirmed that in spite of the blundering of many generations there is 
 nothing in a normally constituted child's mind which refuses to take in the 
 subject from this point of view, provided that the right presentation of il is 
 the first. 
 
 This, then, is the first principle to be grasped, that there is nothing in 
 natural law which may not be spiritualized in its presentation to a child. 
 The second is that the first presentation of this particular subject is the 
 one which prevails over all others. 
 
 The third principle concerns the procedure to be adopted. The teaching 
 must not be isolated, but given simply as illustrating laws of nature about 
 which something is already known. • And if the facts are to be imparted 
 so as to throw light upon other facts, the methods of teaching should be 
 in no way peculiar, but the same as those which are found effectual in other 
 subjects. Observation and reflection will generally tell us when a child 
 begins to feel a curiosity about the fact of birth — when he silently discards 
 the fables or myths with which his questions earlier in life were satisfied. 
 The time, in the case of an ordinarily apprehensive mind, will be some- 
 where between eight and eleven years : and it is no objection to this rule 
 that some children in the upper classes pass through their teens in total 
 and contented ignorance of the whole mystery. This discussion would never 
 have arisen unless such children were the exception. We are considering 
 the majority. And in proceeding from the known to the unknown we 
 shall take into account that the fact of maternity is much earlier guessed at 
 than that of paternity. Therefore the teaching on the former ought to be 
 made the starting-point for the teaching which deals with the latter, but of 
 this I will speak again later. 
 
 Reference is made to the animal world just so far as the child's knowl- 
 edge extends, so as to prevent the new facts from being viewed in isolation. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 37 
 
 but the main emphasis is laid on this feeling for his mother and the instinct 
 which exists in nearly all children of reverence due to the maternal rela- 
 tion; in the hope that use may be made of the natural reserve which for- 
 bids a light and careless handling of this topic among schoolboys. Of the 
 two methods the former is more scientific, the latter is more personal, 
 appealing to the deeper emotions of the child's heart. Which is the best ? 
 
 In answering this some account must be taken of the prevailing shyness 
 or reserve which exists between parents and children, especially on the 
 father's side, in relation to such subjects as this. It might be supposed that 
 tlie more scientific method of instruction would from its quasi-impersonal 
 character, be less difficult for a father to employ than the other, which 
 invariably leads him onto sacred ground. But in practice this would not 
 be found to be the case. The crux of the question is the personal applica- 
 tion of the facts presented ; and if that application is shirked the value of 
 the lessons will be in many cases lost; the boy will learn some interesting 
 botanical laws, but he will not connect them with human beings until he is 
 a good deal older, and by that time the mischief will have been done. It is 
 true a boy of scientific propensities and precocious reasoning powers will 
 connect the two subjects pretty readily at an early age — say, fourteen — but 
 something more is required than simply correlation with other facts. 
 Knowledge by itself may suggest counsels of prudence, but it has long ago 
 been discovered by schoolmasters that prudential warnings by themselves 
 are quite impotent against an imperious appetite of any kind. And if a 
 father, desirous of beginning with the easier part of the subject, adopts the 
 botanical illustrations in order to lead up to a personal appeal, he will find 
 that his difficulty, when he comes to the point, has been very slightly 
 diminished by the scientific preamble. Perhaps it may be thought that too 
 much account is here taken of the shyness of a parent with his own son. 
 Nevertheless it is really incontestable that this national characteristic has 
 always been the grand obstacle to the giving of salutary instruction of this 
 sort to the young. 
 
 The real answer to the question between the two methods is that they 
 ought to be combined, and that by far the greater stress should be laid on 
 the personal appeal, which certainly ought to precede any formal scientific 
 teaching about the propagation of life. It may reasonably be asserted that 
 the wholesome impressions of childhood, which consciously and vividly last 
 through life, are those made by one or both of these influences. And we 
 want both. 
 
 The truth of these statements, however, will be easier to gauge if I 
 now proceed to give more in detail the nature of the teaching which seems 
 to be required. 
 
38 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 At some time between eight and eleven years of age, in any case before 
 a child leaves home, the fact of maternity should be explained. Probably 
 he will know that as regards domestic animals there is some kind of law 
 of offspring being born from the mother's body. In any case it is very 
 easy to remind him of scattered facts, either within his cognizance or on 
 the confines of it, which enable him to understand that this is a universal 
 law. For a year or two in most cases, not in all, he will have been realiz- 
 ing that there is some mystery about the matter, and that his nurse and 
 parents have ceased to put off his curiosity with tales of fairies, etc. So he 
 is eager and fully prepared to hear that there is an explanation ; and as 
 far as the maternal side of the subject is concerned it should be simply 
 stated, with emphasis laid on the suffering involved to his mother, and the 
 wonderful fact given as a reason why the mother so dearly loves her son. 
 And it would be well to go farther and indicate the period of gestation, 
 and explain the phrase in the Litany and some well-known passages in the 
 Bible. It is a perfectly simple matter, and beyond all doubt a supremely 
 natural process of instructing, and, as far as I know, never fails of its 
 reward, to wit, a closer link of union between mother gnd child, and an 
 implanting of a deep reverence in the child's mind for the greatest of all 
 natural laws and for the parental relation. 
 
 But when puberty comes on. the crohlexn changes. We may assume that 
 the early teaching has been effectual in saving the boy from evil imaginations 
 as well as from sins of word and deed : and yet when the passions begin 
 to be roused by bodily growth it is quite certain that fresh guidance will 
 be needed. To begin with, some years may have passed and the effect of 
 the preliminary teaching may partly be worn away. So a very special sup- 
 plementary warning is required, which, if possible, should be given by the 
 father, and should take the form of an appeal to the boy's consciousness of 
 germinating manhood ; every effort being made, as in the previous talk, to 
 inspire him with the feeling of the dignity of human life and of the laws 
 of life. Not only is this a bracing and a wholesome tone to adopt, but it is 
 so natural as to be almost easy, certainly as compared with the tone of mere 
 warning, which by itself is full of the dangers of suggestion. 
 
 It is of great importance that the lad be not depressed or frightened. 
 Everything possible should be said and done to give him belief in himself 
 and in his Maker. Nothing but harm comes of convincing a boy that he is 
 a failure, and we do not want a lot of young Englishmen to be going about 
 apologizing for their own existence. So the first thing to do is to explain 
 the meaning of temptation — as in many cases God's method of training the 
 character to be strong — and then to show how the young man preparing 
 himself for life must know how to go forth to meet his boyish trials like 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 39 
 
 a soldier advancing to battle, almost rejoicing that his enemy is strong 
 because he feels sure that he can overcome him. Thus when he feels the 
 approach of his foe he can recognize the call to use the strength within him 
 that it may grow by conflict and victory: because he perceives that now is 
 the moment when he is going to be further equipped for the welfare of 
 life, and on it perhaps depends the question whether he will grow into a 
 warrior or into a slave. He should be told that his will which he thinks 
 weak is really quite strong enough for any number of trials, if only he 
 knows their meaning and is not frightened or fascinated by them. 
 
 Little need be said in the way of deterrent. If a father has once 
 obtained an avowal of the fact there is little doubt that in most cases the 
 shame of it is felt and a few grave words about the sullying of the thoughts 
 and of the heart are all that is necessary, unless there is reason to believe 
 that a certain callousness exists which must at all costs be broken through. 
 Even then I doubt the wisdom of saying much about physical ill effects, 
 as to which considerable divergence of opinion exists among doctors. The 
 exhortations should be of such a kind as to make the boy see the meaning 
 of the trial, and the paramount importance not so much of being victorious 
 as of being ever hopeful, persevering, and resolute to do exactly what he 
 is told by way of safeguard; and above all to put away the unclean thing 
 from his thoughts and forget any failure that may occur as speedily as 
 possible. 
 
 Confirmation is of course the time when schoolmasters get to learn 
 something of the graver side of boy life, and the reason why it is so 
 precious to them is that it allows them to rely on sound and bracing thoughts 
 instead of barren denunciation and abortive appeals to the will, which the 
 boy knows perfectly well is too weak for the work it has to do. 
 
 Indeed there is something awe-inspiring in the innocent readiness of 
 little children t^ learn the explanation of by far the greatest fact within the 
 horizon of their minds. The way they receive it, with native reverence, truth- 
 fulness of understanding, and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a reve- 
 lation of the never ceasing bounty of Nature, who endows successive gen- 
 erations of children with this instinctive ear for the deep harmonies of her 
 laws. People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's 
 innocence, and insist that there is nothing which calls for more constant 
 thanksgiving than their influence on mankind. But I will venture to say 
 that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being 
 the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth and the 
 mystery of their own being. 
 
 By way of a tentative suggestion I would point out that there seems to 
 be a natural division of labor between the two parents. Suppose the 
 
40 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 mother takes upon herself to lay the foundation of the knowledge at about 
 eight or nine years of age; there remains a necessary caution to be given 
 to boys towards the time of puberty, which, properly speaking, ought to be 
 somewhat medical in character, and this would seem to be the part either 
 of the father or some trustworthy doctor. In a fairly large number of 
 cases, after the early teaching, a very shght hint would be sufficient." 
 
 Among educators the name of President G. Stanley Hall carries 
 deserved weight, and for the suggestions he makes and the authority 
 of their author, we print here certain relevant paragraphs apply- 
 ing to boys as well as to later adolescence : 
 
 Passing now to sexual pedagogy and regimen, the world presents proba- 
 bly no such opportunity to religion, the moralist, the teacher, the wise father, 
 the doctor who is also a philosopher. There is no such state of utter 
 plasticity, such hunger for vital knowledge, counsel, sound advice. Young 
 men in other respects headstrong, obstinate, self-sufficient, and independent, 
 are here guided by a hint, a veiled allusion, a chance word of wisdom. The 
 wisest man I know in these matters and the most experienced, a physician 
 and also a religious teacher, goes to audiences of young men at the end of 
 the academic year, who have been unmoved by the best revivalists, who are 
 losing power just in proportion as they neglect to know or prudishly ignore 
 this field, and wins men by the score to both virtue and piety. I have sat at 
 his feet and tried to learn the secret of his method. It is simple, direct, con- 
 cise, and in substance this : In these overtense cases the mind must first of 
 all be relieved of worry, and it must be explained that excessive anxiety 
 and attention are the chief provocative of nocturnal orgasms. This is itself 
 often a cure. Then the assurance that such experiences, varying greatly 
 with different individuals in frequency, are normal, and that their entire 
 absence would be ominous for sexual health, often comes as a gospel of 
 joy to victims of ignorance, as does the knowledge that their case is com- 
 mon and not unique and exceptional. Personal examination by one who 
 has seen thousands of cases and who can speak with an authority that 
 commands confidence in most cases, reveals none of the grave or even 
 mild ailments that had grown to such alarming proportions in the rank 
 soil of youthful fancy. Diversion to objective interests or tasks that are 
 active and absorbing, confirmation of wills that are not sufficiently estab- 
 lished against occasional lapses by showing how fundamental sexual health 
 and its irradiation are for domestic happiness, for a religious life and 
 altruism, a few hygienic precepts concerning sleep, food, pure air, bathing, 
 
 " E. Lyttleton, head-master of Eton College, Training of the Young in Laws 
 of Sex, p. 68. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 41 
 
 exercises, and regularity, and perhaps a little carefully selected biological 
 reading, and in many, if not most cases, a wondrous change is wrought. 
 Some describe their experience as having a great burden rolled off, a 
 strain or chain removed; they seem to walk on air, feel themselves men 
 again, their strength renewed, look back with self-pity upon their former 
 folly, etc. 
 
 Ethical culture alone is very inadequate, and preaching or evangelistic 
 work that ignores this evil is unsuccessful. Religion best meets these 
 needs because it deals, if true, with what most affects the life of the young 
 and what is the tap-root of so much that is best in them. Youth takes to 
 religion at this age as its natural element. True conversion is as normal 
 as the blossoming of a flower. The superiority of Christianity is that its 
 corner-stone is love, and that it meets the needs of this most critical period 
 of life as nothing else does. It is a synonym of maturity in altruism, and 
 a religion that neglects this corner-stone, that is not helpful in this crisis, 
 that is not entered upon now inevitably, is wanting. He is a poor psy- 
 chologist of religion and a worse Christian teacher who, whether from 
 ignorance or prudery, ignores or denies all this, or leaves the young to get 
 on as best they may. Sex is a great psychic power which should be utilized 
 for religion, which would be an inconceivably different thing without it, 
 and one of the chief functions of the latter in the world is to normalize 
 the former. Error blights the very roots of piety in the heart, atrophies 
 the home-making faculties, and kills enthusiasm and altruism. Their curves 
 of ascent and decline rise and fall together both in age and in normality, 
 and very many church communicants are not what they would be but for 
 some psycho-physical handicap of this nature. But ubi virus, ibi virtus. 
 God and nature are benign, and recuperative agencies, in these years so 
 supercharged with vitality, in cases that seem desperate, often act cito, 
 certe et jucunde. The very excess of the physiological fecundating power 
 in man which caused man's fall is so abounding that it may work his cure. 
 Grave psychic discrasias due to passional states generally seem to be com- 
 pletely outgrown, and even gonorrhea and its sometimes persistent sequel, 
 gleet, cannot usually long withstand nature's vis reparatrix if reinforced 
 by a hygienic habit of life. 
 
