CHAPTER I.

YOUTH AND SEX

Dangers and Safeguards for Girls and Boys

by

MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S., AND F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.

1919

CONTENTS.

PART I.: GIRLS.

BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S.

INTRODUCTION

I. CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS

II. OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS

III. CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS

IV. MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING

V. THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION

PART II.: BOYS.

BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

I. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE

II. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE OPINIONS OF CANON LYTTELTON,

DR. DUKES AND OTHERS

III. CAUSES OF THE PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS

IV. RESULTS OF YOUTHFUL IMPURITY

V. SEX KNOWLEDGE IS COMPATIBLE WITH PERFECT REFINEMENT AND INNOCENCE

VI. CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PURITY TEACHING IS BEST GIVEN: REMEDIAL AND

CURATIVE MEASURES

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS

PART I.: GIRLS.

BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S.

INTRODUCTION.

Probably the most important years in anyone's life are those eight or

ten preceding the twenty-first birthday. During these years

_Heredity_, one of the two great developmental factors, bears its

crop, and the seeds sown before birth and during childhood come to

maturity. During these years also the other great developmental force

known as _Environment_ has full play, the still plastic nature is

moulded by circumstances, and the influence of these two forces is

seen in the manner of individual that results.

This time is generally alluded to under two heads: (1) Puberty, (2)

Adolescence.

By Puberty we understand the period when the reproductive organs are

developed, the boy or girl ceasing to be the neutral child and

acquiring the distinctive characteristics of man or woman. The actual

season of puberty varies in different individuals from the eleventh to

the sixteenth year, and although the changes during this time are not

sudden, they are comparatively rapid.

By Adolescence we understand the time during which the individual is

approximating to the adult type, puberty having been already

accomplished. Adolescence corresponds to the latter half of the

developmental period, and may be prolonged even up to twenty-five

years.

CHAPTER I.

CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS.

1. Changes in the Bodily Framework.--During this period the girl's

skeleton not only grows remarkably in size, but is also the subject of

well-marked alterations and development. Among the most evident

changes are those which occur in the shape and inclination of the

pelvis. During the years of childhood the female pelvis has a general

resemblance to that of the male, but with the advent of puberty the

vertical portion of the hip bones becomes expanded and altered in

shape, it becomes more curved, and its inner surface looks less

directly forward and more towards its fellow bone of the other side.

The brim of the pelvis, which in the child is more or less

heart-shaped, becomes a wide oval, and consequently the pelvic girdle

gains considerably in width. The heads of the thigh bones not only

actually, in consequence of growth, but also relatively, in

consequence of change of shape in the pelvis, become more widely

separated from each other than they are in childhood, and hence the

gait and the manner of running alters greatly in the adult woman. At

the same time the angle made by the junction of the spinal column with

the back of the pelvis, known as the sacro-vertebral angle, becomes

better marked, and this also contributes to the development of the

characteristic female type. No doubt the female type of pelvis can be

recognised in childhood, and even before birth, but the differences of

male and female pelves before puberty are so slight that it requires

the eye of an expert to distinguish them. The very remarkable

differences that are found between the adult male and the adult female

pelvis begin to appear with puberty and develop rapidly, so that no

one could mistake the pelvis of a properly developed girl of sixteen

or eighteen years of age for that of a boy. These differences are due

in part to the action of the muscles and ligaments on the growing

bones, in part to the weight of the body from above and the reaction

of the ground from beneath, but they are also largely due to the

growth and development of the internal organs peculiar to the woman.

All these organs exist in the normal infant at birth, but they are

relatively insignificant, and it is not until the great developmental

changes peculiar to puberty occur that they begin to exercise their

influence on the shape of the bones. This is proved by the fact that

in those rare cases in which the internal organs of generation are

absent, or fail to develop, there is a corresponding failure in the

pelvis to alter into the normal adult shape. The muscles of the

growing girl partake in the rapid growth and development of her bony

framework. Sometimes the muscles outgrow the bones, causing a peculiar

lankiness and slackness of figure, and in other girls the growth of

the bones appears to be too rapid for the muscles, to which fact a

certain class of "growing pain" has been attributed.

Another part of the body that develops rapidly during these momentous

years is the bust. The breasts become large, and not only add to the

beauty of the girl's person, but also manifestly prepare by increase

of their glandular elements for the maternal function of suckling

infants.

Of less importance so far as structure is concerned, but of great

importance to female loveliness and attractiveness, are the changes

that occur in the clearing and brightening of the complexion, the

luxuriant growth, glossiness, and improved colour of the hair, and the

beauty of the eyes, which during the years which succeed puberty

acquire a new and singularly attractive expression.

The young girl's hands and feet do not grow in proportion with her

legs and arms, and appear to be more beautifully shaped when

contrasted with the more fully developed limb.

With regard to the internal organs, the most important are those of

the pelvis. The uterus, or womb, destined to form a safe nest for the

protection of the child until it is sufficiently developed to maintain

an independent existence, increases greatly in all its dimensions and

undergoes certain changes in shape; and the ovaries, which are

intended to furnish the ovules, or eggs (the female contribution

towards future human beings), also develop both in size and in

structure.

