In an article in the _Educational Review_, February, 1914,
Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, writes concerning what he
calls "the teaching of child hygiene" as follows:
[Sidenote: Dr. Maxwell's criticisms.]
"There are those to-day who claim that sexual information and
problems should be thrust upon the attention of boys and girls by
the teachers in the public schools, that this teaching is
necessary for the protection of virtue and the prevention of
disease, and that, if anyone hesitates to encourage the spread of
such literature and the teaching of such knowledge, he is an
arrant and presumptuous blockhead. The arrogance of the extreme
advocates of child hygiene blinds them to certain all-important
truths. The first is that our teachers are not prepared, and, in
too many cases, are not the most suitable persons to teach the
subject. The second is that to bring the adolescent mind face to
face with sexual matters engenders the habit of dwelling upon the
sexual passion, and in that may lie spiritual havoc and physical
ruin. A premature interest in the sexual passion debases the mind
and unsettles the will. The third is that parents have no right to
ask the teacher to do the work that is peculiarly theirs.
"And yet some good may emerge from this discussion. Parents may be
incited to do their duty in placing sex information before their
children whenever conditions demand such knowledge. And principals
and teachers, particularly principals, whenever they have the
acuteness to detect the tendency to wrong-doing, will no longer
hesitate to utter the word of warning in season. As for the
extravagant claims made for the teaching of sex-hygiene, I have
too much faith in the good sense of the American people to believe
that it will ever be generally and regularly taught in American
schools. Surely, we have learned something since the law compelled
us to teach the untruths regarding the effects of stimulants and
narcotics that were published in the early school manuals of
physiology and hygiene."
[Sidenote: Reply to Dr. Maxwell.]
I comment as follows: (1) Dr. Maxwell refers only to the "extreme
advocates." They did exist in abundance a few years ago, but are
already rare in the group of well-known educators. (2) Most teachers
are not prepared and never can be prepared to teach the human aspect of
sex problems, especially the hygienic in the strict sense. (3)
Conservative sex-instruction such as was advocated by the advisers of
the American Federation for Sex-hygiene (see "Report" by Morrow and
others, 1913) aims to guard against "premature interest in the sexual
passion." (4) While I sympathize with Dr. Maxwell's view that teaching
the elementary hygiene of sex is the parent's duty, I am forced to
recognize the futility of advocating that all or even a respectable
minority of parents should undertake their duty (see Sec. 4). The truth
is that most of them will not, and cannot if they will, try to do so. (5)
Dr. Maxwell's idea that sex-hygiene should be taught only when an
astute principal or parent "detects wrong-doing" is, to say the least,
an educational theory that will astonish one who knows even the
elementary facts regarding the secrecy of the sexual life of young
people in general. Will he next be logically consistent and advocate
that all moral education should be given only after children show signs
of wrong-doing? (6) Sex-hygiene, as Dr. Maxwell understands it to be
concerned directly and solely with human sexual problems, will never be
taught in American schools controlled by people of good sense; but
sex-instruction from the larger viewpoint is taught in some of the best
of Dr. Maxwell's high schools. (7) All advocates of sex-instruction who
have a national reputation for educational sanity agree that
legislation is most undesirable. (8) It is obvious that like so many
others who have become confused regarding the sex-education movement,
Dr. Maxwell has been impressed chiefly by the pioneer work that
emphasized only hygienic teaching regarding sex.