_Sexual Education._
[This chapter is designed for parents rather than for teachers, and is
hence not paraphrased here. A few observations are, however, in place.]
Great care is necessary at the period of youth that a rational system of
food and exercise be maintained. But the general fault is in the
omission of this care in preceding years. One cannot neglect due
precautions for many years, and then hope to repair the damage caused,
by extreme care for one or two years.
Special care is necessary that the brain be not overworked in early
years, and a morbid excitation of the whole nervous system thereby
induced. We desire to repress any tendency to the rapid development of
the nervous system. Above all, is the reading of the child to be
carefully watched and guarded. Nothing can be worse food for a child
than what are called sensational romances. That the reading of such
tends to enfeeble and enervate the whole thinking power is a fact which
properly belongs to the intellectual side of our question not yet
reached, and may be here merely mentioned. But the effect on the
physical condition of the youth, of such carelessly written sensational
stories, mostly of the French type, and full of sensuous, if not sensual
suggestions, is a point not often enough considered. The teacher cannot,
perhaps, except indirectly, prevent the reading of such trash at home.
But every influence which he can bring to bear towards the formation of
a purer and more correct taste, he should never omit. Where there is a
public library in the town, he should make himself acquainted with its
contents, and give the children direct help in their selection of books.
This is an external means. But he should never forget that every
influence which he can bring to bear in his daily work to make science
pleasant and attractive, and every lesson which he gives in the use of
pure, correct English, free from exaggeration, from slang, and from
mannerism, goes far to render such miserable and pernicious trash
distasteful even to the child himself.
Every example of thorough work, every pleasure that comes from the
solving of a problem or the acquisition of a new fact, is so much
fortification against the advances of the enemy; while all shallow half
work, all pretence or show tend to create an appetite in the child's
mind which shall demand such food.
The true teacher should always have in his mind these far-away and
subtle effects of his teaching; not present good or pleasure either for
himself or his pupil, but the far-off good--the distant development.
That idea would free him from the notion, too common in our day, that
the success or failure of his efforts is to be tested by any adroitly
contrived system of examinations; or still worse, exhibitions. His
success can alone be tested by the future lives of his pupils--by their
love for, or dislike of, new knowledge. His success will be marked by
their active growth through all their lives; his failure, by their early
arrested development.