Owing to rapid growth and to the want of stability of the young girl's

tissues, the years immediately succeeding puberty are not only those

of rapid physiological change, but they are those during which

irreparable damage may be done unless those who have the care of young

girls understand what these dangers are, how they are produced, and

how they may be averted.

With regard to the bony skeleton, lateral curvature of the spine is,

in mild manifestation, very frequent, and is too common even in the

higher degrees. The chief causes of this deformity are:

(1) The natural softness and want of stability in the rapidly growing

bones and muscles;

(2) The rapid development of the bust, which throws a constantly

increasing burden on these weakened muscles and bones; and

(3) The general lassitude noticeable amongst girls at this time which

makes them yield to the temptation to stand on one leg, to cross one

leg over the other, and to write or read leaning on one elbow and

bending over the table, whereas they ought to be sitting upright.

Unless constant vigilance is exerted, deformity is pretty sure to

occur--a deformity which always has a bad influence over the girl's

health and strength, and which, in those cases where it is complicated

by the pathological softness of bones found in cases of rickets, may

cause serious alteration in shape and interfere with the functions of

the pelvis in later life.

2. Changes in the Mental Nature.--These are at least as remarkable

as the changes in the bodily framework. There is a slight diminution

in the power of memorising, but the faculties of attention, of

reasoning, and of imagination, develop rapidly. Probably the power of

appreciation of the beautiful appears about this time, a faculty which

is usually dormant during childhood. More especially is this true with

regard to the beauty of landscape; the child seldom enjoys a landscape

as such, although isolated beauties, such as that of flowers, may

sometimes be appreciated.

As might be anticipated, all things are changing with the child during

these momentous years: its outlook on life, its appreciation of other

people and of itself, alter greatly and continuously. The wonderfully

rapid growth and alterations in structure of the generative organs

have their counterpart in the mental and moral spheres; there are new

sensations which are scarcely recognised and are certainly not

understood by the subject: vague feelings of unrest, ill-comprehended

desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the place of the

unconscious egoism of childhood.

The processes of Nature as witnessed in the season of spring have

their counterpart in the changes that occur during the early years of

adolescence. The earth warmed by the more direct rays of the sun and

softened by recurring showers is transformed in a few weeks from its

bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. This

yearly miracle fails to impress us as it should do because we have

witnessed it every year of our lives, and so, too, the great

transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its appeal to

our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence.

If it were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings

and aspirations in adolescent years, or if it were possible for us

with enlightened sympathy to gain access to the enchanted garden of

youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls around

us. As it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their

ambitions, hopes, and joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb

the depths of their fears, their disappointments, and their doubts.

The transition between radiant joy and confident hope in the future to

a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and

psychical are rapid. It is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and

to the child the changes in its body, the changes in its soul and

spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of

abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from

the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders,

much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The

instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their

functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and

moral natures and in the variability of their phenomena. Adolescents

indeed "never continue in one stay;" left to themselves they will

begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish, nothing.

Youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes.

The schoolfellow or teacher who is adored to-day may become the object

of indifference or even of dislike to-morrow. Ideas as to the calling

or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and opinions upon

religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. It is little wonder

that there is a special type of adolescent insanity differing entirely

from that of later years, one in which, owing to the want of full

development of mental faculties, there are no systematised delusions,

but a rapid change from depression and melancholy to exaltation

bordering on mania. Those parents and guardians who know something of

the peculiar physical and mental conditions of adolescence will be

best prepared both to treat the troubles wisely, and by sympathy to

help the young people under their care to help themselves.

One of the phenomena of adolescence is the dawn of the sexual

instinct. This frequently develops without the child knowing or

understanding what it means. More especially is this true of young

girls whose home life has been completely sheltered, and who have not

had the advantage, or disadvantage, of that experience of life which

comes early to those who live in crowded tenements or amongst the

outspoken people of the countryside. The children of the poorer

classes have, in a way, too little to learn: they are brought up from

babyhood in the midst of all domestic concerns, and the love affairs

of their elders are intimately known to them, therefore quite early in

adolescence "ilka lassie has her laddie," and although the attraction

be short-lived and the affection very superficial, yet it is

sufficient to give an added interest to life, and generally leads to

an increased care in dress and an increased desire to make the most of

whatever good looks the girl may possess. The girl in richer homes is

probably much more bewildered by her unwonted sensations and by the

attraction she begins to feel towards the society of the opposite sex.

Probably in these days, when there is more intermingling of the sexes,

the girl's outlook is franker, and, so far as this is concerned,

healthier, than it was forty or fifty years ago. It is very amusing to

elders to hear a boy scarcely in his teens talking of "his best girl,"

or to see the little lass wearing the colour or ornament that her

chosen lad admires. It is true that the "best girl" varies from week

to week if not from day to day, but this special regard for a member

of the opposite sex announces the dawn of a simple sentiment that

will, a few years later, blossom out into the real passion which may

fix a life's destiny.

