[Sidenote: Nature-study.]
The life-histories of plants and animals as taught in the best
nature-study[13] are important in forming attitude towards reproduction
and giving a basis for simple and truthful answers to the child's
questions as to the origin of the individual human life. The
publications listed in the last section of this book under the headings
"For Girls" and "For Boys" will help parents and teachers.
There is need of little private hygienic instruction, but of much
guidance away from harmful habits. This will be indicated in the next
section which considers masturbation as it concerns children of both
sexes and all ages.
[Sidenote: Protection.]
The protection of children from corrupting influences is an important
work of sex-education in pre-adolescent years. Probably the greatest
safety lies in parents giving simple facts regarding reproduction and
in cultivating confidence so that any accidental contact of their
children with vulgarity will be counteracted in advance. Many parents,
especially mothers, have found this possible.
[Sidenote: Girls' preparation for puberty.]
In the years between ten and twelve every child should learn from a
parent or other adult confidant some general facts regarding their
approaching puberty. This is especially important in the case of girls,
for many a girl has been physically and mentally injured because a
prudish mother has procrastinated too long the giving of information
regarding the first menstrual period. The facts in the first thirty
pages of W.S. Hall's "Life Problems" should be known by many girls of
eleven and by the great majority before thirteen. Some books for young
girls are defective in that they avoid reference to the coming
changes. I see no excuse for a sex-hygiene book for girls who are too
young to be trusted with the simplest knowledge regarding menstruation.
Such children should be interested in nature studies and perhaps the
elements of general hygiene, but certainly not in books with
curiosity-stimulating titles.
[Sidenote: Special needs of boys.]
Since boys entering puberty pass through no such sharply defined
beginning as girls do, the information they need in advance is not so
specific. At the same time, we must recognize that the average boy
under twelve years picks up more information regarding sexual life than
a girl does, and so the problem of teaching self-control comes earlier,
although the average girl enters puberty a year or two before the boy.
Parents and teachers must recognize the fact that sexual tendencies
come to many boys several years before puberty, and masturbation and
even premature sexual intercourse are possible problems with many boys
long before the twelfth year. The boy's early gathering of sexual
information is not without advantage, for it becomes possible for
parents and other adult confidants to explain many important truths as
to the proper use of his sex organs and as to his conduct towards
girls. All this can be done with the average boy of eleven or twelve
and with hundreds of even nine and ten without any fear of giving
information that is startlingly new and without any danger of giving a
nervous shock.
[Sidenote: Cautious teaching of girls.]
It is not so with average girls of equal ages, if we may accept the
opinion of many women who are trained in science and medicine. Specific
information as to the functional relationships of the two sexes is said
by many educated women to have been absolutely new and startling to
them at twenty and twenty-five years. Evidently there is a special
reason for gradual and cautious teaching of girls, and so it is
probably best, as many parents urge, that in pre-adolescent years the
girl's instruction in social-sexual lines be training in modest
deportment and a proper reserve towards boys. This ought to be
sufficient for the girl's protection until gradually in adolescent
years she learns the whole story of life, probably several years later
than her boy friends whose natural leadership in sexual activity makes
their early information desirable as a protection to both sexes.
[Sidenote: Children's friendships.]
In the pre-adolescent years parents and teachers should cooperate in
developing a spirit of group fellowship between boys and girls and at
the same time instill into the boys something of that chivalrous and
protective attitude of boys towards girls such as one finds in the
families of the highest culture. I emphatically mean "group
fellowship," for it is certainly undesirable to encourage in
pre-adolescents any tendency towards paired comradeship. It is
certainly best that boys and girls should have many good friends of
both sexes. The real truth back of the old adage "two is company and
three is a crowd" makes the "crowd" highly desirable for both
pre-adolescence and early adolescence, for in these years it is
friendship and not romantic love that will be most helpful in the later
life. As one step in this direction, all sensible adults should show
their disfavor to the abominable habit of teasing small children
concerning their best friends of the other sex. Parents and teachers
will do some of the best work in the larger sex-education if they begin
in pre-adolescent years to develop the social life of the children
along lines similar to those suggested above.
[Sidenote: Summary.]
Summarizing, it is evident that there is very little direct
sex-instruction suitable for pre-adolescent years. So far as the
child's own life is concerned, it now seems clear that parents or other
adult confidants must instruct individuals, or possibly small uniformly
selected groups. Class instruction seems out of the question except for
life-history studies of animals and plants. On the whole, then, there
is nothing radical or impossible in the proposition that there should
be a beginning of sex-education before the advent of adolescence.