then begins. Encourage regular reports on the work of the classes at
each meeting of the Council, the school representatives reporting.
3. Plan for the execution of the Missionary, Purity and Temperance
Programs.
4. Extend the Council's field until it covers the common physical,
social, mental and spiritual activities of the community teen age boys.
5. Plan for regular Conference or Banquet Programs.
6. Ultimately the entire common Sunday school athletic and social life
of the community would center in the Inter-Sunday School Council.
_Meeting of Superintendents_
It is suggested that at this juncture a meeting of Sunday school
Superintendents be called for the purpose of thoroughly acquainting them
with the plans of the Council. This will secure the cooperation of the
Superintendents, which is most essential. The effort to get the
Superintendents behind the work will be more successful if the city be
divided into sections and a Superintendents' meeting be held in each
section. These meetings can be made very helpful.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BOYS' CRUSADE
High School Student Christian Movement Series:
Bulletin No. 1. The Local Organization (.05).
Bulletin No. 2. Typical Constitution (.05).
Bulletin No. 3. The Inner Circle (.05).
International Secondary Division Leaflet, No. 5 (Free).
XV
SEX EDUCATION FOR BOYS AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL[10]
There can be no adequate comprehension of the physical side of boyhood
if the sex element be left out. In fact, we have discovered for
ourselves that this is the very element that constitutes the real
problem of boyhood; for until the idea of sex enters into the boy's
consciousness we are only dealing with an infant. It is the gift and
power of self-reproduction that changes the selfish, individual
existence into the larger, altruistic life. It is this that compels
gangs and team-work and the instinctive desire to negate self in service
for others. It is this that forms the basis for the tribal or community
desire; and on it, understood or not, is built all further achievement.
The real value of a brave to his tribe begins with the support of his
squaw, and the modern boy gets his importance among us, when, because of
bodily function, he awakens to the consciousness of the meaning of the
home. This comes gradually at puberty or adolescence with the knowledge
of the sex purpose. And it is the quality of this knowledge, its purity
and fear and regard, that makes the lad a worthy member of the larger
whole, or a peril.
Knowing this as we do, is it not a matter of some wonder that we have
never really made any systematic effort to instruct the boy concerning
his wonderful power? Very few fathers give their sons any guidance along
this line, although they do so quite freely on every other subject. Of
course, it is a sacred, delicate subject from which we naturally shrink,
but it is overmodesty to allow a lad to fall into the abuse of his
manhood, either alone or in twos, when a wise word, spoken in time,
would save the smirch on two lives or more. In fact, we are beginning
really to understand that it is just as imperative for us to teach a boy
how to live his life with the utmost happiness as to show him how to
procure the wherewithal to feed his body. For this reason it is being
advocated today that the boy should be given explicit instruction as to
the care of the organs of reproduction and detailed information as to
the functions of these organs, and many are doing this.
Our boys today are eating freely of "the knowledge of good and evil,"
and they are not as innocent as we could wish them to be. They are not
ignorant of the processes of life because we have said nothing
concerning them, but their knowledge is partial and faulty and clouded
with misinformation.
A few years ago a body of men were discussing this very thing in New
York City, and one of them suggested that every one present write on a
piece of paper the age at which he had his first sex knowledge and pass
it to the head of the table. The average age named by this group of
interested men was six and a half years. Not one of these men, either,
had ever had a single word spoken to him on this all-important subject
by any adult. Their knowledge was of the street. Is it any wonder, then,
that boys stray, mar their own lives, betray confidences and innocence
and become moral lepers, feeding like parasites on the fairest of our
communities?
Instruction in the processes of the function of reproduction would help
many a boy to a clean participation in and a happy understanding of the
home. The divorce evil and the necessity of a large number of surgical
operations among women, to say nothing of the so-called social evil,
would be greatly lessened by such instruction. The father, of course, is
the proper person to deal with this question.
=Parents and the Sex Problem=
When parents understand sex influence they will more than half meet the
problems of the teen age. To rightly instruct along sex lines and so
prepare boys and girls to meet the teen period is almost completely to
meet the teen problem.
Social and economic changes have moved this generation a full hundred
years ahead of our fathers. The change, however, has a moral menace in
it, for the slow but sure ways of the old-fashioned home with its
genuinely moral atmosphere have nearly slipped us. Today boys and girls
are herded together by the compulsion of the times and moral ideas are
in danger of being warped and twisted. Everything about us today is more
complex than formerly, and the more complex things become the more we
herd together. Mass life is common and growing--in education, in the
schools and in play life, in the big public playgrounds. Religious
activity, in spite of the group tendency toward the small group, is
still in the mass--Christian Endeavor, Sunday school groupings, etc.
