Ex-President Taft has expressed his views against the sex-education
movement. The newspapers quote as follows from an address delivered in
Philadelphia in 1914:
"There is another danger in our educational influences and
environment. I refer to the spread of lubricity in literature, on
the stage and indirectly in education, under the plea that vice
may be avoided by teaching the awful consequences. By dwelling on
its details and explaining its penalties, sexual subjects are
obtruded into discussion between the sexes, lectures are delivered
on them, textbooks are written, and former restraints of modesty
are abandoned.
[Sidenote: Mr. Taft's alarm.]
"The pursuit of education in sex-hygiene is full of danger if
carried on in general public schools. The sharp, pointed and
summary advice of mothers to daughters, of fathers to sons, of a
medical professor to students in a college upon such a subject is,
of course, wise, but any benefit that may be derived from
frightening students by dwelling upon the details of the dreadful
punishment of vice is too often offset by awakening a curiosity
and interest that might not be developed so early and is likely to
set the thoughts of those whose benefit is at stake in a direction
that will neither elevate their conversations with their fellows
nor make more clean their mental habit.
"I deny that the so-called prudishness and the avoidance of nasty
subjects in the last generation has ever blinded any substantial
number of girls or boys to the wickedness of vice or made them
easier victims of temptations."
[Sidenote: Evident misunderstanding.]
The above requires little comment, for its misunderstandings are
obvious to one who has followed the sex-education movement. Clearly Mr.
Taft has been impressed by the social-hygiene side of the problems and
does not realize the existence of a larger outlook for sex-education.
Like so many other writers who seem to know little concerning the
sexual life of children, especially of boys, Mr. Taft fears "the
awakening of curiosity and interest"! This, of course, depends upon the
facts taught and the age of the learner, but it hardly applies to
children in or near adolescence who are taught along the lines
suggested by the committee of the American Federation for Sex-Hygiene
(1913). The last paragraph quoted from Mr. Taft will be denied
completely by all who are familiar with the problems of adolescent
education. To say the least, it is unfortunate that a man prominent in
law and statesmanship should have lent the weight of his name to such
superficial conclusions that are so obviously based on exceedingly
limited information regarding both the established facts of sex and the
most approved methods of sex-instruction.