 That this department of sexual hygiene has been almost criminally 
 neglected, none can doubt. Family physicians are almost never consulted 
 by boys, and the great majority of doctors know almost nothing about the 
 whole subject save the standard modes of treating a few specific diseases 
 with overt symptoms ; while clergymen, who should be spiritual and moral 
 guides, know perhaps still less, and have often come to regard as superior 
 ethical purity and refinement the sloth and cowardice that dreads to grap- 
 
42 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 pie with a repulsive and festering moral sore. While legislation is sadly 
 needed for the protection of youth, instruction is no less imperative if the 
 springs of heredity are to be kept pure. The blame rests mainly with the 
 false, and, I believe, morbid modesty so common in this country in all that 
 pertains to sex. At Williams College, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Clark, 
 I have made it a duty in my departmental teaching to speak very briefly 
 but plainly to young men under my instruction, personally if I deemed it 
 wise, and often, though here only in general terms, before student bodies, 
 and I believe I have nowhere done more good, but it is a painful duty. 
 It requires tact and some degree of hard and strenuous common-sense 
 
 rather than technical knowledge 
 
 Some think, at least for girls, all that is needed can be taught by 
 means of flowers and their fertilization, and that mature years will bring 
 insight enough to apply it all to human life. Others would demonstrate 
 on the cadaver so that in the presence of death knowledge may be given 
 without passion. This I once saw in Paris, but cannot commend for 
 general use. An evil of such dimensions will be cured by no newly dis- 
 covered method or specific, but only by courageous application for 
 generations of the many means already known for strengthening the 
 physical and moral nature. Some would merely give simple, direct, and 
 honest answers to honest questions, being careful to go no farther than 
 satisfy so much curiosity as had been aroused. Others would begin at 
 eight or ten, before passion had awakened, and with no reserve tell every- 
 thing by charts about the origin of life. Others would make it all mystic 
 and symbolic, and some would leave all to nature or accidental sources of 
 information. It seems clear and certain that in our modern life something 
 should be taught, and that betimes. This should, I believe, be chiefly 
 per.sonal, and by fathers to sons and by mothers to daughters. It should 
 be concise and plain, yet with all needed tact and delicacy in well-chosen 
 words. It should be very brief, and not spun out like the well-meant and 
 goody books on the subject that should be boiled down to about one- 
 fiftieth their size and cost. This probably ought to be the most inspiring 
 of all topics to teach, as to the truly pure in heart it is the most beautiful 
 of all. In twilight, before the open fire, in the morning, in some hour of 
 farewell, on a birthday, or any opportune confidential time, this most 
 sacred topic could be rescued from evil or be given abiding, good associa 
 tions. The self-knowledge imparted that makes for health is perhaps 
 almost the culminating function and duty of parenthood. It may be that 
 in the future this kind of initiation will again become an art, and experts 
 will tell us with more confidence how to do our duty to the manifold 
 exigencies, types, and stages of youth, and instead of feeling baffled and 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 43 
 
 defeated, we shall see that this age and theme is the supreme opening for 
 the highest pedagogy to do its best and most transforming work, as well 
 as being the greatest of all opportunities for the teacher of religion." 
 
 A physician, who does not betray his identity, elaborates in a 
 pamphlet an address he gave at the fifty-ninth session of the 
 American Medical Association^® which was heartily approved by 
 eight well-known practitioners who discussed it. It was in the 
 form of an address to adolescent boys. He says: 
 
 If a boy friend boasts to you of his sexual experience with girls, 
 drop acquaintance with that boy at once ; he is trying to corrupt your 
 mind by lying to you. If a boy in an unguarded moment tries to entice 
 you to masturbatic experiments, he insults you. Strike him at once and 
 beat him as long as you can stand, etc. Forgive him in your mind, but 
 never speak to him again. If he is the best fighter and beats you, take it 
 as in a good cause. If a man scoundrel suggests indecent things, slug 
 him with a stick or a stone or anything else at hand. Give him a scar that 
 all may see, and if you are arrested, tell the judge all and he will approve 
 your act, even if it is not lawful. If a villain shows you a filthy book or 
 picture, snatch it and give it to the first policeman you meet and help 
 him to find the wretch. If a vile woman invites you, and perhaps tells a 
 plausible story of her downfall you cannot strike her, but think of a glit- 
 tering poisonous snake. She is a degenerate and probably diseased, and 
 even a touch may poison you and your children. 
 
 He explains briefly the working of gonotoxin. when it begins and 
 when it reaches heart, kidneys, joints, eyes, brain, etc., describes 
 buboes and chancre, and explains the horrors of the latter, warns 
 against all doctors who advertise, and tells of their methods. 
 
 Section 3. Puberty and early adolescence — girls. — Here again, 
 though in less degree, the school has a duty to perform. Only by 
 knowledge of herself and of her danger can a girl protect her 
 health and her virtue from the perils which constantly beset the 
 unwary and the ignorant. Not much need be said, but that little 
 is vital and may be brought in naturally in connection with instruc- 
 tion in personal hygiene and morality. If public opinion is per- 
 verse and if parents will not permit suitable oral instruction by 
 
 " G. Stanley Hall, The Psychology of Adolescence, Vol. I, pp. 463, 464. 
 
 " The Boys' Venereal Peril, Chicago, 1903, p. 35. See also Harvard mono- 
 graph. The Venereal Peril; and Fournier's Address to Sons on Attaining Their 
 Eighteenth Year. 
 
44 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 women teachers, then public opinion must be changed by education, 
 and the teaching profession has the first responsibility. 
 
 In our cities girls in the wage-earners' families, on the average, 
 remain in school somewhat longer than the boys ; but multitudes 
 of them leave school before the high-school age and must be helped, 
 if ever, at puberty. That so many go astray through sheer igno- 
 rance is not so wonderful as that so few are ruined. It is pitiful 
 to watch the life of shop and factory girls of fourteen and beyond 
 who are thrown in contact with moral perils of which neither 
 family, church, nor school has given them warning. 
 
 A very excellent example of a lecture for girls is that of Dr. 
 A. Heidenhain.^^ This physician invited the mothers of girls in 
 the public schools of working people to bring their daughters for 
 scientific instruction in their nature and calling just at the time 
 they were leaving school at about the fourteenth year of age. The 
 lecture is illustrated by drawings of the female organs of repro- 
 duction, and the author tells in simple, honest words, as if each 
 child was his own and had come to him for professional counsel, the 
 meaning of reproduction, the development of the tgg, the act of 
 birth, the supply of breast milk, the duty of mother to child. If a 
 girl suffers or sins after this lecture it is not from ignorance of the 
 most vital facts. 
 
 Dr. Helen C. Putnam was asked to write counsels for mothers 
 
 in teaching their young daughters. She replied : "I cannot 
 
 It is an unnatural cramming, an artificiality Everything for 
 
 the purpose you indicate that I have ever read in periodicals and 
 pamphlets offended me. Regular education is the only reasonable, 
 effective, safe method. Advise mothers to form a class for study 
 under a competent scientist." This advice comes from a gifted 
 woman physician. But is there not something to be said for a 
 different view? How long before there will be enough "competent 
 scientists" to instruct the millions of mothers by oral lessons ? 
 Meanwhile — what ? 
 
 Dr. Alfred Fournier in his little book. Pour nos files, p. 28, 
 says: 
 
 You may well assert, ladies, that the moral law alone is able to accom- 
 plish something against this peril, and that the physicians would be rein- 
 
 " Sexuelle Belehrung der aus der Volksschule entlassenen Mddchen, Leipzig, 
 1907. !• A. Barth. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 45 
 
 forced, well reinforced in their crusade, if they had with them the edu- 
 cators of youth. They have the power to raise the moral level of future 
 generations. In fact, the social question is confounded here as always and 
 everywhere with the moral question." 
 
 Dr. Fournier in writing his booklet for our daughters addresses 
 it to their mothers when these shall consider that the counsels he 
 gives are necessary; he addresses it particularly to the mothers of 
 young working girls and says : 
 
 These are counsels that a mother and still more a father may experi- 
 ence some embarrassment in giving to a daughter, and these are counsels 
 which a physician alone has ability to formulate, but which he is not at 
 liberty to address to a young girl without the consent of her family. 
 Therefore, mothers of families, and above all mothers of young working 
 girls, read them these pages, and if, as we hope, you find them prepared 
 for instruction and guidance against the many dangers which menace 
 them, permit them to read this little work, which has no other purpose 
 than to safeguard their interests. 
 
 The statement of Judge Julian W. Mack, whose distinguished 
 services in one of the largest juvenile courts give his every word 
 great weight, is suggestive to parents and teachers, both in respect 
 to the necessity for the instruction of girls and the best methods of 
 giving such instruction. It was printed in the Ladies' Home 
 Journal, May, 1908.^* 
 
 During a three-years' experience as judge of the Juvenile Court in 
 Cook County there came before me several hundred cases of girls, ranging 
 in age from seven to eighteen years, every one of whom had made a misstep. 
 Their pitiful stories have impressed upon me the vital importance of two 
 fundamental duties that fathers and mothers owe to their children : 
 
 First, that parents should at all times, from earliest childhood, have that 
 priceless possession, the genuine confidence of their child : a confidence 
 which will cause the child not merely to obey, but also to trust and to feel 
 implicitly that the parent is at all times and under all circumstances the 
 best friend, the most constant companion, and the wisest and most willing 
 adviser. 
 
 Second, that, in order to earn and to deserve this confidence, parents 
 must be frank in responding to the natural inquiries of their child ; yea, 
 more, they must divine the unspoken question at the right time, and answer 
 
 " Cf. Dr. H. A. Kelly, Medical Gynecology, chap. ii. 
 
 '* Cf. P. Zeuner, M.D., "The Prevention of Venereal Disease through Edu- 
 cation," Lancet-Clinic, December 14, 1907, p. 573. 
 
46 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 it clearly and in a manner that will invite further questions as the child 
 develops into young womanhood. 
 
 I know the difficulties involved in this, even for the more intelligent 
 and educated parents. But I know only too well that too many parents live 
 in a fools' paradise of belief that their silence spells ignorance and inno- 
 cence on the part of the children. 
 
 It cannot be too emphatically repeated that every child mingling with 
 other children, whether in private or in public schools, is going to learn 
 much even at the age of ten, and, in circles in which children are not care- 
 fully guarded, even as early as seven. The words picked up, the thoughts 
 awakened, arouse the inquiring mind. If the silent inquiry be felt and 
 responded to by the parents a relation is established which, developed by 
 mutual confidences, throws a protecting mantle over the little one that in 
 many cases will guard her for life. If the spoken or unspoken query be 
 avoided or checked the first barrier is raised, which, followed by the con- 
 ventional story, easily and quickly discovered to be untrue, destroys the 
 child's faith in her mother. This may close her lips for all time and turn 
 her to those who are always within reach and are only too ready to initiate 
 her not only into a complete knowledge of but also into an experiment with 
 the mysteries of life. 
 
 I do not for a moment assert that all girls make missteps because of 
 this ignorance of the facts of life. Many of mature age realize not only 
 the moral wrong but some of the physical consequences as well. Even 
 they, however, are generally ignorant of the results of disease that too 
 often follow the wrong step and of its permanent and terrible consequences. 
 
 The literature that the social hygiene societies are now spreading is to 
 the average girl, as it is to the average parent, a sealed book. The girl who 
 has enjoyed the confidence of her parents from childhood may be spared 
 much of this knowledge, but to those girls who have not been strengthened 
 by this complete mutual trust with the parent even these sad stories must 
 be told. 
 
 Whenever a number of school children are in court for these wrongs 
 one leader among the girls has invariably been found responsible for 
 spreading the trouble. The boys instinctively recognize the difference in 
 girls and know which are possible victims and which are not. From one 
 of the schools located in an excellent region of Chicago came a girl of 
 seventeen years of age. Her parents were an old couple, her sister a 
 trained nurse, and her brother an excellent business man. This seventeen- 
 year-old girl was the baby of the family and in their eyes an innocent child, 
 the object of universal love. The family never suspected that instead of 
 visiting one of her girl schoolmates after supper, as she said she did, she 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 47 
 
 was keeping an appointment with some of the neighborhood boys. Her 
 influence led at least three others girls of from twelve to fifteen to follow 
 in her footsteps. Two of her intimate friends were twins of the age of 
 fifteen, and one took the keenest pleasure in these clandestine meetings. 
 The other twin knew practically nothing about them, as not only the boys, 
 but even the girls, recognized her innate modesty and refrained from men- 
 tionmg them in her presence. The boys told me that they would be ashamed 
 and afraid to make an indelicate suggestion in her presence, while they 
 hesitated at nothing in the presence of the other twin and her companions. 
 
 None of these girls had the slightest knowledge of the physical conse- 
 quences of their acts. They all realized, of course, that they were disobey- 
 ing and deceiving their parents and otherwise doing wrong, but not one of 
 them had ever been told anything about the origin of human life. As to 
 whether this knowledge would have protected them or not I cannot be 
 sure, but I believe, from my conversations with them and with their 
 parents, that it would have done so. The incident became generally known 
 in the school and caused a complete awakening of the parents in that sec- 
 tion of the city to a realization of their obligations. The school is located 
 at the border line between a section occupied by fairly well-to-do people 
 and a section occupied by the poorer classes. Every one of the boys and 
 girls involved in this trouble came from the well-to-do class. 
 