With the growing assumption of week-day activities on the part of the
church, the moral peril increases.
To offset this increasing social danger sex instruction is an insistent
necessity. Boys and girls must be taught to see themselves as members
of society with all that that implies. To do so means a knowledge of
self and sex and their functions and responsibilities. The sources and
processes of life must be intelligently understood and thus respected.
Ignorance of life does not beget purity, respect and honor. A boy's
regard for a girl cannot proceed from lack of knowledge, although this
lack may be termed innocence. A girl's love for the best for self and
others is impossible unless she has knowledge tinged with the awe of
God's purposes. Too often have our boys and girls been merely innocent,
such innocence causing their fall. The tree of knowledge sometimes
demands a high price for its fruit. To safeguard lives unblighted, the
purity and processes of life's mystery must be imparted through
instruction to our growing youth.
This can best be done by the parents--father or mother--for since
children (boys or girls) ripen and come to puberty, individually and
independently, the parent is God's choice for this task. To group boys
and girls together for this instruction is terribly wrong, as the group
must contain those whose need for information varies. To talk on these
matters in mixed groups of boys and girls is to incite wrong impulses
and is criminal. The parent is God's instructor in these things--a
father to the son and a mother to the daughter. Anything else is second
or third best and only to be done under great necessity. Under unusual
conditions a _Christian physician_ may instruct small groups of like
physiological age, but the parental way is best, because it is both
natural and permanent and we seek both.
=Sunday School and Sex=
Parents must be trained for this high duty. To this end Fathers' and
Mothers' Meetings should be promoted separately by the Sunday school.
Not one merely but a series, so that every father and mother may be able
to attend. It would be well to promote these in small groups by
invitation and acceptance until every father and mother was reached. A
regular course of education might be arranged, viz.:
First Lecture--How to meet the questions of children.
Second Lecture--How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of
puberty.
Third Lecture--Adolescence: The Physiology and Anatomy of the Sex Organs
and Methods of Sex Instruction.
Fourth Lecture--Hygiene: Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.
These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make
the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night
address by the pastor of the church.
The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a _Christian
Physician_.
Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers
likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field--boys and
girls--should be discussed.
The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers
or publicity. Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of
the boy and girl that is in question. Keep away from muck-raking, be
constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.
The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we
desire social health among our boys and girls. The land is full of the
plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools. The street reeks with
the smut and filth of wrong sex knowledge, and our boys and girls are
getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral. The Sunday school
can help our common, public health by helping the parent. It should
major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been
helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.
=Sex Instruction for Boys=
Great care should be exercised in the giving of sex instruction to boys
of any age. In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a
right to approach the boy on the subject. Even a father should make it
his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before
he becomes his boy's teacher. In the second place, books or pamphlets on
the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the sex functions.
Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too
sentimental. There are a great many books on the market which had been
better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned.
The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form,
and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would
have with his son about his studies or work. The gush of sentiment plays
havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the
precipice, just to look over. First, there should be the spoken word
concerning the function of the sex organs; and then, if the need is
urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way. The less
a boy thinks about these things the better. The instruction should be
for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that
he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not
for the purpose of giving him expert advice.
Another thing is necessary for good sex instruction. Up till a little
while ago it was the custom of workers with boys to caution the lads
against self-abuse. They used all kinds of colored slides and fearful
examples to impress on the boy the horror of the act, and very often
inflamed the boy to exactly the thing they were shooing him from. But
today we are learning the fact that the positive is of more force than
the negative, and that the "thou shalt" is better than the "thou shalt
not." There is a real reason why the later adolescent boy should give no
attention to the "thou shalt not," and so fall into the snare of the
negative; for it is the law of his being to "prove all things." It is
far better to lay emphasis on the legitimate purposes of the boy's sex
life, the glory it gives him and the beauty of the self-sacrifice it
begets, than to say a single word on the other side.
I have found it a good thing to refer to the practice of self-abuse of
any kind as a sure sign of weak mentality, and this has produced a
greater impression than anything else that I have formerly said. Boys,
it should be remembered, have brains and are really able to think. When
they act wrongly it is so often from lack of knowledge or because of
wrong knowledge. If I were to teach a boy my business I should tell him
everything that would make the business better, and say nothing of how
to put it "to the bad." Now what would we all do if our business was to
help boys to live clean lives, speak truth, bless the community with
unimpaired manhood and honor God with their united physical powers?