The mental and moral changes that occur during the early years of

adolescence call for help and sympathy of an even higher order than do

the changes in physical structure and function. Some of these changes,

such as shyness and reticence, may be the cause of considerable

suffering to the girl and a perplexity to her elders, but on the whole

they are comparatively easy of comprehension, and are more likely to

elicit sympathy and kindness than blame. It is far otherwise with such

changes as unseemly laughter, rough manners, and a nameless difference

in the girl's manner when in the presence of the other sex. A girl who

is usually quiet, modest, and sensible in her behaviour may suddenly

become boisterous and self-asserting, there is a great deal of

giggling, and altogether a disagreeable transformation which too

frequently involves the girl in trouble with her mother or other

guardian, and is very frequently harshly judged by the child herself.

In proportion as self-discipline has been taught and self-control

acquired, these outward manifestations are less marked, but in the

case of the great majority of girls there are, at any rate, impulses

having their origin in the yet immature and misunderstood sex impulse

which cause the young woman herself annoyance and worry although she

is as far from understanding their origin as her elders may be. The

remedies for these troubles are various. First in order of time and in

importance comes a habit of self-control and self-discipline that

ought to be coeval with conscious life. Fathers and mothers are

themselves to blame if their girl lapses from good behaviour when they

have not inculcated ideals of obedience, duty, and self-discipline

from babyhood. It seems such a little thing to let the child have its

run of the cake-basket and the sweet-box; it is in the eyes of many

parents so unimportant whether the little one goes to bed at the

appointed time or ten minutes later; they argue that it can make no

difference to her welfare in life or to her eternal destiny whether

her obedience is prompt and cheerful or grudging and imperfect. One

might as well argue that the proper planting of a seed, its regular

watering, and the influences of sun and wind make no difference to the

life of a tree. We have to bear carefully in mind that those who sow

an act reap a habit, who sow a habit reap a character, who sow a

character reap a destiny both in this world and in that which is

eternal. It is mere selfishness, unconscious, no doubt, but none the

less fatal, when parents to suit their own convenience omit to

inculcate obedience, self-restraint, habits of order and unselfishness

in their children. Youth is the time when the soul is apt to be shaken

by sorrow's power and when stormy passions rage. The tiny rill

starting from the mountainside can be readily deflected east or west,

but the majestic river hastening to the sea is beyond all such

arbitrary directions. So it is with the human being: the character and

habit are directed easily in infancy, with difficulty during

childhood, but they are well-nigh impossible of direction by the time

adolescence is established. Those fathers and mothers who desire to

have happiness and peace in connection with their adolescent boys and

girls must take the trouble to direct them aright during the plastic

years of infancy and childhood. All natural instincts implanted in us

by Him who knew what was in the heart of man are in themselves right

and good, but the exercise of these instincts may be entirely wrong in

time or in degree. The sexual instinct, the affinity of boy to girl,

the love of adult man and woman, are right and holy when exercised

aright, and it is the result of "spoiling" when these good and noble

instincts are wrongly exercised. All who love their country, all who

love their fellow men, and all who desire that the kingdom of God

should come, must surely do everything that is in their power to

awaken the fathers and mothers of the land to a sense of their heavy

responsibility and of their high privilege. In this we are entirely

separated from and higher than the rest of the animal creation, in

that on us lies the duty not only of calling into life a new

generation of human beings, but also the still higher duty, the still

greater privilege and the wider responsibility of bringing up those

children to be themselves the worthy parents of the future, the

supporters of their country's dignity, and joyful citizens of the

household of God.

Another characteristic of adolescence is to be found in

gregariousness, or what has been sometimes called the _gang spirit_.

Boys, and to almost as great a degree girls, form themselves into

companies or gangs, which frequently possess a high degree of

organisation. They elaborate special languages, they have their own

form of shorthand, their passwords, their rites and ceremonies. The

gang has its elected leader, its officers, its members; and although

it is liable to sudden disruption and seldom outlasts a few terms of

school-life, each succeeding club or company is for the time being of

paramount importance in the estimation of its members. The gang spirit

may at times cause trouble and lead to anxiety, but if rightly

directed it may be turned to good account. It is the germ of the

future capacity to organise men and women into corporate life--the

very method by which much public and national work is readily

accomplished, but which is impossible to accomplish by individual

effort.

3. Changes in the Religion of the Adolescent.--The religion of the

adolescent is apt to be marked by fervour and earnest conviction, the

phenomenon of "conversion" almost constantly occurring during

adolescence. The girl looks upon eternal truths from a completely new

standpoint, or at any rate with eyes that have been purged and

illuminated by the throes of conversion. From a period of great

anxiety and doubt she emerges to a time of intense love and devotion,

to an eager desire to prove herself worthy, and to offer a sacrifice

of the best powers she possesses. Unfortunately for peace of mind, the

happy epoch succeeding conversion not unfrequently ends in a dismal

time of intellectual doubt and spiritual darkness. Just as the

embryonic love of the youthful adolescent leads to a time when the

opposite sex is rather an object of dislike than of attraction, so the

fervour of early conversion is apt to lead to a time of desolation;

but just as the incomplete sex love of early adolescence finds its

antitype and fine flower in the later fully developed love of

honourable man and woman, so does the too rapturous and uncalculating

religious devotion of these early years revive after the period of

doubt, transfigured and glorified into the religious conviction and

devotion which makes the strength, the joy, and the guiding principle

of adult life.