 In another case some half a dozen boys and half a dozen girls between 
 the ages of ten and thirteen were involved. The leader here, again, was a 
 girl of eleven years. She was one of the seven or eight children of a 
 widow. This girl had never received the slightest instruction in these 
 matters — in fact, she was the victim of parental neglect to such an extent 
 that it became necessary to take her away from home. 
 
 In a small suburb of Chicago half a dozen high-school girls of fourteen 
 and fifteen years of age made a regular practice of receiving a company of 
 their male fellow-students at their respective homes on Thursday after- 
 noons when the mothers were away attending their club meetings. These 
 boys and girls were all of the so-called better classes and the mothers 
 were intelligent women. In their club afifairs these women had displayed 
 an active interest in communal welfare, but they had forgotten to gain the 
 tull confidence of their daughters: not one of these girls had ever been 
 told anything of the mystery of life, or understood the physical conse- 
 quences of her act. 
 
 A group of seven little girls, from nine to twelve years of age, were 
 the victims of a gray-haired scoundrel, all led on by a child of twelve, the 
 first victim, who persuaded the others to follow her example. Candy and 
 a few pennies were sufficient inducement in this case. 
 
48 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 In another case, a group of half a dozen girls ot fourteen and fifteen 
 years of age made it a custom, after church on Sunday morning, to visit 
 a man who gave them ice cream and played music for them, and the 
 parents thought that they were going for a walk ! 
 
 One little girl of nine years of age, who was kept in Ignorance of these 
 things by her parents, was the victim of more than a dozen boys, ranging 
 in age from ten to sixteen. She was a beautiful, mnocent child. 
 
 A widowed mother with two beautiful daughters of fifteen and seven- 
 teen made no attempt to instruct either of them. She was a weak, pleasure- 
 loving woman, and the natural results followed. Both girls were faithful 
 attendants at Sunday school and church, but were easy victims of their 
 school companions. The younger girl was subsequently responsible for 
 leading three of her girl Sunday-school mates into like adventures. 
 
 A mother disregarded some rumors that came to her about her eleven- 
 year-old daughter. She pooh-poohed them, declaring that she knew her 
 child, and that the child's "innocence" and ignorance were absolute protec- 
 tion to her. The mother's discovery of her mistake was something heart- 
 breaking to witness. 
 
 Now what is the lesson to be derived from these and many like experi- 
 ences? As I said before, one can never be sure that knowledge of the 
 physical consequences will be complete protection to a girl. But that 
 knowledge she should possess, and possess early as a first covering. While 
 knowledge alone, without character, will never save, the fear of conse- 
 quences will ofttimes brace up a weak girl to resist to the uttermost. 
 
 Some wise teachers have been able to impart much valuable informa- 
 tion in the regular course in physiology and hygiene to high-school classes 
 as a normal and natural part of the course without any undue emphasis. 
 The task, however, is an extremely delicate one, and, except in the hands 
 of the wisest and most experienced, is apt to be full of danger. 
 
 Instruction of this kind, particularly to those under the high-school age, 
 must be individual ; it cannot therefore be given by the already overbur- 
 dened public-school teacher. 
 
 The greatest care must be exercised in imparting such knowledge. Many 
 parents are unequal to the task and should call to their aid the wise family 
 physician. Moreover, as the children whose parents cannot or will not 
 instruct them or cause them to be instructed by the physician are a source 
 of danger to the children of others; as children cannot be raised in hot- 
 houses nor kept from contact with others — sooner or later most of them 
 will go to school, public or private; as one vicious child will influence many 
 companions, the importance of mothers' associations in connection with 
 every school and every grade of the school cannot be too strongly urged. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 49 
 
 Here can be gathered those responsible for the children's associates; here 
 a wise parent can help the ignorant and thus build up a double barrier 
 about her own child 
 
 The intelligent parents owe a double duty: they owe a duty to their 
 own children and to other children, and the duty to the other children is 
 not only from a humanitarian standpoint, to fill the place of the unworthy 
 or ignorant parent, but indeed from the selfish standpoint : to protect their 
 own children. Even the best and wisest mothers frequently blunder. The 
 carefully-trained and only child of a most excellent woman created a great 
 sensation in a select school in a Western city by immediately confiding all 
 that she had learned at home to her schoolmates, male and female, with 
 a good many embellishments. 
 
 An innate or inbred modesty not only makes a girl in every way lovely, 
 but it is also her greatest shield : her sole completely reliable protection. 
 A girl must be taught that to give even the tip of a finger to a boy is 
 wrong; that she will awaken in him a desire which some boys at least will 
 lose no opportunity to satisfy; but, further, she should be told why, and 
 what it means. 
 
 Modesty and ignorance have too long been thought to be synonymous. 
 Knowledge of the dangers may in itself check a growing forwardness ; it 
 cannot but strengthen and doubly shield those who are of pure thought. 
 
 Most girls of sixteen and upward do not, in my judgment, go wrong 
 because of any ignorance of the consequences. They are led away by the 
 excitement of the moment and are willing to take the risk. A girl who 
 has been working all day in a factory or a store comes home at night 
 worn out, only to find more work in assisting her mother in taking care 
 of the little ones; her home is in the dismal regions of the city where the 
 streets are very dirty, the lights dim, the air foul, and all the surroundings 
 unattractive. She wants some of the happiness and brightness, the joy 
 that is the birthright of every young girl, and she goes out in search of 
 it. If the Settlements are near she will go to them and find in the classes 
 and the clubs, the music and the dance, a happiness that she seeks. If the 
 municipalities provide recreation centers, such as are afforded in the 
 South Park system of Chicago, she will be attracted there, and under 
 decent auspices she will find in the gymnasium, or the library, or the club- 
 room, or the dance, the opportunity that she seeks. 
 
 But if these be not given, then, as she wanders along the streets she 
 will be attracted where the lights are brightest and the sounds are gayest; 
 to her untrained eye and ear brilliancy spells beauty. She seeks the com- 
 panionship of the opposite sex : the saloon dance-hall provides not only this, 
 but also the dance that she craves. 
 
so THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 Is this poor girl to blame? Society itself, not fully awakened to its 
 obligation, is responsible. To condemn and to destroy the bad is not 
 enough: it must be replaced by the positive good: a living wage to the 
 working-girl ; a real preparation for life, including an industrial education 
 and the knowledge of herself, for the schoolgirl; and the opportunities for 
 healthful and pleasurable recreation, under decent influences and auspices, 
 for everyone.^* 
 
 Section 4, High-school years and apprentices. — The high 
 school already renders a valuable service in relation to the habits 
 and character of youth, and, so far as this special investigation is 
 concerned, the results are generally very encouraging. There is 
 abundant reason for believing that, on the whole, the American 
 high-school girl is generally fully equipped to protect herself and 
 determined to do so ; and that the high-school boy in America treats 
 girls and women with respect. Outdoor sports and industrial 
 training, where these are wisely and generou3ly provided, help to 
 give outlet to energy, wholesome occupation to the mind, and free- 
 dom from irritation of the nervous system caused by too pro- 
 longed desk work. The rumors kept afloat by enemies of the 
 public schools that they are centers of vice cannot be traced to any 
 reliable source, and have very slight justification in the rare in- 
 stances of scandal which are inevitable in the present state of human 
 nature. Long and intimate acquaintance with town and city high 
 schools, together with direct inquiry with well-informed persons in 
 all parts of the Union, is the basis of this somewhat optimistic 
 opinion. 
 
 The secret fraternities of high-school boys and girls, with 
 their club houses inaccessible to the supervision of teachers and 
 parents, are believed by school authorities to be a moral pest, and 
 deserving of abolition. At the same time high-school authorities 
 are unwise to assume a merely negative attitude; they are morally 
 bound to furnish a substitute in gymnasium, playgrounds, sports, 
 winter games, tool practice, sociable and literary and artistic enter- 
 tainments, which will be even more attractive than the questionable 
 secret resorts of the fraternity houses. The assemblies of little 
 cliques of pupils are not so suitable to our democratic public schools 
 
 " For an excellent discussion see Mme. Schmid-Jager, De I'education de nos 
 mies, Lausanne, 1904. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS $1 
 
 as assemblies open, with the very best means of recreation and 
 culture, to all members of the school. Very often the finest artistic 
 talent belongs to those pupils who are too poor to pay the dues 
 in a fraternity or private club. 
 
 The better modern high schools furnish the scientific founda- 
 tion for knowledge of the sexual nature through their instruction 
 in biology, botany, zoology, physiology, hygiene, and a sound 
 physical culture to fortify the moral nature in its gymnastic and 
 other exercises. We here insert statements by competent persons 
 illustrating good methods. 
 
 Independently of the above question, "At what ages shall public schools 
 instruct in the several details," whose answer further experimentation by 
 teachers must settle, is the importance of a clear conception of the informa- 
 tion to which youth is entitled for its own protection and the good of society. 
 Two basic principles are : Teach no evil, and Teach in time to preserve 
 physical and moral well-being. Every boy and girl has a claim to knowl- 
 edge: (i) of the functions and hygiene of the chief organs of the body, 
 including the reproductive system ; (2) of the meaning of sex, marriage, 
 home-making; of the sacredness of the prenatal life, the influences of 
 heredity, and the consequent duty of right living even when young; of the 
 responsibilities of parenthood. Mention has already been made of certain 
 schools' demonstration of the wholesomeness, truthfulness, and practicability 
 of the biologic method in preference to merely moral statements for im- 
 pressing this knowledge, beginning in very early years; (3) that handHng 
 the organs of reproduction, except as necessary for cleanliness, injures 
 sometimes health, and always mind, character, sense of honor, causing 
 greater mental and moral harm as one grows older . . . . ; (4) of the most 
 prevalent contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea; their 
 danger to every person as indicated by statistics of wide prevalence; their 
 many methods of communication ; including the fact that syphilis and 
 gonorrhea exist almost universally among those leading immoral lives, a 
 reason for avoiding such men and women as one avoids those with dipth- 
 eria, and smallpox; that they are more difficult to cure than any other con- 
 tagious disease and that their harm is more far reaching; (5) of the nor- 
 mal phenomena of adolescence; the physiologic influence on health, mind 
 and morals of clean thoughts, reading, conversation, entertainments, com- 
 panions; the value of occupation and physical exercise in keeping thoughts 
 and habits and health good; the avoidance of tobacco, alcoholic drinks 
 (including patent medicines, many containing alcohol), the advertisements 
 of "doctors" and remedies" found in newspapers, magazines, etc. 
 
52 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 Every girl has a claim to instruction concerning the hygiene of men- 
 struation, the function and sacredness of motherhood, and care of infants. 
 
 Every boy has a claim to instruction concerning the value of conscience 
 and avoidance of ignorant and evil advisers in this matter ; the sacredness 
 of fatherhood, and the duty of protecting all girls and women from evil as 
 he would his sister or his mother.** 
 
 And further: 
 
 1. The physiology and hygiene of sex when successfully taught is an 
 essential part of the course where it logically belongs. It must not be 
 interjected. 
 
 2. Attention is specially given to preparing the pupils mind for human 
 considerations by a carefully developed study of plant and animal phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 3. The teachers have made special study of biologic subjects; and there 
 are "special" or "departmental teachers" for pupils over ten years of age. 
 
 4. Beginning with cell reproduction, the course traces the evolution of 
 sex along with other functions; it is not given undue prominence. 
 
 5. Pupils — boys and girls — follow this systematic course with interest, 
 frankness, clean-mindedness, and evident benefit. 
 
 6. It has developed naturally, wholesomely, and so unconsciously that 
 no comments and criticisms have been aroused among either parents or 
 school authorities. 
 
 7. The trend of these special instructors is to give it at and just before 
 puberty, i. e., from eleven to fifteen years of age. 
 
 The condition of public opinion in a town or city will deter- 
 mine what can be taught and the method of presentation. 
 
 In some places instruction must be given in classes for boys and 
 girls separately; in others they are taught together; so far as the 
 biological facts are concerned, without criticism of parents. 
 
 In certain places the more specific instruction may be given out- 
 side school hours, with the permission of school authorities and 
 parents, when there is opposition to public instruction. 
 
 Night schools. — The urban night schools have already aided 
 many immigrants to acquire our language, and enabled youth and 
 adults to make up for former neglect or misfortune in relation to 
 the elements of knowledge. These night schools furnish an oppor- 
 tunity for giving such knowledge of hygiene as is necessary for per- 
 
 * From Educational Pamphlet No. 2, Instruction in the Physiology and 
 Hygiene of Sex, Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 53 
 
 sonal care of health and for the care of infants and the training of 
 children and youth. The material and method of formal instruc- 
 tion in matters of sex have elsewhere been indicated. 
 
 Continuation schools. — We greet with satisfaction the recent 
 movement to establish and maintain schools for youth, apprentices 
 in trades, and employers of mercantile establishments. Factories 
 and department stores are only to a limited extent open for sexual 
 instruction of employees. Women's clubs and societies of social 
 hygiene, in their attempts to gather the employees for this pur- 
 pose have often met with insurmountable obstacles : the unwill- 
 ingness of employers to give up the time of the wage-earners ; the 
 antagonism of the young people and of their parents; the resent- 
 ment felt at the suggestion that they stand in any need of warning, 
 and other difficulties. In the continuation schools there is a better 
 opportunity of giving familiar lectures on "social hygiene" to 
 young people exposed to extreme temptation and having little 
 opportunity of learning what they most need to know. Women 
 physicians can render a very great service to girls and young 
 women in connection with the classes in domestic science, house- 
 keeping arts, etc. 
 