=Methods of Instruction=
It is necessary to keep in mind the stage of development of the boy. It
certainly would be foolish to tell a lad of eight years the facts that
should be given to a sixteen-year-old. Great tact and intelligence,
coupled with a knowledge of the stages of physical growth that a boy is
passing through, are necessary.
A boy of under twelve years should be approached biologically: the sex
element in nature study should be gradually disclosed to him. In this
period, when the spirit of curiosity is strong in the boy and he is
continually asking questions on the mystery of life--for instance, how
the stork or the doctor can bring the little brother or sister--it is
the best thing to answer the question with just enough truthful
information to satisfy. Great harm may be done by piling the mind of the
child with facts that cannot but be misunderstood. In the enthusiasm for
doing things right, there must be a guard against going too far.
The second stage of a boy's physical development, the early adolescent
stage--twelve to fifteen years--is the physiological. Puberty marks its
advent, although the exact sign of its arrival is hard to determine. It
has been easy to discover it in a girl's life, but it still remains a
matter of some guessing in a boy. _A recent work of Dr. Crompton states
that the kinking of the hair upon the pubic bone is a sure sign of the
beginning of the period_. Some physical directors have found this a
satisfactory sign, and have made this the basis of a graded work with
boys. It is in this period, then, that the boy should learn something of
the anatomy and physiology of the male sexual organs.
The third stage of sex instruction for boys is during the later
adolescent period--at least over fifteen years--and this should be
pathological. A free discussion of the so-called social evil and the
forms of venereal disease would certainly educate the boys to a proper
conception of the entire subject. All questions should be discussed in
ordinary language and business-like style.
=Sources of Knowledge for Sex Instruction=
1. THE BIOLOGICAL PERIOD (UNDER TWELVE YEARS).
--A Frank Talk with Boys and Girls About Their Birth (Free).
--A Straight Talk with Boys About Their Birth and Early Boyhood (Free).
Chapman.--How Shall I Tell My Child? (.25).
Muncie.--Four Epochs of Life (Chapters 7-12) ($1.50).
Thresher.--Story of Life for Little Children (Free).
--When and How to Tell Children. (Oregon State Board of Health.)
2. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PERIOD (TWELVE TO FIFTEEN YEARS).
Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (.50).
How My Uncle, the Doctor, Instructed Me in Matters of Sex (.10).
Lowry.--Truths (.50).
--The Secret of Strength (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon)
(Free).
--Virility and Physical Development (Social Hygiene Society of Portland,
Oregon) (Free).
--Address the Secretary of the Social Hygiene Society, 311 Young Men's
Christian Association Building, Portland, Oregon.
3. THE PATHOLOGICAL PERIOD (OVER FIFTEEN YEARS).
Educational Pamphlets, Nos. 1 and 6 (American Society of Sanitary and
Moral Prophylaxis) (.10 each).
--Four Sex Lies (Oregon State Board of Health) (Free).
Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (Chapter on Sexual Hygiene) (.50).
Health and the Hygiene of Sex (.10).
The Young Man's Problem (.10).
=A Word of Caution=
Let it be repeated that sex instruction should be undertaken with great
tact and thoughtfulness. The one who gives the instruction--whether
parent or teacher--should post himself thoroughly and he should be
practical, go slow, not forcing the lad's development by unnecessary
knowledge, avoiding gush and sentiment. He should not seek confession or
allow the boy to confess to him, for confession will raise a barrier
between the two later on; he should help the boy without invading the
lad's innermost life, his soul; he should learn that there are recesses
in the boy's self that are his own and that bear no invasion, and he
should respect this right of privacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SEX
Alexander, Editor.--Sunday School and the Teens. (Chapter 14.) This is
the official utterance of the Commission on Adolescence, authorized by
the International Sunday School Association in convention at San
Francisco, and contains a complete, classified bibliography. ($1.00.)
_American Youth_ (April, 1913. This entire magazine number deals with
Sex Education) (.20).
XVI
THE TEEN BOY AND MISSIONS
No more difficult subject faces the Sunday school today than that of
really vitally interesting the teen age boy in the missionary
enterprises of the church. Missionary enthusiasts, here and there, have
doubtless had success in interesting numbers of boys, but, in spite of
this, the average, red-blooded, everyday, wide-awake fellow that
inhabits our homes, fills our streets, and honors our Sunday schools,
has little or no conception of missions, or even cares enough to make
any effort to discover what missions really signify. To the average boy
missions spell heathen and a collection and little more. There is no
real life interest, or even contact enough to develop an interest in the
subject. This is a Hunt, harsh analysis of the situation, but it is
both honest and true.
