[Sidenote: Sex-education is not primarily for schools.]
It is well to make clear in this first lecture that no one proposes to
limit sex-instruction to schools and colleges. We may safely leave
mathematics and writing and even reading to schools, but sex-education
will fail unless the schools can get the cooperation of the homes, the
churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the W.C.T.U., the Boy Scouts, the
Camp Fire Girls, and other organizations which aim to reach young
people socially, religiously, and ethically. The part which these have
already taken in the sex-education movement is in the aggregate far
more important than what the schools have been able to accomplish.
Sex-education, then, should be understood as including all serious
instruction--no matter where or when or by whom given--which aims to
help young people face the problems that normal sexual processes bring
to every life.
[Sidenote: Sex-instruction impossible in most homes.]
In a later lecture I shall urge the importance of beginning
sex-instruction in the home. There are some parents who wish that it
were possible not only to begin but also to end it there, for they fear
that public instruction will lead to a weakening of a certain sense of
reserve and privacy that has long been considered sacred to the best
family life. Perhaps this has some truth, but we must remember that
only in rare homes are there such ideal relationships of parents to
each other and to their offspring that matters of sex are sacred to the
family circle. The fact which parents and educators must face is that
there are now relatively few homes in which there is one parent able to
begin the elementary instruction of young children; and, therefore, as
a practical matter for the best interests of the vast majority of young
people, we must consider ways and means for instruction outside of most
homes. This need not interfere in the least with the parents who are
able and willing to give sex-instruction to the children, for the home
instruction will naturally anticipate that which the schools must give
for the pupils who are not properly instructed at home. It seems to me
to be a situation like that of children learning to read at home and
later continuing reading at school. Sex-instruction begun at home will
form the child's attitude and give him some elementary information, and
later he may profitably learn more in the same lines in the class work
of school, especially in connection with science instruction for which
few homes have facilities. Moreover, it is quite possible that one
instructed at home in childhood may gain from later school instruction
something of great social value, for we must remember that the problems
of sex which most demand attention are not individual, but social.
Hence, it may be worth while for the home-instructed individual to
learn through class instruction that people outside the home look
seriously upon knowledge concerning sexual processes, and that every
individual's life must be adjusted to other lives, that is, to society.
Summarizing, it appears that however desirable home instruction
regarding sex may be, the majority of parents are not able and willing
to undertake the work, and so the public educational system and
organizations for social and religious work should provide a scheme of
instruction which will make sure that all young people will have an
opportunity to get the most helpful information for the guidance of
their lives.
[Sidenote: Caution in school instruction.]
[Sidenote: Parents' co-operation.]
In order to gain the serious attention of those who believe themselves
unalterably opposed to school instruction regarding things sexual, I
anticipate a later discussion and mention in this connection that
there must be great caution in all attempts at school teaching that
directly touches human sexual life. It would be a dangerous experiment
to introduce sex-instruction into all schools by sudden legislation.
There must be specially trained teachers of selected personality and
tact. No existing high school has enough such teachers, and in the
grammar schools where the pupils are at the age when proper instruction
would influence them most, the problem of general class instruction is
absolutely unsolved. Only here and there in schools below the high
school has a teacher or principal of rare quality made satisfactory
experimental teaching. So uncertain are we at present regarding how we
should approach the problem of teaching grammar-school children that
the only safe advice for general use is that teachers, or preferably
principals, should begin with parents' conferences led by one who is a
conservative expert on sex-instruction. Were I principal of a school
with pupils from, say, two hundred and fifty homes, I should begin at
once to organize conferences designed to awaken the parents to the need
of sex-instruction for their children, and to the importance of making
at least a beginning in the homes. I should expect, according to the
experience of others, that of the five hundred parents, two hundred
mothers and fifty fathers would take an interest in the conferences,
and that at least one hundred fathers too busy for meetings would
approve heartily after hearing reports from their wives. Thus, I
should try to reach the majority of homes represented in my school. I
should be in no hurry to introduce class instruction--I mean
instruction related directly to human life; but, of course, I should
encourage my teachers to emphasize the life-histories of animals and
plants in the nature-study, and so lay in the pupils' minds a firm
foundation for later connection between human life and all life. At the
same time, I should keep my teachers on the lookout for individual
pupils or groups that might need special attention and, if such be
found, I should seek the cooperation of their parents. And finally,
after a year or two of co-working with parents, I should hope to get
permission for special talks based on nature-study and hygiene. These
talks should first be given to limited groups of pupils, preferably in
the presence of some parents who are interested and who have given
their children some home instruction. Working along such conservative
lines, I believe a tactful principal of a grammar school might succeed
in developing much of the needed instruction for pre-adolescent pupils.