 Section 5. College years — young men. — What would a father 
 write to a son beginning college life? We cite a medical answer. 
 He speaks of self -abuse as a passing error of early puberty, not so 
 evil as represented by quacks, yet a habit to be cured as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 The great temptation which you are sure to encounter is the foolish 
 assertion that sexual congress is necessary for health — a most pernicious 
 doctrine carefully kept alive by those who live upon the trade of prostitu- 
 tion either directly or indirectly. It is the opposite of the truth, for we 
 know that the whole sexual apparatus, including all the brain and nerve 
 centers involved, will remain normal permanently without intercourse. 
 Moreover, it is known that hard work and clean reading repress passions, 
 while idleness, unclean literature, and luxurious dramas excite them to an 
 abnormal degree. 
 
 The prostitute herself lives in that life only nine years and one investi- 
 gator says but five. Some say she dies of alcoholism, but the more com- 
 mon opinion is that the cause is gonorrhea. Most of them are degenerates 
 — the female equivalent of the male criminal. Indeed they are mostly 
 criminals themselves, of poor health, poor physique, neurasthenic, unable to 
 
54 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 work, unable to resist the ravages of any disease, and consequently are easy 
 victims of this one. In addition, they are generally of feeble intelligence 
 uneducated, and unfit for civilization — the rejects — and it is degrading even 
 to meet them 
 
 Live a clean, outdoor life, as active as circumstances permit, eat good 
 food with sufficient animal ingredients, sleep at least nine hours a day — 
 and your body will behave itself in every part. Don't worry over imagi- 
 nary conditions ; and believe me that sexual continence is normal. Above 
 all, take my word for it, that the dreadful quack literature on sexual 
 matters is mostly false, and is prepared by criminals for swindling pur- 
 poses solely. Certain newspapers are public enemies in that they yearly 
 absorb millions of dollars for advertising the sexual swindlers, and most of 
 the money is filched from the pockets of mere boys. 
 
 Whenever a companion says he believes in a short life and a merry 
 one, put him down as a fool and leave the room. The only good such 
 people do is to enrich the undertakers. Your affectionate Dad.** 
 
 All the points made in this excerpt are urged in an address to 
 the students of the University of Pennsylvania by Robert N. 
 Willson, M.D., who for over three years had acted as one of the 
 physicians to the students of that great institution. His mono- 
 graph is entitled The Social Evil in University Life, published by 
 the Vir Publishing Company, Philadelphia. The book of Dr. W. 
 S. Hall on Reproduction anl Sexual Hygiene has special value for 
 young men entering college, and the author has been very suc- 
 cessful in treating this subject before audiences of young men in 
 colleges. 
 
 VI. TRAINING OF TEACHERS 
 
 We have now offered evidence for the conclusion that the 
 public schools cannot altogether escape responsibility for the edu- 
 cation of children and youth in matters of the sexual life, and we 
 have endeavored to show precisely the extent and limitations of 
 this responsibility. It may be an open question whether a particu- 
 lar teacher ought to give any instruction whatever on the subject, 
 even by casual allusion; but there is no room for reasonable doubt 
 that every teacher should know the essential facts relating to this 
 sphere of moral activity. The teacher needs this knowledge for 
 personal guidance and safety, and also in order to understand the 
 
 " "The Venereal Peril, a Letter from a Physician to His Son in College," 
 A'nerican Medicine, Vol. I, No. 4, N. S., July, 1906, pp. 186-90. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 55 
 
 difficulties, temptations, fears, hopes, dangers, and duties of the 
 pupils. Only when a teacher knows the entire situation can he 
 most wisely help children and youth by general hygiene, diversion 
 of interests, outdoor sport, manual exercises, gymnastics, and also 
 by elevation of ideals in the teaching of history, literature, and 
 civics. 
 
 It seems clear that it is the duty of the state and of city school 
 authorities to provide lectures and laboratory instruction for those 
 teachers who have come to recognize the need. Nature-study, so 
 far as it is genuinely scientific and not aesthetic, is simply a method 
 of teaching physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and biology ; and it 
 would seem that by means of courses in these sciences is the proper 
 preparation for giving sound instruction in these fields to be 
 applied. The teachers of public schools may be somewhat better 
 fitted for their tasks, however interpreted, by lectures from phy- 
 sicians. Attendance on such lectures, when there is objection, 
 should be voluntary and not required. 
 
 Forel ^^ urges the importance of understanding the nature anl 
 origin of inherited abnormalities (sadism, homo-sexuality, etc.). 
 Sometimes a teacher may treat these rare and monstrous cases as 
 if they were normal and could be educated out of their perversions. 
 But since their disorder arises from a constitutional, innate, and 
 inherited condition, the process of education does not reach the 
 origin of the difficulty. All that a teacher can do is to discover the 
 abnormal person and insist upon removal to an institution where he 
 or she can have special treatment and not corrupt normal children 
 and youth. This is work for physicians, not for teachers. 
 
 VII. PREPARATION OF YOUNG PARENTS FOR THEIR DUTIES 
 
 It is very generally agreed that, so far as possible, parents 
 should instruct, warn, and train their own children in all matters 
 of conduct, and, particularly, in relation to sexual life. But parents 
 cannot know what to teach and how to train without first being 
 taught. Under present conventional conditions no systematic 
 arrangements are made to prepare parents for this part of their 
 duty ; it is neglected most of all. While the children and youth are 
 growing up the whole matter is rigorously excluded by universal 
 
 ^ Die sexuelle Frage, p. 526. 
 
56 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 consent from family and school and Sunday-school instruction; the 
 books on physiology and hygiene avoid the whole matter, as if 
 there were no reproductive life, no sexual facts. The minister in 
 his pulpit and pastoral ministrations is compelled by social con- 
 ventions to touch the matter only in a very vague way, absolutely 
 without fundamental and scientific information. The knowledge 
 that is gained usually comes from ignorant, incompetent, and 
 otherwise unfit persons, and in a way to surround the whole subject 
 with a poisonous atmosphere. If the teaching profession, whose 
 social function it is to prepare people for life, makes no provision 
 for this vital matter, how are the parents to perform their duty? 
 Who will teach them when the entire teaching profession avoids 
 this task? The physicians have the knowledge but they are not 
 consulted except in the crisis of pain, disease, serious perversion, and 
 then the instruction comes too late, and it is out of all relation to 
 the normal development of childhood and youth. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in his essays on "Education," ridicules the 
 folly of men who are enthusiastic students of the best methods of 
 raising prize pigs, but consider the proper rearing of children 
 beneath their manly dignity. Of one gap in our scheme of edu- 
 cation he writes with acerbity: 
 
 If by some strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the remote 
 future save a pile of our school books or some college examination papers, 
 we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on 
 finding in them no indication that the learners were ever likely to be parents. 
 "This must have been the curriculum for their celibates," we may fancy him 
 concluding. "I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things : 
 especially for reading the books of extinct nations and of coexisting nations 
 (from which indeed it seems clear that these people had very little worth 
 reading in their own tongue) ; but I find no reference whatever to the 
 bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit 
 all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was 
 the school course of one of their monastic orders." 
 
 But if this antiquarian should examine the textbooks on physi- 
 ology and hygiene he would search in vain for any hint of the 
 existence of that part of the human system on which the perpetua- 
 tion of the human race depends, or for any guidance of youth in 
 respect to the perils of the reproductive organs or their hygiene. 
 
AGENCIES AND METHODS 57 
 
 We must at this point give at least brief attention to the duty 
 of the teaching profession in relation to this sacred task of parent- 
 hood. 
 
 The medical profession possesses the expert knowledge re- 
 quired, and its members are coming to recognize their obligation. 
 But the present discussion is for educators rather than for phy- 
 sicians. To correct many of the worst abuses of sexual impulse 
 all who influence childhood and youth should seek, so far as possi- 
 ble, to reveal to the young the far-reaching social significance of this 
 impulse and of the reproductive activity in general. The severest 
 temptation comes when merely selfish gratification is uppermost 
 in thought. It should not be difficult to make clear to children and 
 youth that the sexual motives find their larger significance in the 
 perpetuation of the race; that the birth and nurture of children are 
 the normal results of union of the sexes; that family affection and 
 spiritual enjoyments of parents and children are to be thought of 
 principally; that enfeebled and diseased parents injure the com- 
 munity and the nation; that conduct in youth, before marriage, has 
 a direct bearing on the citizenship of the future. When the minds 
 of the young are thus irradiated with the larger and finer ideals of 
 morality, patriotism, and religion the inhibitory power of the will 
 is increased when temptation comes. 
 
 The more general establishment of schools in which the arts of 
 housekeeping are taught offers an opportunity for the preparation 
 of girls for their future duties as wives and mothers. It does not 
 seem at all difficult to extend the instruction in such classes to 
 include the care of the mother herself before and after the birth of 
 infants, the care of the baby, the elements of sick nursing, etc. 
 
 The special night-school and continuation-school courses already 
 discussed afford opportunity for teaching young men their duties as 
 future parents and the effect of their conduct before marriage on 
 the health, efficiency, and character of their offspring, in connection 
 with the teaching of physical science, hygiene, civics, literature, 
 and history. 
 
 VIII. THE RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 The really representative leaders of the church have always stood 
 for sexual purity. .Asceticism itself has often been an extreme 
 reaction against the baseness and cruelty of unbridled appetite. 
 
58 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 Religion, as presented in our age, sanctions the assured teachings 
 of science and morality. We might therefore expect the aid of the 
 powerful associations of religious spirit in this movement to edu- 
 cate the public conscience and bring to it the new light which has 
 broken forth from the revelations of the medical profession. 
 Numerous evidences indicate that this expectation will not be dis- 
 appointed. The recent organizations for social service in several 
 denominations are already considering this theme. The brother- 
 hoods could undertake no more fraternal or chivalrous task than to 
 enlist under the white cross banner for the protection of innocent 
 childhood and pure womanhood. 
 
 The church classes of young men have in some places heard the 
 authoritative lessons of high-minded medical men with reverence 
 and profit. The Young Men's Christian Associations have con- 
 ducted investigations, provided straight, manly addresses to boys 
 and men, and, best of all, have in their athletic, educational, and 
 religious work successfully fortified the better nature of their mem- 
 bers and associates. Altogether the nobler day has dawned; a 
 higher standard has been accepted and will be enforced by all the 
 persuasions of teachers, pastors, journalists, physicians, and good 
 women. Deeper than all, over all, is a spirit of holiness which 
 leaves no man without an internal monitor, and whose eternal 
 patience broods over the struggles of humanity in its age-long toil 
 to discover and realize the divine purpose immanent in all history. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 To illustrate, extend, and confirm the principles advocated in the 
 preceding pages we add summaries of discussions by very enlight- 
 ened and competent persons in this country and abroad ; partly in 
 order that the argument may not rest on the experience and reflec- 
 tion of one person. Some repetition is unavoidable. 
 
 DISCUSSION OF GERMAN SOCIETY ON VENEREAL DISEASES 
 
 Perhaps one of the most instructive discussions in this depart- 
 ment of education was that called out by a congress of the Ger- 
 man Society for Fighting Venereal Diseases ; and we cite the prin- 
 cipal conclusions of the volume of proceedings. At the close of the 
 congress one of the great medical specialists said : 
 
 I am glad to note the high degree of unanimity of this congress in 
 respect to the question of sexual pedagogics and education, crowned with 
 the conviction that the education of our youth, in order to lead to a sound 
 sexual life, must, much more strongly than hitherto, emphasize strengthen- 
 ing of the body, the improvement of character and training of the will, the 
 exaltation of the soul's life, and the inspiration of the spirit with higher 
 values. That we have here to do with great and comprehensive problems 
 of education, is clear to us all, but it will need more than another genera- 
 tion in order to translate into reality what sweeps before the vision of us 
 all as the task of such an education. 
 
 Even in respect to sexual instruction in a narrow sense complete unan- 
 imity rules so far that we hold that such an instruction is urgently needed 
 in general, and further, that along with the parents, who unfortunately on 
 various grounds are only prepared to undertake this instruction in small 
 numbers, the schools must carry the burden. We would show that the doc- 
 trine of reproduction in the plant and animal world should maintain its 
 proper place in the range of biological instruction. Difference of opinion 
 exists only in respect to this point : Can the affairs of sexual life of man 
 himself, and especially the sexual act, be an object of instruction? 
 
 Here is, without doubt, the most important point of the whole problem. 
 On one side is the wish to make accessible to youth, in place of the turbid 
 sources of knowledge, the pure sources, and on the other hand the effort 
 to mediate this knowledge without injury to modesty. Here there is a want 
 
 59 
 
6o THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 of clearness and a difficulty which does not seem to me, m tfte proceedings 
 of our congress, yet to be removed. On this point further work and dis- 
 cussion must be given to the task. 
 
 Some things appear to me, however, according to the results of our 
 discussion, even now completely ready for expression. Thus there is the 
 generally acknowledged necessity of good instruction and warning to youth, 
 at and after puberty; that is, to the graduates of the secondary schools 
 and the pupils of the continuation and trade schools, and pupils of the 
 higher classes of the higher schools, as well as to the girls who are about 
 to leave school. The instruction of these groups is not only ready for 
 expression, but also ripe for carrying into effect. It will be the duty of 
 the authorities, now that the necessity for such an instruction is shown, 
 to provide means to embody this instruction systematically in the 
 entire system of education, and if this is not done, it will be the duty of 
 our society to give an example to the authorities. It is our urgent duty, 
 and also a duty of the state to promote the sexual education of the teachers 
 in the public schools, as in the higher schools, and, since the universities and 
 normal schools do not provide such instruction, provisionally to fill the gap. 
 by courses for teachers. Further, by social evenings with parents, bulletins, 
 etc, we should educate parents for their task.* 
 
 The conclusions of this same congress in 1907, were as follows : 
 
 The German Society for Fighting Venereal Diseases, in the interest of 
 endangered health of the people, holds that a fundamental reform in sexual 
 pedagogics is indispensable. 
 