Giving money is not a genuine criterion of interest. I have known lots
of boys who contributed two cents a week to help the other fellow, not
because it was a conviction, but because it was a necessary thing to
keep in good standing on the posted bulletin, and thus to maintain the
regard and esteem of leader and comrades.
Business men and social leaders have been known to hesitate in
subscribing to funds until the subscription list had been perused by
them, when the list of names already secured has caused them to make
generous additions to the fund. The Sunday school offering is a poor
index of Sunday school enthusiasm. Giving money--even more than one can
afford to give--is not always real self-sacrifice. Sometimes it is
self-saving. At any rate, it is not the reliable guide of a boy's
interest.
Maybe we shall never get boys to understand the word Missions. Perhaps
it is hopelessly confused with heathen--a poor, unfortunate,
know-nothing, worth-little crowd of black or yellow people--who can
never amount to anything, unless money be given to put grit enough into
them to get them to try to live right--a pretty doubtful investment,
after all. Yes, this is the logic of the average boy, due to the
information of the non-christian's degradation, lack of initiative, low
ideals, and poor morals, as set forth by the returned missionary. Even
the fact that one or two folks, by reason of the missionary's work, have
been raised to better things, affords no promise of rejoicing on the
part of the boy. The American teen age boy shuns "kids," "dagoes,"
"hunkies," and everything that seems to him to be inferior. He may
occasionally give them a little pity, but he associates himself in
thought and interest and conduct only with his peers. His gang is as
exclusive as the traditions of Sons of the Revolution. The
non-christians of other lands, like the non-christians of North America,
somehow or other, have got to get as good as he is--not in morals, but
in genuine worth-whileness. If they can "pull off a couple of stunts"
that are beyond him, watch his real admiration and interest grow. Maybe,
after a while, we will drop the word Missions and substitute another
word--Extension. Perhaps! Then the fellow whom he teaches to "throw a
curve" in the vacant lot, or the foreign-speaking boy, who can "shoot a
basket," to whom he gives a half-hour lesson in English, or the Hindoo
lad, who easily swims the Ganges, and who is being sent to school by his
gang, will all command his interest, because they are partners with him
in the common things of his everyday life. The boy grows by
ever-widening circles of interest; first, the self, then the gang, then
the school life, then his city, then the state, then the nation, and so
on--out to humanity. And all of it must be on a par with his highest
ideals. That which falls below meets his contempt. Interest, then, in
non-christian folks in foreign lands, will become the boy's interest
only when it reaches his admiration and the level of the worth-while.
The pity and love that burns to help another is a mature passion, and is
only in germ in boyhood. It is capable, however, of great development.
The interest of the early adolescent is primarily physical. Most of his
life centers in his play and games. Wise educators are using the play
instinct as a medium for his education. Manual training is increasing,
the formal work of the class-room is taking on the nature of competition
and music, even music with its old-time monotony and routine of running
scales in the practice period under parental persuasion, has ceased to
be a thing of dread, and has become a delightful thing of play--a
building of houses, a planting of seeds, etc.
The heart of missions is a genuine regard for the highest welfare of the
non-christian, a real interest in the lives of others. Now interest is
the act of being caught and held by something. It is also temporary, as
well as permanent. This depends wholly on how much one is caught and
held. This fact is as true in boyhood as in manhood. Further, interests
are matters of association--one interest is the path to another.
Perhaps, then, the boy's play may widen to embrace China.
A group of boys, some time ago, were playing games in a church basement,
and the time began to lag just a little. A young man, who happened to be
present, was appealed to for a new game, and he taught them to "skin the
snake." It "caught on" immediately, and the group of boys grew hilarious
in their enjoyment. After a while, however, they stopped to rest, and
one of the boys turned to the man who had taught the game, and said,
"Where did you get that dandy stunt?" The reply was, "Oh, that's one of
the games that the fellows play over in China." There was silence for a
moment or two, and then one of the older fellows said, "Gee, do the
Chinks over there know enough to play a game like that?" Questions
followed thick and fast for a little while about the boys of China, and
the admiration of the boys increased with their knowledge. The boys of
China are a little closer, too, to the American boys of this particular
group whenever "skin the snake" is played. It is altogether too bad
that the play-life of the adolescent in non-christian lands is so
meager, for here in physical prowess is a real contact for the American
boy. The bigness of life is the sum of its contacts.