[Sidenote: Pragmatic solution of sex problems.]
In the preceding series of lectures we have surveyed eight important
sex problems that can never be solved, even in part, unless by
widespread information that specifically guides the individual and
organized society in the adjustment of sexual instincts to the peculiar
conditions that obtain in our modern civilized life. To spread the
knowledge that will help civilized humanity on towards the best
possible adjustment of sex and life, and therefore to a pragmatic
solution of sexual problems, is the task or the chief aim of
sex-education.[12]
[Sidenote: No hope for complete solution.]
[Sidenote: Constant advance towards ideals.]
Of course, only the ultra-Utopian dreamer claims that sex-education can
solve all the sexual problems of civilized life, but even the most
pessimistic disbeliever in the new movement admits that knowledge of
sexual life will be helpful to the great majority of people. Hence, it
is worth while to organize the educational attack on the sex problems
which we have considered in the preceding lectures. It seems to me that
we may gain an advantage by frankly admitting that the educational
attack is not expected to solve all sex problems for all people, for by
such admission we put to flight those shallow cynics who have opposed
the sex-education movement because they think (and probably correctly)
that immorality and social diseases and all other sexual disharmonies
will continue to exist as long as the human species does. Likewise,
there will be dishonesty and murder and preventable diseases and all
other human troubles in spite of education; but the advancement of
learning has slowly and progressively reduced the sum total of all the
disharmonies of life until now civilized people are largely free from
many of the original or barbaric conditions. Along similar lines we may
confidently think of sex-education as making a constantly advancing and
victorious attack on the problems of life that have grown out of our
primitive sexual instincts. Sex-education, like all other education,
strives towards ideals that individuals and society may always approach
but may never reach. It is only another case of Emerson's advice,
"hitch your wagon to a star," which means the adoption of high ideals
that lead ever on and on towards better life.
With this understanding that _the task of sex-education is the
ever-advancing improvement of sexual conditions in individual as well
as in social life_, let us turn now to consider the possible lines for
definite educational attack on the chief problems of sex. It will be
most helpful if we first analyze the general task of sex-education into
some specific aims that may definitely guide instruction, and then in
later lectures consider the methods and detailed subject matter of
sex-instruction.