 In this task the home and school must participate, the home by giving 
 to the physical training a larger place than hitherto, and furnishing to the 
 curious child, in respect to the question of the origin of life, an answer 
 which corresponds to the childish understanding, but which is always true, 
 and the school, while it also helps physical and moral development, along 
 with the purely intellectual instruction, should also communicate in the 
 ordinary programme of study accurate knowledge in respect to the ele- 
 mental facts of the sexual life of plants, animals, and human beings. 
 
 Such instruction of the growing generation given in a way adapted to 
 the understanding, and so as to guard modesty, imperceptibly woven in 
 with ordinary instruction, and not going too much into details, will not 
 cause injury, but rather prepares the ground for a sound and natural idea 
 of the sexual life. Particular instruction as to the dangers of the sexual 
 life and warning in respect to the dangers of venereal diseases, belongs, 
 in the main, to the years of puberty. A systematic instruction is not possi- 
 
 ' Blaschko, Sexualpddagogik, pp. 274, 275. 
 
APPENDIX 61 
 
 ble, however, while the teachers and parents, themselves, are not prepared 
 to give it. _ 
 
 The first demand, therefore, is for the instruction of teachers in courses 
 for teachers and candidates for teachers' positions in seminaries and uni- 
 versities, and of parents by means of social evenings and bulletins. But 
 even today, the instruction of members of the higher classes, in the higher 
 institutions of education, in continuation and trade schools, etc., can be 
 given by pedagogically educated physicians and hj'gienically educated 
 teachers, in a programme of general hygienic instruction. It is the duty 
 of the higher school authorities, and of each state of the nation, to fix 
 regulations for the material of instruction in different kinds of schools and 
 for different ages. 
 
 In the same volume are various discussions by experts. We 
 give some of the conclusions and arguments of individual speakers : 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF MAX ENDERLIN, HEAD TEACHER OF MANNHEIM, ON 
 THE SUBJECT OF THE SEXUAL QUESTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 1. In conseqence of the general knowledge of evils existing in the 
 sexual-hygienic, and sexual-ethical field, in which we have discovered most 
 serious injuries to our population, it is recognized more and more widely 
 that, even in the education of the rising generation, something must be 
 done in order to check these evil conditions and to avert from our youth 
 the dangers which spring from them in respect to physical, spiritual, and 
 moral development. 
 
 2. Education can perform its task in this field : (a) in the direct path 
 by instruction in respect to the facts of sexual life, and (&) indirectly by 
 suitable measures of sexual dietetics and general education. 
 
 (o) Sexual instruction. — The traditional secrecy with which, in home 
 and school hitherto, all sexual matters have been treated is proved to us to 
 be a great mistake. It even appears that it is one of the principal causes 
 of the conditions of which we have so much to complain in the sexual 
 life. In place of this we must henceforth provide instruction. By that 
 we understand a simple, direct, and faithful explanation of all the questions 
 which concern the origin and development of plants and animals and human 
 beings. Sexual information offers a task in which the family and school 
 must share. 
 
 In the school, the handling of sexual relations for the most part belongs 
 to nature-study. The sexual material should not be treated as something 
 apart, but must represent a factor in the system of biological phenomena, 
 through which the maintenance and origin and increase of life is regu- 
 lated, and so must be divided up through the other courses of the years 
 
62 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 with other botanical, zoological, and anthropological instruction. Informa- 
 tion in respect to the structure of the human organs of sex and the sexual 
 act, as well as explanation of venereal diseases are naturally to be excluded 1 
 
 from the public school. On the other hand, pupils must distinctly and forci- 
 bly be made aware of the importance of the undisturbed development of 
 the sexual organs. In the treatment of the ethical side of the sexual ques- 
 tions, religion and the general moral teaching of history can render impor- 
 tant services. These studies can help particularly when the sexual views 
 are to be lifted out of the swamp of impure modes of thinking. 
 
 (&) Measures of sexual dietetics and of general education. — With 
 special sexual information, there must go hand in hand an awakening of a 
 sense of responsibility in the child, in relation to himself and society, and 
 a strengthening of self-respect by all means which are suited to produce 
 a certain pride in his physical powers and moral purity. Important, also, 
 is an intensified physical culture. The afternoons should be largely free 
 for play and exercise of sports. Adequate opportunity should be given to 
 the pupil for hardening his body, for constant exercise in the control of 
 the impulses of the senses, and to conquest of the demands of the body, 
 and to the early subordination of his life of impulse to support the intel- 
 lectual interests. The principal task of education is in the field of will and 
 character. In order to diminish the hours of sitting, which favors the habit 
 of self-abuse, we recommend in part the removal of instruction to the open 
 air, into a garden or other open place. Further, we recommend for this 
 purpose the transformation of certain studies into experimental exercises, 1 
 which permit the child not merely passively but actively to advance his 
 knowledge. A high importance must be given to work in the crafts, since 
 it develops a strong force of will and fills the interest of the child with 
 technical and artistic problems which tend to diminish an excess of sexual 
 impulses. 
 
 Artistic education has a task, particularly for natural apprehension of 
 what is of value in the sex life. Especially should the child be immunized 
 against impure influences by being accustomed early to the nude in art 
 and nature. Therefore the artistic representations of the human form, as 
 nude, in monuments, sculptures, and the like should not be concealed from 
 the pupil in the public schools. The same is true of the pure and chaste 
 in the literature of romantic love. For this early habituation, the coedu- 
 cation of boys and girls is to be recommended. In order to secure the 
 co-operation of the parental home with the views of the school, in the field of 
 sexual education, the institution of parents' associations is to be recom- 
 mended; and in addition, the parents may be taught by bulletins, pamph- 
 lets, popular lectures, and articles in the press. 
 
APPENDIX 63 
 
 The right to give instruction in respect to sexual matters must be legally 
 secured to the school. 
 
 More than one hundred and thirty years ago, the great educator, Salz- 
 mann, in his work, Secret Sins of Youth, proposed a plan of gradual instruc- 
 tion : "We speak first of the reproduction of plants, before we speak of the 
 reproduction of mammals and human beings. We show the child the male 
 and female blossoms of plants, and accustom them to the expressions, 
 pollen, ovary, fruit, and so on, and show them how the pollen of the male 
 blossom must fall on the female, if it is to bear fruit. In this way, we 
 gain a method of speaking to the child without embarrassment of the male 
 and female parts, of seed, conception, and the like, and these are accus- 
 tomed, without shock, to hear these stories." 
 
 Modern knowledge has hardly surpassed these suggestions of method. 
 It has been said that parents should communicate this knowledge, but only 
 a small minority of parents are in possession of the knowledge to under- 
 take giving information in this way, since only a few of them possess 
 knowledge of physical science, which is necessary to consider the sexual 
 problem of man in connection with the facts of reproduction about animals 
 and plants, and to illustrate the similarity of the sexual processes in the 
 entire kingdom of organic life. Often the parents have not the necessary 
 pedagogical skill and the necessary freedom from embarrassment to speak 
 with their children in respect to things which they have hitherto consid- 
 ered matters which are to be spoken of with shame. Therefore the school 
 must give help. 
 
 Enderlin, as others, recommends that this instruction should be 
 given in the course of nature-study. He insists that one or two 
 hours of the week are not sufficient for such studies, and he urges 
 that the hours for nature-study, in the schools of Germany, be 
 increased. He speaks of the opposition of parents to this kind of 
 instruction, and the tendency of teachers to refer such matters to 
 the school physician. Admitting that the physician has a task, 
 especially in connection with the older pupils and in individual 
 cases, Enderlin insists that we have here to do essentially with an 
 educational problem, and in this field, the teacher is the highest 
 authority and should remain such. He further insists that only 
 the teacher is in a position to give sexual instruction, in connection 
 with other instruction. Only he can find the necessary points of con- 
 tact, while if the duty is given to the physician, the sexual matters 
 must be torn out of relation with the other branches of studv. 
 
64 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 The teacher can obtain the required knowledge, if he does not 
 already possess it, without great difficulty. In the normal school, 
 the natural-science foundation must be made so complete that it 
 would not require great sacrifice, in order to add knowledge of this 
 particular subject, and the questions of method should be easily 
 answered by a teacher who is well grounded in pedagogic method. 
 It must be said, however, that the teacher must have tact as well 
 as knowledge. Personality counts for much. If the teacher can- 
 not handle the matter without embarrassment before his pupils, 
 he would better leave it alone. Enderlin insists that instruction, 
 if it is not to fail in its purpose, must not be confined to the sexual 
 life of man, but must be treated in connection with the facts of the 
 renewal of organic life in general, and must be conceived as a 
 special case in the great study of sexual activities and unfolding of 
 powers, and therefore the sexual material will be divided in all of 
 the annual courses of botanical, zoological, and anthropological 
 instruction, and thus become merely a factor in the chain of bio- 
 logical phenomena, by which the maintenance, the rise, and the 
 increase of life is regulated. Great care must be exercised to give 
 information only as the child's mind is prepared for it. He insists 
 that a sense of responsibility should be awakened, and the physical 
 consequences of irritation of the parts be pointed out in connection 
 with hygienic instruction. He urges that, in order to avoid too 
 prolonged sitting, many forms of instruction can be given more 
 actively and in the open air, in the school gardens, or in walks in 
 the country. He sets a high value upon experimental work in 
 physics and chemistry. He thinks that it is well to emphasize 
 active effort on the part of the pupil much more than is now done ; 
 that the passive attitude toward books is injurious to the child. 
 He criticizes the German custom of giving out lessons to be learned 
 at home, and insists on the high value of play and sport. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF K. HOLLER ON "tHE DUTY OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL."^ 
 
 Youth must be instructed in respect to sexual matters, because, 
 
 (o) Sexuality is one of the sides of human nature which so strongly 
 
 influences development that a clear knowledge of these relations is a 
 
 necessary part of all general education. 
 
 * Cf. Konrad Holler, Die sexuelle Frage unci die Schule, Leipzig, Nagele, 
 1907. On pp. 45-54 he gives a programme of biological studies for the fourth 
 to the eighth school years, so far as sex instruction is concerned. 
 
APPENDIX 65 
 
 (fr) Because it is impossible to keep youth up to the end of school 
 years in ignorance of sexual affairs. 
 
 (c) Because, only by means of better language in respect to sexual 
 matters can this be exalted above the plane of impure methods of thinking 
 and speaking. 
 
 (d) Because it is the duty of education to send forth young people 
 instructed in the physical and social dangers of the sex life. 
 
 2. The duty of the school is therefore : 
 
 (o) Not to carry on a contest with venereal diseases, and 
 (&) Not to heal the pupils who are sexually perverted; but 
 
 (c) To lift up the sexual field into the kingdom of the natural, and 
 therefore of the unprejudiced and self-evident. 
 
 (d) The immunization, by instruction and physical hardening, against 
 sexual perversion. 
 
 (e) The furnishing of natural, scientific foundations for later instruc- 
 tion, in respect to the natural use and in respect to the dangers to health and 
 to social morality of the misuse of the sexual powers. 
 
 3. The hygienic instruction of girls is to be given at the end of the 
 public-school course, and to boys at the end of the continuation-school 
 period. 
 
 4. The handling of sexual matters is to be left to the instruction in 
 biology. The ethical side of the question can be treated in medical and 
 religious instruction. 
 
 5. Sexual instruction includes three divisions : preparation for offspring, 
 fertilization and development of the germ, birth and rearing of young. 
 The division of the material at the different stages and their arrangement 
 in the studies of natural history must be made according to the time at the 
 disposal of the particular schools and the mental condition of the pupils. 
 
 6. We must see to it that sexual instruction is put into the courses of 
 preparation of teachers. 
 
 VIEWS OF MR. KEMSIES' 
 
 1. The sexual instruction of youth is necessary in order to educate the 
 race to avoid successfully the dangers of sexual perversion and excess. 
 
 2. Sexual instruction can be made the common property of youth only 
 by means of the school. 
 
 3. The task of the school is to be limited only by considerations of 
 prudence and regard for public opinion, so that we may not destroy the 
 whole work by extreme demands. 
 
 4. All explanations in respect to venereal diseases are to be deferred to 
 the period when the youth leaves school. 
 
 5. The duty of the middle school should be to communicate to grow- 
 ' Op. cit., p. 103. 
 
66 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 ing youth a natural and therefore a sound view of human reproduction and 
 to protect the imaginative mind from precocious and unnatural vice. The 
 probability that boys and girls will more and more be educated together 
 speaks for the limitation of the task of the middle schools. 
 
 6. How can the middle schools communicate to growing youth a natural 
 and therefore a sound view of the reproduction of human beings? 
 
 (a) A properly arranged plan of instruction in nature-study cannot pass 
 over the reproduction and development of man. 
 
 (&) In the explanation of the analogies in the reproduction of all 
 species thorough work can especially be done in botany and in the study 
 of the lower animals. 
 