Much depends on the circumstances and people surrounding the

adolescent. Her unbounded capacity for hero-worship leads in many

instances to a conscious or unconscious copying of parent, guardian,

or teacher; and although the ideals of the young are apt to far

outpace those of the adult whose days of illusion are over, yet they

are probably formed on the same type. One sees this illustrated by

generations in the same family holding much the same religious or

political opinions and showing the same aptitude for certain

professions, games, and pursuits. Much there is in heredity, but

probably there is still more in environment.

CHAPTER II.

OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS.

These may be briefly summed up by saying that we have to provide

adolescent girls with all things that are necessary for their souls

and their bodies, but any such bald and wholesale enunciation of our

duty helps but little in clearing one's ideas and in pointing out the

actual manner in which we are to perform it.

First, with regard to the bodies of adolescent girls; Their primary

needs, just like the primary needs of all living beings, are food,

warmth, shelter, exercise and rest, with special care in sickness.

Food.--In spite of the great advance of knowledge in the present day,

it is doubtful whether much practical advance has been made in the

dietetics of children and adolescents, and it is to be feared that our

great schools are especially deficient in this most important respect.

Even when the age of childhood is past, young people require a much

larger amount of milk than is usually included in their diet sheet. It

would be well for them to begin the day with porridge and milk or some

such cereal preparation. Coffee or cocoa made with milk should

certainly have the preference over tea for breakfast, and in addition

to the porridge or other such dish, fish, egg, or bacon, with plenty

of bread and butter, should form the morning repast. The midday meal

should consist of fresh meat, fish, or poultry, with an abundance of

green vegetables and a liberal helping of sweet pudding. The articles

of diet which are most deficient in our lists are milk, butter, and

sugar. There is an old prejudice against sugar which is quite

unfounded so far as the healthy individual is concerned. Cane sugar

has recently been proved to be a most valuable muscle food, and when

taken in the proper way for sweetening beverages, fruit, and puddings,

it is entirely good. The afternoon meal should consist chiefly of

bread and butter and milk or cocoa, with a fair proportion of simple,

well-made cake, and in the case where animal food has been taken both

at breakfast and dinner, the evening meal might well be bread and

butter, bread and milk, or milk pudding with stewed or fresh fruit.

But it is different in the case of those adolescents whose midday meal

is necessarily slight, and who ought to have a thoroughly good dinner

or supper early in the evening;

One would have thought it unnecessary to mention alcohol in speaking

of the dietary of young people were it not that, strange to say, beer

is still given at some of our public schools. It is extraordinary that

wise and intelligent people should still give beer to young boys and

girls at the very time when what they want is strength and not

stimulus, food for the growing frame and nothing to stimulate the

already exuberant passions.

An invariable rule with regard to the food of children should be that

their meals should be regular, that they should consist of good,

varied, nourishing food taken at regular hours, and that nothing

should be eaten between meals. The practice of eating biscuits, fruit,

and sweets between meals during childhood and adolescence not only

spoils the digestion and impairs the nutrition at the time, but it is

apt to lay the foundation of a constant craving for something which is

only too likely to take the form of alcoholic craving in later years.

It is impossible for the stomach to perform its duty satisfactorily if

it is never allowed rest, and the introduction of stray morsels of

food at irregular times prevents this, and introduces confusion into

the digestive work, because there will be in the stomach at the same

time food in various stages of digestion.

Warmth.--Warmth is one of the influences essential to health and to

sound development, and although artificial warmth is more urgently

required by little children and by old people than it is by young

adults, still, if their bodies are to come to their utmost possible

perfection, they require suitable conditions of temperature. This is

provided in the winter partly by artificial heating of houses and

partly by the wearing of suitable clothing. Ideal clothing is loose of

texture and woven of wool, although a fairly good substitute can be

obtained in materials that are made from cotton treated specially.

This is not the time or place in which to insist on the very grave

dangers that accompany the use of ordinary flannelette, but a caution

must be addressed in passing to those who provide clothing for others.

In providing clothes it is necessary to remember the two reasons for

their existence: (1) to cover the body, and (2) as far as possible to

protect a large area of its surface against undue damp and cold.

Adolescents, as a rule, begin early to take a great interest in their

clothes. From the time that the appreciation of the opposite sex

commences, the child who has hitherto been indifferent or even

slovenly in the matter of clothing takes a very living interest in it;

indeed the adornment of person and the minute care devoted to details

of the toilet by young people of both sexes remind one irresistibly of

the preening of the feathers, the strutting and other antics of birds

before their mates.

