III

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

Physiology and psychology of marriage.

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

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

Other knowledge needed.

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

Helpful literature.

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

Similar education of the sexes.

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

Little differentiation.

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

Need of sex-education for feminism.

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

"To hear many women talk it would appear that the new ideal is a one-sexed world. A great army of women have espoused the task of raising their sex out of subjection. For such a duty the strength and energy of passion is required. Can this task be performed if the woman to any extent indulges insex—otherwise subjection to man? Sexuality debases, even reproduction and birth are regarded as 'nauseating.' Woman is not free, only because she has been the slave to the primitive cycle of emotions which belong to physical love. The renunciation, the conquest of sex—it is this that must be gained. As for man, he has been shown up, women have found him out; his long-worn garments of authority and his mystery and glamour have been torn into shreds—woman will have none of him."Now obviously these are over-statements, yet they are the logical outcome of much of the talk that one hears. It is the visible sign of our incoherence and error, and in the measure of these follies we are sent back to seek the truth. Women need a robuster courage in the face of love, a greater faith in their womanhood, and in the scheme of Life. Nothing can be gained from the child's folly in breaking the toys that have momentarily ceased to please. The misogamist type of woman cannot fail to prove as futile as the misogamist man. Not 'Freefromman' is the watch-cry of women's emancipation that surely is to be, but 'Freewithman.'"

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

Sex and intellectualism.

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

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

Young women misled by sexual pessimists.

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

The greatest good in sex-education.

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

The greatest sex problem.

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

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

Meaning of eugenics.

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

Eugenics in biology.

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

Relation of eugenics and sex-hygiene.

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

Facts of heredity.

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

Sex-hygiene and eugenics parallel.

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

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

§ 14.Summary of Lectures on Sex Problems

Problems of health, attitude, and morals.

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

Many-sided instruction needed.

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

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

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

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

[4]Louise Creighton, in her excellent little book on "The Social Disease and How to Fight It" (Longmans), has well presented the problems of social impurity from woman's point of view.Dr. W.S. Hall, in "Life's Problems," has given in a few pages the necessary protective knowledge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

§ 15.The Task of Sex-education

Pragmatic solution of sex problems.

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

No hope for complete solution.

Constant advance towards ideals.

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

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

§ 16.The Aims of Sex-education

Emphasis on social disease.

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

Other problems need emphasis.

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

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

Five lines of instruction.

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

Four aims.

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

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

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

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

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

Order of importance of aims.

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

Relation of aims to problems of sex.

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

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

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

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

Biology and attitude.

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

Literature and attitude.

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

Teaching personal sex-hygiene.

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

Sex-hygiene in general hygiene.

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

Hygiene in biology.

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

Special lectures on hygiene.

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

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

Difficulty in ethical-social teaching.

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

Social hygiene and ethics.

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

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

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