 (f) In the consideration of sexual matters of human beings we can 
 take into account the fact that pupils who have been properly prepared by 
 treatment of plants and animals can independently draw many inferences 
 without the necessity of going too much into details. 
 
 (rf) A minimum of what is to be communicated may be established 
 beyond which especially capable and tactful teachers may independently go. 
 
 {e) Nature-study, with reference to sexual information, can be con- 
 tinued to the fifth school year. 
 
 7. How can the middle schools otherwise prepare youth for life and 
 protect them from precocious and unnatural excess? 
 
 (w) The teachers of the different studies must discuss the multi- 
 farious cases where sex is touched in a natural way. We must emphatically 
 protest against the skipping over of questions in school books where this 
 matter is glimpsed. 
 
 (&) Opportunities are offered by German studies and by history, where 
 we can treat the matter from the standpoint of art in a more fundamental 
 manner. 
 
 (c)When the maintenance of a school library has added moral and 
 unquestionable reading to the circle of ideas of the pupils, we must strug- 
 gle against obscene literature. 
 
 (rf) Young people should be urged to take part in all kinds of sport. 
 
 {e) Scientific information alone cannot protect from sexual error and 
 a special emphasis must be laid upon education to self control and a sense 
 of duty. 
 
 THE VIEWS OF MR. KOESTER OF HAMBURG* 
 
 I. It is necessary that the growing youth should be instructed in relation 
 to sexual matters. In this field, where the house and the school fail, 
 an instructive book renders good service. 
 
 * The Question of th? Reading of Yo^th in Respect to Sesfual Instruction, 
 p. 114. 
 
APPENDIX 67 
 
 2. Fiction is not adapted to instruction in these matters. Its field is 
 psychological. It gives an introduction to the world of human feelings 
 and especially to those of love. 
 
 3. Here the principle holds that children may read and hear all that is 
 justly presented and which does not surpass their comprehension. 
 
 4. The reading of young children should not exclude every expression 
 which relates to sexual affairs, as carrying and bearing of children and 
 the like. 
 
 5. It is altogether false to keep from the growing youth all novels 
 which handle the subject of love. On the contrary, youth must learn to 
 know love and love stories which have a literary value, in order to guide 
 the awakening feelings on the right path. The ordinary sensational stories, 
 with their sentimentally extravagant feelings, are very injurious. 
 
 THE VIEWS OF DR. VON STEINEN " 
 The plan of education of the higher schools has hitherto considered the 
 life of sex as something not to be touched, and has neglected to give to the 
 pupils, even after they have entered the age of puberty, a legitimate 
 instruction in respect to the questions which are so vital to them. This 
 method seems to us to be injurious. Almost all young people satisfy their 
 desire for knowledge at unclean sources, and in that way their imagina- 
 tion on these things is poisoned with a hateful touch of secrecy, of the 
 piquant, and even of the coarse. By suggestion and example, many among 
 them, by compelling power, are led to self-abuse or to precocious satisfac- 
 tion of sexual desires with prostitutes, from which diseases arise. It is 
 urged that persons leaving school, and still under the authority of the 
 school, should be instructed in regard to sex hygiene by suitable medical 
 men in lectures. Such lectures are necessary: (a) In the interest of 
 general education, for which the examination of high-school pupils 
 should be a guarantee. Without knowledge of the physiology of repro- 
 duction, a profound view of the life of the world cannot be gained. 
 The development of the life in family and state depends upon such 
 knowledge, {b) In the interest of the health of the graduates. Accord- 
 ing to Blaschko's statistics, no group of the population is so affected by 
 venereal diseases as the students of the universities. In Berlin, as high 
 as 25 per cent, have venereal diseases. Very many young people are 
 deceived and strengthened in their belief by base suggestions that emission 
 makes sexual intercourse a hygienic duty, and therefore they come, because 
 their proper counselors withhold information, to the house of ill fame, lose 
 the charm of their sexual purity, and draw diseases upon themselves. 
 
 ^Lectures before Graduates of Higher Classes, pp. 135-38, 
 
68 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 {c) The state has a powerful interest in having those who go from the 
 higher schools, the ministers, the judges, the teachers, and the medical men 
 sexually sound and ready to influence, by their example, the wide circles 
 of society with a high conception of family life. 
 
 In fact, such lectures to graduates of high schools as have been given 
 in years past in Dijsseldorf, Frankfurt, Elberfeld-Barmen, Braunschweig, 
 Gladbach, and elsewhere, have been given without any difficulty arising, 
 and leaving a remarkably good impression on all who participated. The 
 scholars voluntarily attended and preserved a proper attitude to the sub- 
 jects, and found the instruction entirely natural. The parents expressed 
 entire satisfaction. The school directors and the teachers, particularly 
 the religious teachers of different confessions, who attended the lectures, 
 expressed their great satisfaction in respect to the effect, and the wish that 
 such lectures should become a permanent arrangement. 
 
 A. The principal value is in the scientific representation of the phy- 
 siology of reproduction. The organs of reproduction are explained, as to 
 their structure, by means of schematic drawings. Their products, the cell, 
 and the egg, and the fertilization of the egg, with the wonderful process 
 of mitosis, afford very welcome material. Conception, the carrying of 
 young, and birth may decently be discussed in scientific form without 
 difficulty. The personal moral responsibility of the individual in respect to 
 sexual intercourse is understood of itself from the presentation. The 
 paternal and the maternal cells, quantitatively alike, have worked together 
 to produce a new organism, which now, according to the methods of 
 division, in respect to its smallest elements, continues under the successive 
 influence of each germ cell. The individual man is a member of a chain. 
 On his conduct depends the weal or woe of succeeding members of society. 
 Alcohol and syphilis debase the germ. Wholesome conduct and sexual 
 purity improve it. The sex impulse has its proper and natural end only 
 in the principle of reproduction. According to this standpoint, the edu- 
 cated man will learn to control himself. For a man of our culture period, 
 the normal form of sexual intercourse is monogamy. By that means, 
 family education is guaranteed to the child. Single union with the woman 
 of one's choice is the ideal. The sexual impulse which impels to this end 
 keeps alive the highest physical and spiritual forces. In the temporary 
 repression of merely sensual impulses is the highest form of exercising 
 self-control. The omission of satisfaction of sex is not injurious to the 
 health of a sound man. Emissions with dreams are the normal and safe 
 release of the collected material of reproduction. 
 
 Unnatural satisfaction of sex, that is self-abuse and purchased satis- 
 faction with conscious suppression of the reproductive principle in the 
 house of ill-fame, leads to serious injury of health. 
 
APPENDIX 69 
 
 There follows a moderate and short description of the exhaustion of 
 the nerves in self-abuse, as well as in venereal diseases. The individtial, 
 therefore, must learn to hold the urgent sexual impulses under control by 
 hygienic measures. In this connection some brief but powerful medical 
 counsels are given, with respect to the exercises of the will, the water cure, 
 abstinence from alcohol, the surrounding interests, etc. 
 
 B. Great importance must be attached to good preparation and a care- 
 fully selected form. The lecture is the first one which the graduate is to 
 hear. The parents should have their attention called by a circular to the 
 significance of the lecture, and it should be left to them whether they will 
 send their sons or not. The lecture takes place in a hall. When several 
 high schools are in a city, it is well to unite the graduates of all at such 
 a lecture. It is natural to have the directors and some teachers present. 
 The presence of the fathers is not essential. The best time is that between 
 the written examinations and graduation. Only physicians, and never a 
 minister or a teacher, should give this lecture. The hygienic principle 
 must be the controlling one. The physician understands this material com- 
 pletely and he is accustomed to handle it in a natural and unembarrassed 
 way. These lectures are to be recommended to all friends of the move- 
 ment 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF DR. W. FUERSTENHEIM OF BERLIN* 
 
 1. The sexual instruction of graduates comes too late. 
 
 2. Sexual instruction, even for the lower classes, should be given. 
 
 3. This instruction must be prepared through nature-study in relation to 
 reproduction and its organs in animals and plants. 
 
 4. This instruction should be given by a physician, where possible, in 
 the general course on health. 
 
 5. This instruction, after a short physiological and anatomical intro- 
 duction, should refer to the dangers which the sex life brings with it : 
 (o) Of excessive, improper, and precocious use of the organs, and (b) of 
 venereal diseases. 
 
 6. This instruction should warn against foolish prejudices, as (a) that 
 self-control is unmanly; (6) that the power of reproduction is lost by not 
 using the organs; (c) that continence is otherwise injurious to health. 
 
 7. This instruction must protect modesty, and so must avoid : (a) 
 detailed description of the sexual act; (&) detailed description of preven- 
 tive methods, and (c) commerce with prostitutes. 
 
 8. This instruction must guard against extravagance, as : (a) from 
 any artificial idealization of sexual intercourse, or (b) any extravagance in 
 respect to injurious consequences. 
 
 • Op. cit. 
 
70 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 9. This instruction should recommend continence; and special medical 
 advice should be obtained before the beginning of the course, and immedi- 
 ately where venereal disease is suspected. 
 
 10. This instruction should work: (o) upon the will by reference to the 
 danger to the young mother, to the destiny of the child, to the teachings 
 of history in respect to the value of continence in relation to the welfare 
 of the state, and the value of self-control in respect to one's own person 
 and his posterity; and (&) to the strengthening of the will by these means: 
 hardening the system, physical and psychical ; so called gymnastics of the 
 feelings; diversion, that is, busying oneself with earnest matters and the 
 development of one's own interests; exertion, spiritual work, sport, play, 
 and gymnastics, and avoidance of dangerous influences, alcohol, vicious 
 society, and reading. This instruction should form a part of the general 
 course of instruction. The conclusion furnishes an introduction to sexual 
 instruction of the younger members of high schools. In the instruction of 
 youth it is desirable, first, to warn against the fear of chastity. There is 
 a widespread superstition that precocious intercourse is favorable to the 
 development of the sex organs. The organs are developed and maintained 
 without our interference. Precocious demands upon them interfere with 
 this development, and lead to precocious exhaustion. Diseases of con- 
 tinence are unknown. Complete sexual maturity, in our race, comes some- 
 what late; (r) by warning against the false impression concerning emis- 
 sions. Such appearances are no cause for anxiety. They are signs of a 
 beginning but not of a complete sexual maturity. They are not a signal 
 that one must go to a woman, but rather a natural vent, so that one does 
 not need this. Over-excitation of the organs in a mechanical way or by 
 imagination is to be avoided. It leads to exaggeration of impulse and 
 weakening of the power to withstand, to excessive loss of semen, to con- 
 ditions of exhaustion, and so to nervousness, and unfitness for earnest 
 work; {d) by warnings against lack of independence and curiosity. Not 
 an irresistible impulse, but curiosity, sometimes the loss of will force on 
 one side and temptation on the other, leads to precocious sexual intercourse. 
 To the temptation, as to the scorn and ridicule of foolish friends, we must 
 oppose a manly and earnest opposition, which is based on an insight into 
 the consequences of one's own conduct, and therefore a fundamental princi- 
 ple must be developed. 
 
 In the second place, (a) in respect to the advantages of continence : 
 this is easiest when the necessity is known in time, and the gymnastics of 
 the feelings is earnestly carried out. It is promoted by sport, temperance, 
 and earnest work. It gives men health, freshness, inner repose, and out- 
 ward security. Think of the civil importance of self-control, the fate of the 
 
APPENDIX 71 
 
 old empires; (&) responsibility in respect to the girl; the unhappy position 
 of the unmarried young mother in her family and in society; the duty of 
 support ; the fate of the unmarried, according to recent investigations ; 
 mortality; criminality; (c) the danger of venereal diseases; their extra- 
 ordinary diffusion ; short representation of the kinds of diseases ; danger 
 to the central nervous system : to other persons through further infection ; 
 to the offspring through inheritance. Preventive measures are often good, 
 but are in the highest degree inadequate. Cleanliness is also here the 
 principal thing. It is urgently recommended that before one has sexual 
 intercourse he should take medical counsel. In case of sickness, a false 
 modesty is out of place. Dangers of alcohol. A great part of infection 
 occurs in drunkenness. 
 
 In the third place, the things to be avoided are: (a) the description of 
 the sex organs and the sexual act which goes into details; (&) the details 
 of prostitution; (c) the representation of preventive means. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF FRAU PROF. E. KRUKENBERG ^ 
 THE DUTY OF THE MOTHER AND OF THE HOME 
 
 1. Special instruction is not necessary, where we have in the home 
 fathers and mothers who have sound and pure perceptions, and who tell, 
 whenever they have the opportunity, the truth to their children, at the right 
 time and in a suitable form, 
 
 2. The purpose of instruction must be to educate such fathers and 
 mothers, so that instruction from other directions may become more and 
 more superfluous. 
 
 3. The home has an advantage over the school in the following respects. 
 It can introduce instruction imperceptibly, and on occasion ; it can fit the 
 instruction to the individual child, according to its stage of development; 
 and it can, in advance, avert false representations. 
 
 4. The home destroys the work of the school, very often, through a 
 prudish, unnatural secrecy, or through frivolous laughter and remarks of 
 double meaning, in respect to that which the child learns in school. 
 
 5. The aim of instruction is often perverted. Fanatics for instruction 
 very frequently discuss sexual matters too much, and with too much 
 emphasis. Prolonged discussion of the matter, as shown in many books 
 of instruction, is to be avoided. Short, clear answers are generally suffi- 
 cient. Too prolonged questioning in youth is to be avoided by impercepti- 
 ble transition to other themes of speech. If there is continued inquiry, 
 then the answer must be faithful to the truth, but always brief, and as some- 
 thing natural and self-evident. 
 