Girls especially are apt to forget the primary object of clothing, and

to think of it too much as a means of adornment. This leads to

excesses and follies such as tight waists, high-heeled shoes, to the

ungainly crinoline or to indecent scantiness of skirts. Direct

interference in these matters is badly tolerated, but much may be

accomplished both by example and by cultivating a refined and artistic

taste in sumptuary matters.

Sleep.--Amongst the most important of the factors that conduce to

well-being both of body and mind must be reckoned an adequate amount

of sleep. This has been made the subject of careful inquiry by Dr.

Dukes of Rugby and Miss Alice Ravenhill. Both these trained and

careful observers agree that the majority of young people get far too

little rest and sleep. We have to remember that although fully-grown

adults will take rest when they can get it in the daytime, young

people are too active, and sometimes too restless, to give any repose

to brain or muscle except during sleep. In the early years of

adolescence ten hours sleep is none too much; even an adult in full

work ought to have eight hours, and still more is necessary for the

rapidly-growing, continually-developing, and never-resting adolescent.

It is unfortunately a fact that even in the boarding schools of the

well-to-do the provision of sleep is too limited, and for the children

of the poor, whose homes are far from comfortable and who are

accustomed to doing pretty nearly as their elders do, the night seldom

begins before eleven or even twelve o'clock. It is one of the saddest

sights of London to see small children dancing on the pavement in

front of the public-houses up to a very late hour, while groups of

loafing boys and hoydenish girls stand about at the street corners

half the night. There is little wonder that the morning finds them

heavy and unrefreshed, and that schoolwork suffers severely from want

of the alert and vigorous attention that might be secured by a proper

night's sleep.

Great harm is done by allowing children to take work home with them

from school; if possible, the day's work should finish with school

hours, and the scanty leisure should be spent in healthy exercise or

in sleep.

Overcrowding.--In considering the question of adequate sleep it

would be well to think of the conditions of healthy sleep.

For sleep to be refreshing and health-giving, the sleeper ought to

have a comfortable bed and an abundant supply of fresh air.

Unfortunately the great majority of our people both in town and

country do not enjoy these advantages. In both town and country there

is a great deficiency of suitable dwellings at rents that can be paid

with the usual rate of wages. In consequence families are crowded into

one, two, or three rooms, and even in the case of people far above the

status of day labourers and artisans it is the exception and not the

rule for each individual to have a separate bed. The question of

ventilation is certainly better understood than it was a few years

ago, but still leaves much to be desired, and there is still an urgent

necessity for preaching the gospel of the open window.

Exercise.--In considering the question of the exercise of

adolescents, one's thoughts immediately turn to athletics, games, and

dancing. As a nation the English have always been fond of athletics,

and have attributed to the influence of such team games as cricket and

football not only their success in various competitions but also their

success in the sterner warfare of life. This success has been obtained

on the tented field and in the work of exploring, mountaineering, and

other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but

also on strength of character and powers of endurance.

Team games appear to be the especial property of adolescents, for

young children are more or less individualistic and solitary in many

of their games, but boys and girls alike prefer team games from the

pre-adolescent age up to adult life. It is certain that no form of

exercise is superior to these games: they call into play every muscle

of the body, they make great demands on accuracy of eye and

coordination, they also stimulate and develop habits of command,

obedience, loyalty, and _esprit de corps_. In the great public schools

of England, and in the private schools which look up to them as their

models, team games are played, as one might say, in a religious

spirit. The boy or girl who attempts to take an unfair advantage, or

who habitually plays for his or her own hand, is quickly made to feel

a pariah and an outcast. Among the greatest blessings that are

conveyed to the children of the poorer classes is the instruction not

only in the technique of team games but also in the inoculation of the

spirit in which they ought to be played. It is absolutely necessary

that the highest ideals connected with games should be handed down,

for thus the children who perhaps do not always have the highest

ideals before them in real life may learn through this mimic warfare

how the battle of life must be fought and what are the characters of

mind and body that deserve and ensure success. It has been well said

that those who make the songs of a nation help largely to make its

character, and equally surely those who teach and control the games of

the adolescents are making or marring a national destiny.

Among the means of physical and moral advancement may be claimed

gymnastics. And here, alas, this nation can by no means claim to be

_facile princeps_. Not only have we been relatively slow in adopting

properly systematised exercises, but even to the present day the

majority of elementary schools are without properly fitted gymnasia

and duly qualified teachers. The small and relatively poor

Scandinavian nations have admirably fitted gymnasia in connection with

their _Folkschule_, which correspond to our elementary schools. The

exercises are based on those systematised by Ling; each series is

varied, and is therefore the more interesting, and each lesson

commences with simple, easily performed movements, leading on to those

that are more elaborate and fatiguing, and finally passing through a

descending series to the condition of repose.

The gymnasia where such exercises are taught in England are relatively

few and far between, and it is lamentable to find that many excellent

and well-appointed schools for children, whose parents pay large sums

of money for their education, have no properly equipped gymnasia nor

adequately trained teachers. When the question is put, "How often do

you have gymnastics at your school?" the answer is frequently, "We

have none," or, "Half an hour once a week." Exercises such as Ling's

not only exercise every muscle in the body in a scientific and

well-regulated fashion, but being performed by a number of pupils at

once in obedience to words of command, discipline, co-operation,

obedience to teachers, and loyalty to comrades, are taught at the same

time. The deepest interest attaches to many of the more complex

exercises, while some of them make large demands on the courage and

endurance of the young people.

