Footnote 4:
See Courses on Sex Hygiene. By Jane R. McCrady on page 124 of this
Issue.
There are some things (chocolate, for instance, or tracts, or paper
drinking-cups) that can be shot out of a slot at you and hit their mark.
You can apply them to their uses at once. It is the same with the facts
fired at you through the window of his booth by the railroad information
man. Such facts set you on your track or your train at once.
But when people ask for clear directions about the train to proficiency
in violin playing, belief in immortality, or understanding of sex, they
always miss their train. Sometimes they complain of the officials.
After a course of lectures on sex last year some workers of my
acquaintance handed in written questions beginning “What should I say to
a young girl who,” etc., and were disappointed when no definite answer
was forthcoming. To illustrate the difficulties of an answer let us ask
a few parallel questions:
What paint shall I use for a Madonna?
What are the best words to use in a love sonnet?
What is the best book on being a millionaire?
What kind of bread makes you popular and handsome?
What liniment makes one’s sympathies most supple?
People rush to lectures on “sex hygiene,” sometimes for good reasons,
sometimes to satisfy morbid curiosity, but often with a pathetic hunger
for the bread of life. In the hope of forestalling such disappointments
the lecturer should hang up before them a sign reading:
“This lecture will not solve fundamental problems. Seek ye the Lord.”
THE DAWN OF A BETTER DAY
A MANUFACTURER SPEAKS