 .6. The vice of self-abuse, without mentioning its name, must be pre- 
 ' Op. cit., pp. 27-29. 
 
72 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 vented before school life begins: (o) through observation of the child by 
 the mother; (fc) by proper position in sleep; (c) through warning of danger 
 to health ; (rf) through warning against perversion by school comrades. 
 
 7. Before the parental home is left, young men should be instructed in 
 respect to the dangers of sexual intercourse, outside of marriage. Better 
 than a personal interview, in many cases, is a pamphlet or a book. A brief 
 appeal to the feeling of honor, and a sense of responsibility in respect to 
 the bride and children of the future, should be urged personally. 
 
 8. Girls, who go out to wage-earning work must be warned, perhaps 
 through a pamphlet. 
 
 9. Young girls, who remain at home, do not need detailed instruction 
 in respect to venereal diseases, prostitution, and the like. For them, it is 
 sufficient: (a) to declare menstruation is a necessary phenomenon, in order 
 to secure material which is necessary for the formation of a new living 
 being; (&) to describe a marriage for money, or support, as a sin 
 against nature, and as a degradation for all life; (c) to teach them that 
 to abandon themselves to men before marriage is the cause of many diseases 
 to women and children; (d) to insist that they must regard health and 
 purity for their own sake, and for their future children, as a duty, or, in 
 case they do not marry, that they may be sound and efficient for a calling. 
 This latter suggestion may help them, when they have no prospect of mar- 
 riage, which unfortunately, under existing conditions, is not always possible. 
 
 10. Instruction at home does not demand much time, but only a whole- 
 some, pure apprehension, on the part of the parents, and a bond of mutual 
 relation between mother and child. Both of these we find in the simple 
 conditions of life, especially in the country. 
 
 A CONSERVATIVE VIEW BY DR. F. W. FORSTER (ZURICH )^ 
 It is the so-called old ethics, that view of the sex life, which has always 
 been represented by all the deeper religion and philosophy, and which has 
 expressed itself outwardly in the absolute prohibition of all extramarital 
 sexual connections. This prohibition is only a symbol of the underlying 
 conception that the sexual appetite is not to have its own way, but should 
 be ruled strictly by the total system of life. 
 
 Forster sums up his conclusions thus:* 
 
 I. By sexual pedagogics we are to understand that education and instruc- 
 tion by which youth is enabled to subordinate the sexual life to the demands 
 and needs which spring from hygiene, social responsibility, and the spiritual 
 nature of man. 
 
 ' Sexualpddagogik, D. G. B. G., 1907, PP. 214 ft. 
 
 " Leitsatse, pp. 242-49. 
 
APPENDIX 73 
 
 2. This pedagogical activity has to keep in mind these two starting-points : 
 (a) intellectual enlightenment in respect to the facts, dangers, and responsi- 
 bilities of the sexual life. It is a demand which cannot be set aside that in 
 the place of the ever more cynical and merely sensual information of the 
 street should be introduced the pedogogical and hygienic instruction of teacher 
 and physician. This instruction can handle the physiological basis of the 
 sex life in connection with studies of plants and animals, but it should 
 precisely in this field distinguish sharply between animals and man, and 
 take pains to show clearly that in the lower planes of life the instincts of 
 sexual functions give the order and rule, while in human beings the spirit 
 and conscience are destined to assume control, the animal is subject to the 
 impulse of propagation, while the impulse of propagation should be the ser- 
 vant of man; (5) the education of the life of feeling — awakening of care 
 for others, charity, sympathy, and sense of responsibility — not only by 
 instruction but especially by practice in home and school. Important as 
 intellectual instruction is, it is helpless without the support of all the higher 
 powers of the soul ; precisely because the sexual impulses are so strong, the 
 :orrective effort must be exerted through the emotional and motor centers. 
 Sexual impulses must come under the control of social feelings, of devotion, 
 chivalry, and charity, and then only will they be deprived of their blind 
 natural power and be set in place with the higher requirements of social 
 culture; (c) education of the imagination. It is well known that sensuality 
 stains its greatest motive force when fancy stimulates it. Therefore it is a 
 vital requirement of sexual pedagogics, from the beginning to fill the 
 imagination with living pictures out of the higher ideal world of humanity 
 and so to draw away phantasy from the service of sense. Art education 
 and religious influence have here their unique task. It is also important 
 to call the attention of young people directly to the hygiene and dietetics of 
 the phantasy in relation to sex; {d) education of the will. Here arises the 
 most important task of sexual education. Neither ethical nor hygienic in- 
 struction gains a proper influence in conduct, when the will has not power 
 to remain true to the higher ideals in presence of impulses and illusions. 
 How many invalids perish because, in spite of clear knowledge, they have 
 not the will force to carry out any form of cure ! Therefore the culture 
 and exercise of the will must stand in the foreground of all sexual peda- 
 gogics. We can utilize the life of appetite for food and the tendencies to 
 laziness, narrowness, anger, and impatience in order to train youth to 
 subordinate body to spirit. The will requires education ! Gymnastics, trade 
 practice, household work have a value in sexual pedagogics because they 
 exercise the child and youth in spiritual control over physical actions. 
 
 3. Sexual pedagogics may not be isolated from the rest of the life of 
 
74 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 youth. If it is so isolated there is danger of concentrating too much 
 attention on the sexual sphere Weakness of will, degradation of phantasy, 
 and abandonment of thought in this field can be corrected only by giving to 
 character-building a place above intellectual cramming in the whole life of 
 school and home. It is not desirable nor necessary to go into much detail 
 in instruction about sexual matters ; it is sufficient to show that certain 
 general, well-established convictions and modes of thinking, feeling, and 
 willing must be set up against this sphere and thus find their severest test. 
 
 Forster quotes Pestalozzi's Lienhard und Gertrud, where the 
 reformer Amer is described : 
 
 Amer based his legislation against the perversities of the sexual impulse, 
 from flirtation to child murder, on this foundation : before this appetite 
 awakes be prepared against its assaults by exercise in thoughtfulness and 
 order. When the sexual impulse arose it found the house civilly washed 
 and adorned and the master of the house had power to accustom the bad 
 spirit to the pure order which ruled the house, and at any time when it 
 raged to lay a chain on it. 
 
 The position of Forster was regarded as somewhat extreme, 
 austere, and impracticable by some members of this German con- 
 gress ; it seemed to some of the physicians a Httle visionary and 
 not to give a large enough place to direct, explicit, and detailed 
 anatomical, physiological, and hygienic instruction. So Dr. med. 
 Julian Marcuse (Ebenhausen-Miinchen) said openly (p. 263) : 
 
 This discussion before this congress has been about the questions of how, 
 where, and who. Dr. Forster has undertaken to throw overboard all the 
 results yet reached and in their place to set religious education and the 
 religious factor. Instruction in his view has only a limited place, only the 
 development of plants and animals will he teach, but when it comes to man 
 he would omit every sort of mention of even the most natural and element- 
 ary facts. He would refuse all utilization of scientific knowledge, the results 
 of investigation and discovery, all real relations. 
 
 VIEWS OF DR. MED. MARTIN CHOTZEN (BRESLAU)^" 
 
 Dr. Chotzen mentions several plans : one, a course of lectures 
 by a physician at meetings of teachers with voluntary attendance, 
 illustrated with wall drawings, with opportunity for written ques- 
 
 " Sexualpddagogik, D, G. B. G., pp. 300 ff. 
 
APPENDIX 75 
 
 tions at the close, not signed by the questioner. He gives his 
 syllabus of seven lectures (two each week) : 
 
 I. Purpose of this series of lectures. 
 
 I. Introduction to the study of sexual hygiene with the object: 
 a) the knowledge of those factors in which the influence of the 
 teacher may make itself felt; 
 
 6) the explanation of the importance of the sex question for the 
 school, the family, and the state; 
 
 c) further use of the appropriate literature in independent study; 
 2. Development, structure, and function of the male and female organs 
 of sex. 
 
 II. Description of the phenomena of puberty and the attending facts. 
 Rise of the sexual appetite. 
 
 III. Control of impulses. Pathological manifestations. 
 
 IV. Influence of education on control of impulses and their pathologicaJ 
 manifestations. 
 
 V. Impulse of sex and of propagation. The moral and economical signifi- 
 cance of marriage for the individual. Error of the hygienic necessity 
 for pre-marital sexual intercourse. Error of the "right to mother- 
 hood." 
 
 VI. Moral and economic importance of marriage for the state. The Mal- 
 thusian anxiety about over-population; the consequences of preven- 
 tion of conception. 
 
 VII. The effect of sexual diseases on the sick person, on his surroundings, 
 and on marriage. The bearings of public and secret prostitution in 
 relation to public health. The influence of education on the conduct 
 of youth and adults of both sexes in sexual matters. Education to 
 development of self-control in enjoyments — even in sexual gratifica- 
 tion, and consciousness of responsibility; knowledge of the moral 
 value of chastity up to entrance upon marriage. 
 
 He sought to show the relations of the reproductive system to 
 the entire organism, blood vessels, nerves, and to show that the sex 
 impulse is innate, which like any other innate impulse must be 
 guided in the right and moral path. 
 
SEX INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 
 
 HELEN C. PUTNAM, A.B., M.D. 
 
 President of the American Academy of Medicine and Chairman of Its Standing 
 
 Committee on the Teaching of Hygiene 
 
 FACTS INDICATING THE NEED 
 
 Social Diseases and Marriage by Dr. Prince A. Morrow is an 
 authoritative, scholarly, readable volume that should be in the 
 library of every institution training teachers. No one undertaking 
 the responsibility of preparing children for citizenship, whether as 
 parents or as teachers, is justified in ignorance of the facts con- 
 cerning the prevalence of the micro-organisms of Neisser and of 
 Schaudinn, and the appalling results to wifehood and childhood — in 
 the last analysis to modern nations as to ancient ones. 
 
 Less expensive summaries of facts, causes, prevention, are to be 
 found in educational pamphlets which every teacher should own, 
 issued by the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 
 whose membership includes leading conservative medical authori- 
 ties, biologists, statesmen, lawyers, social workers, and educators ; 
 and which, co-operating with similar scientific bodies in Europe, 
 undertakes a campaign against "the great black plague" not less, 
 but, if possible, more needed than that against "the great white 
 plague," tuberculosis. 
 
 The increase in this country during the last quarter-century of 
 these devastating diseases is unquestionably due to ignorance con- 
 cerning them. The first step in preventive education is knowledge 
 of the fact that unchastity (illegal sex relations), the commonest 
 means of infection, occurring in from 40 to 90 per cent, of males, 
 renders this percentage a menace to the family and society ; that 
 20 per cent, of infections occur before the twentieth year, the 
 largest percentage before the twenty-fifth ;^ that physical and mental 
 
 ^ This paper, prepared for this Handbook, represents the point of view of a 
 high-minded woman, a teacher, and an eminent physician. 
 * Cf. Morrow. 
 
 76 
 
SEX INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 77 
 
 habits in childhood, the result of misinformation, ignorance, and 
 thwarted normal interest in the origin of life lay the foundation of 
 future sexual errors ; that a formidable world-wide trade is finan- 
 cially engaged in promoting vice, which can be destroyed only by 
 popular insistence; that it is a companion of the saloon business; 
 and that much of the real estate occupied by brothels and saloons 
 is found at the tax assessor's office to be the property of men and 
 women high in spcial consideration — again the question of "tainted 
 money," to be solved only by popular education. 
 
 PARENTS AND TEACHERS 
 
 Which class, parents or teachers, shall educate children so that 
 present practices, with resulting widely extended invalidism, mor- 
 tality, childlessness, and degeneracy, shall be checked is indicated by 
 the fact that parenthood rarely confers the ability to train twentieth- 
 century citizens; a very large part of recent legislative and social 
 endeavor concerning ignorance and idleness, vice, intemperance, 
 and child labor being focused on parental incapacity. One logical 
 interpretation of parents' omission to instruct in the physiology and 
 hygiene of sex is that they connect it with vulgar ideas and embar- 
 rassments, and would spare their children — a creditable motive, 
 but a state of mind tragically wrong. Such parental misinforma- 
 tion passed on to children perpetuates vice, disease, mistakes, and 
 sorrow quite as often as does ignoring the subject. 
 
 We have courses for training teachers, not parents. The edu- 
 cators' problem is to create the first generation of fathers and 
 mothers whose understanding of elementary laws of life (biologic 
 laws) places sex information on a scientific plane, simple but true, 
 instead of the plane of ignorant traditions. "One must know what 
 is true in order to do what is right." Thereafter school instruction 
 in biologic laws will not be questioned, and homes will co-operate. 
 Such parents, like the few already informed, will understand that 
 the child's questions about sex and new life, almost invariably begin- 
 ning before four years of age, are the natural and fitting opportuni- 
 ties to anticipate future misinformation by truthfully responding to 
 the temporary interest (so long as satisfied it is only temporary), 
 thus inviting him to the same source for information next time. 
 Untruthfulness, mystery, prohibition, embarrassment alienate confi- 
 dence effectually. 
 
78 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 Society needs co-operation by schools in this as in other educa- 
 tion for which an earher civilization found homes sufficient. The 
 first undertaking must be preparation of teachers, whose informa- 
 tion hitherto, and consequent mental attitude, has been for the most 
 part no better than that of parents. 
 