In Scandinavia the State provides knickerbockers, tunics, and

gymnasium shoes for those children whose parents are too poor to

provide them; and again, in Scandinavia there is very frequently the

provision of bathrooms in which the pupils can have a shower bath and

rub-down after the exercises. These bathrooms in connection with the

gymnasia need not necessarily be costly; indeed many of them in

Stockholm and Denmark merely consist of troughs in the cement floor,

on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a

shower bath over their heads and bodies. The feet get well washed in

the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts

as an admirable tonic.

Another exercise which ought to be specially dear to a nation of

islanders is swimming, and this, again, is a relatively cheap luxury

too much neglected amongst us. Certainly there are public baths, but

there are not enough to permit of all the elementary school children

bathing even once a week, and still less have they the opportunity of

learning to swim. There is much to be done yet before we can be justly

proud of our national system of education. We must not lose sight of

the ideal with which we started--viz. that we should endeavour to do

the best that is possible for our young people in body, soul, and

spirit. The three parts of our nature are intertwined, and a duty

performed to one part has an effect on the whole.

CHAPTER III.

CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS.

If measured by the death-rate the period of adolescence should cause

us little anxiety, but a careful examination into the state of health

of children of school age shows us that it is a time in which

disorders of health abound, and that although these disorders are not

necessarily, nor even generally, fatal, they are frequent, they spoil

the child's health, and inevitably bear fruit in the shape of an

injurious effect on health in after life.

That the health of adolescents should be unstable is what we ought to

expect from the general instability of the organism due to the

rapidity of growth and the remarkable developmental changes that are

crowded into these few years. Rapidity of growth and increase of

weight are very generally recognised, although their effects upon

health are apt to be overlooked. On the other hand, the still more

remarkable development that occurs in adolescence is very generally

ignored.

As a general rule the infectious fevers, the so-called childish

diseases--such as measles, chicken-pox, and whooping-cough--are less

common in adolescence than they are in childhood, while the special

diseases of internal organs due to their overwork, or to their natural

tendency to degeneration, is yet far in the future. The chief troubles

of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid

development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting

itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some

measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and of their

advisers.

This is not the place for a general treatise on the diseases of

adolescents, but a few of the commonest and most obvious troubles

should be noted.

The Teeth.--It is quite surprising to learn what a very large

percentage of young soldiers are refused enlistment in the army on

account of decayed or defective teeth, and anyone who has examined the

young women candidates for the Civil Service and for Missionary

Societies must have recognised that their teeth are in no way better

than those of the young men. In addition to several vacancies in the

dental series, it is by no means unusual to find that a candidate has

three or even five teeth severely decayed. The extraordinary thing is

that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail

to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their

medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that

is not only disagreeable but dangerous. A considerable proportion of

people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of

the gums and around the roots of the teeth. This pyorrhoea

alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the

patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous

micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise

to septic disease in various organs. It is quite probable that some

cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some

cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal

form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful

swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and

general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. In

addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen

glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. One

would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all

this havoc would lead to a grand rush to the dentist, but so far from

being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their

patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous

decayed tooth.

The Throat.--Some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy,

are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child's life

has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure

medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole

the public conscience is awake to this duty. Far otherwise is it with

chronic diseases of the tonsils: they may be riddled with small cysts,

they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation

dependent on a septic condition, but no notice is taken except when

chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates

the chronic into a temporary acute trouble. And yet it is perhaps not

going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or

invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned

to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to

the system.

Another condition of the throat which causes much ill-health is well

known to the public under the name of adenoids. Unfortunately,

however, many people have an erroneous idea that children will "grow

out of adenoids." Even if this were true it is extremely unwise to

wait for so desirable an event. Adenoids may continue to grow, and

during the years that they are present they work great mischief. Owing

to the blocking of the air-passages the mouth is kept constantly open,

greatly to the detriment of the throat and lungs. Owing to the

interference with the circulation at the back of the nose and throat,

a considerable amount both of apparent and real stupidity is produced,

the brain works less well than it ought, and the child's appearance is

ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. The

tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a

considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not

easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then

swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. The

removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary,

and usually involves little distress or danger. The change in the

child's health and appearance that can thus be secured is truly

wonderful, especially if it be taught, as it should be, to keep its

mouth shut and to breathe through the nose. In the course of a few

months the complexion will have cleared, the expression will have

regained its natural intelligence, digestion will be well performed,

and the child's whole condition will be that of alert vigour instead

of one of listless and sullen indifference.