[Sidenote: Instruction in high schools.]
With regard to high-school pupils, we should remember that nine-tenths
of the desirable information is already included in the biology of our
best high schools. The remaining tenth is that which connects all life
with human life; and this requires tact and exceptional skill. However,
the high schools no longer offer an insoluble problem, for many
teachers have succeeded in giving the desirable instruction to the
satisfaction of critical principals and parents.
[Sidenote: Sex-education from early childhood to maturity.]
There is a widespread impression that sex-instruction should begin with
the approach of adolescence and soon be completed. This idea is often
expressed by parents and even by prominent educators who say that the
father or teacher ought "to take the boy of thirteen aside and tell him
some things he ought to know." Still others have the same point of view
when they advocate that a physician should be called for a lecture to
high-school boys. In fact, most people who have not seriously studied
the problems of sex-education seem to believe that one concentrated
dose of sex-instruction in adolescent years is sufficient guidance for
young people.
Such limited personal instruction might suffice if sex-education were
limited to sex-hygiene. A few hygienic commands in pre-adolescent years
and one impressive talk in early puberty might teach the boy or girl
how not to interfere with health; but it is improbable that such brief
instruction will make a permanent impression which will insure hygienic
practice of the precepts laid down. If we hold that sex-hygiene is
important, then it must be drilled into the learner from several points
of view. An isolated lesson on any topic of general hygiene is of very
doubtful efficiency.
[Sidenote: Brief instruction does not fix attitude.]
The most important reason why sex-instruction should not be
concentrated in a short period of youth is that it is impossible to
exert the most desirable influence upon health, attitude, and morals
except by instruction beginning in early childhood and graded for each
period of life up to maturity. Most young people who in early
adolescence receive their first lessons from parents and teachers have
already had their attitude formed by their playmates. Even their morals
may become corrupted and their health irreparably injured several years
before puberty. The only sure pathway to health, attitude, and morals
is in beginning with young children and instructing them as gradually
as the problems of sex come forward.
[Sidenote: Sex-instruction after youth.]
The greatest possible good of sex-education will not be secured if it
stops with early adolescent years. There are many problems of sex in
relation to society, particularly in relation to monogamic marriage,
that young people should be led to consider in the late teens and early
twenties. Our sex-education system will not be completely organized
until we find ways and means for carrying the instruction by lectures,
conferences, and books beyond the years commonly occupied by
public-school education. Colleges and other higher educational
institutions may contribute somewhat to this advanced sex-instruction;
but obviously the great majority of maturing young people cannot be
reached personally except by instruction arranged in churches, the
Y.M.C.A., and the Y.W.C.A., evening schools, and other such
institutions. In many respects this proposed instruction for maturing
young people is of very great importance and deserves encouragement
such as has not yet been given by those who have written and lectured
in favor of a movement for sex-education of young people.
[Sidenote: The larger sex-education.]
In conclusion of this introductory lecture, let me say that I have
tried to suggest in a general survey that sex-education in its largest
outlook touches great problems of life in very many ways. I have also
tried to convince that it is far more than merely a school subject,
limited entirely to a curriculum extended over a few years. This is the
common misunderstanding arising from the familiar use of the word
"education." As opposed to this narrow conception, I understand
sex-education, the larger sex-education, to be a collective term
designating all organized effort, both in and out of schools, toward
instructing and influencing young people with regard to the problems of
sex. Here we have returned to the central thought of the definition
with which this lecture opened, and which I emphasize because it is the
foundation of all future lectures: The larger sex-education includes
all scientific, ethical, social, and religious instruction and
influence which in any way may help young people prepare to meet the
problems of life in relation to sex.