 SCHOOL ATTEMPTS 
 
 From conversations with a large number of* educators while 
 investigating the teaching of hygiene in twenty-five of our most 
 progressive cities, I believe it well within the truth to say that a 
 majority, after a few years' experience, become anxiously alive to 
 the need for sex instruction among their pupils, but are handicapped 
 by popular and official prejudices and by personal unpreparedness ; 
 that they believe nature-study affords normal channels for the 
 necessary information; while some see that domestic science (better 
 called "home-making") properly taught also offers an invaluable 
 opportunity for constructive work with both boys and girls. 
 
 A few instructors in nature-study and in home-making are 
 demonstrating the possibilities. A study of their methods and 
 results is worth more than theorizing. The use of pamphlets for 
 private reading, personal interviews, lectures by physicians and 
 other outsiders I found so unsatisfactory to educators that the 
 reader is referred to fuller discussion of these methods.^ Parents' 
 clubs in a few schools were useful to a limited degree in this as in 
 other lines needing home co-operation. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE COURSES 
 
 Where sex instruction is successfully given it presents four 
 characteristics: (a) it attacks the subject indirectly (so far as 
 children and outsiders know) ; (&) it is constructive, not made up 
 of negations; teaching about good, not about evil; (c) it is based 
 on natural laws universal throughout organic life; {d) its method 
 is invariably the "laboratory method" — not textbooks and memoriz- 
 ing; {e) the teachers are "departmental," giving the chief part of 
 their time to elementary science, including "domestic science" or 
 "nature-study." 
 
 ^Bulletin of the American Academy of Medicine, April, 1906; Transactions 
 of the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, Vol. II, Putnam, 
 
SEX INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 
 
 79 
 
 Assuming that nature-study and domestic science, already widely 
 introduced, have come to stay, we note that sex instruction adds no 
 new branch ; rather, it co-ordinates details with this social need, 
 
 A course in the seventh and eighth grades. — The instructor had 
 supplemented her normal training with special study of physics, 
 chemistry, and biology at Chicago and Cornell universities. The 
 material was magnifying glasses, school garden, living specimens in 
 schoolroom, excursions. 
 
 With the seventh grade she began a "continued story," "The 
 story of the world we live in," during one hour once or twice 
 weekly. The first hour was given to attractive chemical experi- 
 ments illustrating gases, vapors ("chaos"), condensation into solids, 
 cooling, some of the properties of water, light, and heat. 
 
 This year's work was then led from the simplest forms of plant 
 life to the complex with the motto frequently repeated : "The two 
 objects of every living thing are to perfect itself and to reproduce 
 itself." For every plant these two objects were the lines of study. 
 Very early the terms "mother plant" and "father plant" were intro- 
 duced, with allied terms in plant and animal "families." Repro- 
 duction in yeast cells, spirogyra and vaucheria, and in higher plant 
 forms by spores, seeds, pollenation, were seen and drawn by the 
 children. Equal attention was given to other details, reproduction 
 being but one among several lines of observation. The children 
 were actively interested for they themselves were seeing and doing. 
 
 In the eighth grade the study along the same lines, perfection 
 and reproduction, utilized insects, birds, white mice, tadpoles, etc., 
 kept in vivariums, cages, and aquariums for daily observation. A 
 government fish hatchery was visited and the pupils saw the details 
 of artificial propagation. Economic and sociologic as well as 
 hygienic and physiologic principles were talked over. 
 
 The instructor is confident that "clean living" was helped. 
 
 There were two boys two or three years older than the others. They 
 were precocious and unclean minded. It could be seen in their faces at 
 the beginning of the lessons. I had no private talk with them, but at cer- 
 tain points I took pains to have them understand. There was a complete 
 mental revolution and moral, too. I know from their manner. They are 
 clean, good boys now, and twice as bright. 
 
 . A course in last year of grammar and first year of high school. — 
 The instructor was a biologist with the degree of M.A., and with a 
 
8o THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 normal training. The material was microscopes, living specimens 
 collected on excursions or from school garden, or growing in the 
 room; a small museum. The time was two hours daily for one 
 year. 
 
 The evolution of the vegetative functions, respiration, circulation, 
 digestion and nutrition, elimination, and reproduction, was traced 
 from protozoa through organisms of increasing complexity to man. 
 By observation they learned the correlated anatomy, physiology, 
 and functioning together — economy of efifort — and only so much 
 of it as was essential to elementary understanding of their impor- 
 tance to the life of the individual, but definite and clear as far as 
 they went. 
 
 Near the end of their course the instructor gave them a "sex 
 talk," recalling the progression of the function of reproduction 
 from single-cell life to mammals (rabbits), reminding them of the 
 evolution of the "home" and parental care and affection (phenomena 
 that had impressed them greatly in their specimens) ; and telling 
 them of necessity, even as children, of active, healthy, honorable 
 lives, with no concealments, for the sake of their future homes, 
 reminding them of the heredity they had seen in their studies. 
 Germ diseases had already been spoken of in connection with 
 unicellular life, and mention was now made of the prevalence 
 among practically all immoral men and women of communicable 
 germs that blight the lives of innocent as well as of evil people, 
 who should be shunned as one does smallpox. The avoidance of 
 alcoholic drinks, almost always a part of such lives, was empha- 
 sized. 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 The instructor watched results from this experiment in science 
 closely during the following weeks, and is wholly assured that 
 with no exception they were wholesome. The clear-eyed enthu- 
 siasm, spontaneous and eager, begging for the privilege of working 
 over time, continued to the end. Their curiosity had been frankly 
 answered by tracing law through its evolution. This seems the nor- 
 mal path for finite minds to climb to truth, specially when befouled 
 by ignorant tradition. The difficulties are not with the young. A 
 child's clear mind knows no embarrassments until the clouds of 
 ignorance in some older one cast these shadows there. 
 
SEX INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 8i 
 
 The instructor noted also marked growth in initiative and self- 
 reliance, gentleness and thoughtfulness. There is no better train- 
 ing in truthfulness than this drill of reporting verbally and in 
 writing what one has done or seen. What is a better way of 
 implanting reverence for the Maker of it all? 
 
 These pupils were required at intervals to review in a written 
 paper definite lines of investigation. One set of papers traced the 
 evolution of respiration, another, circulation. The papers on repro- 
 duction, just as written, were sent me, and portions are published 
 with further details of this and other schools in the Bulletin of the 
 American Academy of Medicine, April, 1906. I was particularly 
 impressed by the excellent English, large vocabulary, logical thought, 
 and grasp of subject. 
 
 All these supplementary effects of good work in the study of 
 life itself are additional proof that a fundamental line of knowl- 
 edge, well taught, re-enforces others and serves eJfTectually for drill 
 in the tools of knowledge — the three R's. Many teachers have told 
 me that school gardens, the outdoor laboratories of nature-study, 
 are invaluable for learning mathematics. 
 
 CHIEF DIFFICULTY AND OBJECT 
 
 It is harmful to distinguish this topic from the regular work, 
 i. e., the mind must be guided to, through, and beyond it by logical 
 progression. Biology offers this possibility to an ideal degree. Our 
 stumbling block is the lack of elementary knowledge of it by 
 superintendents, with the prevalent state of mind re sex subjects 
 resulting. A less difficulty, one easily removed when superin- 
 tendents require, is that the majority (not all) of biologic students 
 are bound by academic methods, and need to arrange details for 
 children with a view to plant in the public intelligence certain 
 desirable trends of thought. To create popular appreciation that 
 this gift of life, evolved straight down to each through innumerable 
 predecessors, is a trust to be modified in his turn and passed on — 
 or cut off — is not a difficult task for the biologist. Consciousness 
 of it sinks into the child's mind while following the fascinating 
 life-cycles of lower creatures, as does the fact of recurring seasons. 
 
 It must help to check trifling with one's own or another life, 
 cutting them short by suicide, or by murder of the unborn— now 
 
82 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK 
 
 SO ruthlessly common. One-quarter of all pregnancies end in abor- 
 tions one-half of which are criminal, i. e., brought about, chiefly 
 in our "respectable" classes, while a large part of the remainder is 
 due to the spirocheta pallida of Schaudinn. The census of 1900 
 gives the infant death rate as 169.4 per 1,000 births. One eastern 
 city has an infant mortality of 400 per 1,000, several 300, and over 
 100 cities have an infant mortality above 175 per 1,000 births. 
 More than half is unnecessary. The reason for it is elementary 
 ignorance among the products of our schools. 
 
 If growth of the child's mind epitomizes racial development, as 
 physical growth before birth shows characteristic stages of evolu- 
 tion from single-celled life to mammals, we need to rearrange our 
 artificial curricula. Natural phenomena and industries were the 
 primeval influences developing society. There is abundant evidence 
 for believing that these, restored in formative years, will offer 
 normal paths for guiding the child healthfully into the complicated 
 institutions of present social organization, a laborious task through 
 books and memorizing alone — too often cruelly disappointing. 
 
 WHAT TO TELL A CHILD 
 
 What a child should be told has been fairly indicated in the 
 foregoing, but is further discussed in the Educational Pamphlet for 
 Teachers, as is also the possibility of dealing with the practice of 
 self-abuse. 
 
 The introduction of methods employing larger muscular mecha- 
 nisms in greater degree, as in the garden, laboratory, and shoi) 
 work of the sciences and industries, together with wise modification 
 of "calisthenics" to include swimming, rowing, walking and run- 
 ning, target practice, team work and individual competition in 
 games and historic dances is indispensable in engaging attention 
 and nervous energy in wholesome directions. More open-air 
 interests and more sanitary indoor life are 'factors. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 No attempt is here made to offer a complete list of books and other 
 publications on the topics of this Handbook; that would require another 
 volume. For the convenience of those who desire to pursue the subject a 
 few important titles are mentioned, with indications of further materials. 
 
 For Part I, on the medical, economic, and legal aspects of the problem, 
 the following may be consulted : 
 
 Prince A. Morrow, A.M., M.D., Social Diseases and Marriage; Social 
 Prophylaxis. Lea Bros. & Co., 1904. This book contains references to 
 the professional and technical literature. 
 
 Howard A. Kelly, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.S., Medical Gynecology. D. Apple- 
 ton & Co., 1908. 
 
 August Forel, Dr. med., phil. et jur.. Die sexuelle Frage. Munich, 1907. 
 Many references to European literature. 
 
 The Committee of Fifteen (eminent men in various professions). The 
 Social Evil, with Special Reference to the Conditions Existing in the 
 City of New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902. 
 
 Social Hygiene vs. the Sexual Plagues. Issued by the Indiana State Board 
 of Health, Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 For American Workingwomen and Their Children. Issued by the Penn- 
 sylvania Society for the Prevention of Social Disease, 1908-9; Dr. 
 Robert N. Willson, Secretary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Philadelphia: F. A. 
 Davis. 3 vols. 
 
 Paul Bureau, La crise morale des temps nouveaux. A dark view of 
 French urban life. 
 
 Dr. Neuberger, V erdffentlichungen des deutschen Vereins fUr Volks- 
 Hygiene. Heft VI, 1904. 
 
 For Part II, on the educational aspects of the problem, consult: 
 
 Educational Pamphlets of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral 
 Prophylaxis. Dr. E. L. Keyes, Jr., Secretary, 109 E. 34th Street, 
 New York. 
 
 Pamphlets of the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene. Dr. W. T, Belfield, 
 Secretary, 100 State Street, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Helen C. Putnam, M.D., "Biology and The Teaching of Hygiene," Edu- 
 ■ cation, November i, 1907; "Practicability of Instruction in the Phy- 
 
 83 
 
84 THE EIGHTH YEARBOOK ~ 
 
 siology and Hygiene of Sex as Demonstrated in Several Public Schools, 
 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, January 31, 1907. 
 "The Teaching of Hygiene through Domestic Science and through Nature- 
 Study," Report of the Committee to Investigate the Teaching of 
 Hygiene through Domestic Science and through Nature-Study," Dr. 
 Charles Mclntire, Secretary, American Academy of Medicine, Easton, 
 Pa. 
 G. S. HalLj Adolescence. 
 
 The literature upon this topic falls into several classes: (1) Anthropological, 
 treating of the sexual life of primitive people . . . . ; the studies of abnormal 
 phenomena . . . . ; (3) studies of normal sexual psychology, like those of Frick, 
 Scott, Gulick, Bell, and also Ellis; (4") the vast biological literature; (5) that of 
 warning, like Storer, Howe, M. W. Allen, Sperry, Blackwell, Warren, Richmond, 
 Stall, Wilcox, Wilder, and Morley. Most of these are too long ; however, some, 
 written by well-intentioned religious people, have had wide sale and brought their 
 authors great gain, and perhaps on the whole they do good. (Vol. I, p. 470.) 
 
 He thinks that, perhaps, the best of all for inspiring influence is Ch. 
 Wagner's Youth (Jeunesse). 
 
 Sexualpddagogik. Verhandlungen des 3ten Kongresses der Deutschen 
 Gesellschaft zur Bekampfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten, 1907. Leipsic, 
 J. A. Barth. 
 
 Gache, L'education du peuple, Pp.254 ff- 
 
 Inazo NiTOBi, A.M., Ph.D., Bushido, the Soul of Japan. G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, 1907. 
 
 A. Marro, La puberte. Paris, igoi. 
 
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