Errors of Digestion.--From the consideration of certain states of

the nose, mouth, and throat, it is easy to turn to what is so often

their consequence. Many forms of indigestion are due to the septic

materials swallowed. It would not, however, be fair to say that all

indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to

errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty

and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. The

foods that are best for young people--such as bread, milk, butter,

sugar, and eggs--are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to

their cost; and again, in the case of many girls whose parents are

able and willing to provide them with a thoroughly satisfactory

diet-sheet, dyspepsia is caused by their refusal to take what is good

for them, and by their preference for unsuitable and indigestible

viands.

A further cause of indigestion must be sought in the haste with which

food is too often eaten. The failure to rise at the appointed time

leads to a hasty breakfast, and this must eventually cause

indigestion. The food imperfectly masticated and not sufficiently

mixed with saliva enters the stomach ill-prepared, and the hasty rush

to morning school or morning work effectually prevents the stomach

from dealing satisfactorily with the mass so hastily thrust into it.

There is an old saying that "Those whom the gods will destroy they

first make mad," and in many instances young people who fall victims

to the demon of dyspepsia owe their sorrows, if not to madness, at any

rate to ignorance and want of consideration. The defective teeth,

septic tonsils, discharging adenoids, poverty of their parents and

their own laziness, all conspire to cause digestive troubles which

bear a fruitful crop of further evils, for thus are caused such

illnesses as anæmia and gastric ulcer.

Constipation claims a few words to itself. And here again we ought

to consider certain septic processes. The refuse of the food should

travel along the bowels at a certain rate, but if owing to

sluggishness of their movements or to defects in the quality and

amount of their secretion, the refuse is too long retained the masses

become unduly dry, and, constantly shrinking in volume, are no longer

capable of being urged along the tube at the proper rate. In

consequence of this the natural micro-organisms of the intestine cease

to be innocent and become troublesome; they lead in the long run to a

peculiar form of blood-poisoning, and to so many diseased conditions

that it is impossible to deal with them at the present moment. The

existence of constipation is too often a signal for the administration

of many doses of medicine. The wiser, the less harmful, and the more

effectual method of dealing with it would be to endeavour to secure

the natural action of the bowels by a change in the diet, which should

contain more vegetable and less animal constituents. The patient

should also be instructed to drink plenty of water, either hot or

cold, a large glassful on going to bed and one on first awaking, and

also if necessary an hour before each meal. Steady exercise is also of

very great service, and instead of starting so late as to have no time

for walking to school or work, a certain portion of the daily journey

should be done on foot. Further, in all cases where it is possible,

team games, gymnastics, and dancing should be called in to supplement

the walk.

Headache.--Headache may be due to so many different causes that it

would be impossible in this little book to adequately consider them,

but it would not be fair to omit to mention that in many cases the

headache of young people is due to their want of spectacles. The idea

that spectacles are only required by people advanced in life is by

this time much shaken, but even now not only many parents object to

their children enjoying this most necessary assistance to imperfect

vision, but also employers may be found so foolish and selfish as to

refuse to employ those persons who need to wear glasses. The folly as

well as selfishness of this objection is demonstrated by the far

better work done by a person whose vision has been corrected, and the

absolute danger incurred by all who have to deal with machinery if

vision is imperfect. Among other causes for headache are the defects

of mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels already described, because in

all of them there is a supply of septic material to the blood which

naturally causes headache and other serious symptoms.

Abnormalities of Menstruation.--The normal period should occur at

regular intervals about once a month. Its duration and amount vary

within wide limits, but in each girl it should remain true to her

individual type, and it ought not to be accompanied by pain or

distress. As a rule the period starts quite normally, and it is not

until the girl's health has been spoiled by over-exertion of body or

mind, by unwise exertion during the period, or by continued exposure

to damp or cold, that it becomes painful and abnormal in time or in

amount.

One of the earliest signs of approaching illness--such as consumption,

anæmia, and mental disorder--is to be found in the more or less sudden

cessation of the period. This should always be taken as a

danger-signal, and as indicating the need of special medical advice.

Another point that should enter into intimate talk with girls is to

make them understand the co-relation of their own functions to the

great destiny that is in store. A girl is apt to be both shocked and

humiliated when she first hears of menstruation and its phenomena.

Should this function commence before she is told about it, she will

necessarily look upon it with disgust and perhaps with fear. It is

indeed a most alarming incident in the case of a girl who knows

nothing about it, but if, before the advent of menstruation, it be

explained to her that it is a sign of changes within her body that

will gradually, after the lapse of some years, fit her also to take

her place amongst the mothers of the land, her shame and fear will be

converted into modest gladness, and she will readily understand why

she is under certain restrictions, and has at times to give up work or

pleasure in order that her development may be without pain, healthy,

and complete.

CHAPTER IV.

MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING.

The years of adolescence, during which rapid growth and development

inevitably cause so much stress and frequently give rise to danger,

are the very years in which the weight of school education necessarily

falls most heavily. The children of the poor leave school at fourteen

years of age, just the time when the children of the wealthier classes

are beginning to understand the necessity of education and to work

with a clearer realisation of the value and aim of lessons. The whole

system of education has altered of late years, and school work is now

conducted far more intelligently and with a greater appreciation of

the needs and capacities of the pupils than it was some fifty years

ago. Work is made more interesting, the relation of different studies

to each other is more adequately put in evidence, and the influence

that school studies have on success in after life is more fully

realised by all concerned. The system of training is, however, far

from perfect. In the case of girls, more particularly, great care has

to be exercised not to attempt to teach too much, and to give careful

consideration to the physiological peculiarities of the pupils. It is

impossible for girls who are undergoing such rapid physiological and

psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous

work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of

her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that

it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack

times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl

indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than

usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter

subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical

exertion. It is not a good time for exercises, for games, for dancing,

and for gardening, nor are they the days on which mathematics should

be pressed, but they are days in which much supervision is needed, and

when time should not be permitted to hang heavily on hand.

Just as there are days in which consideration should be shown, so too

there are longer periods of time in which it is unwise for a girl to

be pressed to prepare for or to undergo a strenuous examination. The

brain of the girl appears to be as good as that of the boy, while her

application, industry, and emulation are far in advance of his, but

she has these physiological peculiarities, and if they are disregarded

there will not only be an occasional disastrous failure in bodily or

mental health, but girls as a class will fail to do the best work of

which they are capable, and will fail to reap the fullest advantage

from an education which is costly in money, time, and strength. It

follows that the curriculum for girls presents greater difficulties

than the curriculum for boys, and that those ladies who are

responsible for the organisation of a school for girls need to be

women of great resource, great patience, and endowed with much

sympathetic insight. The adolescent girl will generally do little to

help her teachers in this matter. She is incapable of recognising her

own limitations, she is full of emulation, and is desirous of

attaining and keeping a good position not only in her school but also

in the University or in any other public body for whose examination

she may present herself. The young girl most emphatically needs to be

saved from herself, and she has to learn the lessons of obedience and

of cheerful acquiescence in restrictions that certainly appear to her

simply vexatious.

One of the difficulties in private schools arises from the necessity

of providing occupation for every hour of the waking day, while

avoiding the danger of overwork with its accompanying exhaustion. In

the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games,

dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a

welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and

equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is

trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one

hand and undue mental pressure on the other.

Boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who

leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the

same causes. One of the difficulties in their case is that they leave

school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of

study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been

thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few

years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty

knowledge. Free education has been given to the children of the poor

for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in

the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the

wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to

read in an imperfect and blundering manner.

Here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being

the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in

school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after

life. It would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in

addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to

enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple

household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the

cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing

as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. In addition,

and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be

taught gymnastics, part singing and mother-craft. No doubt in

individual schools much of this modification of the curriculum has

been accomplished, but more remains to be done before we can be

satisfied that we have done the best in our power to fit the children

of the country for their life's work.

Another of the great problems connected with the children in

elementary schools, a problem which, indeed, arises out of their

leaving at fourteen, is that of the Continuation School or Evening

School, and the system which is known as "half-timing." It is well

known that although young people from fourteen to sixteen years of age

are well able to profit by continued instruction, they are, with very

few exceptions, not at all well adapted for commencing their life's

work as industrials. The general incoherency and restlessness peculiar

to that age frequently lead to a change of employment every few

months, while their general irresponsibility and want of self-control

lead to frequent disputes with foremen and other officials in

factories and shops, in consequence of which the unfortunate child is

constantly out of work. In proportion to the joy and pride caused by

the realised capacity to earn money and by the sense of independence

that employment brings, is the unhappiness, and in many cases the

misery, due to unemployment, and to repeated failures to obtain and to

keep an independent position. The boy or girl out of work has an

uneasy feeling that he or she has not earned the just and expected

share towards household expenses. The feeling of dependence and

well-nigh of disgrace causes a rapid deterioration in health and

spirits, and it is only too likely that in many instances where

unemployment is continuous or frequently repeated, the unemployed

will quickly become the unemployable.

So far as the young people themselves are concerned, it would be

nearly always an unmixed benefit that they should pass at fourteen

into a Technical School or Continuation School, as the case may be.

Among the great difficulties to the solution of this problem is the

fact that in many working-class households the few weekly shillings

brought into the family store by the elder children are of very real

importance, and although the raising of the age of possible employment

and independence would enable the next generation to work better and

to earn higher and more continuous wages, it is difficult for the

parents to acquiesce in the present deprivation involved, even though

it represents so much clear gain in the not distant future.

At the present time there are Evening Schools, but this system does

not work well. All busy people are well aware that after a hard day's

work neither brain nor body is in the best possible condition for two

or three hours of serious mental effort. The child who has spent the

day in factory or shop has really pretty nearly used up all his or her

available mental energy, and after the evening meal is naturally

heavy, stupid, irritable, and altogether in a bad condition for

further effort. The evenings ought to be reserved for recreation, for

the gymnasium, the singing class, the swimming bath, and even for the

concert and the theatre.

The system of "half-timing" during ordinary school life does not work

well, and it would be a great pity should a similar system be

introduced in the hope of furthering the education of boys and girls

who are just entering industrial life. There is reason to hope that a

great improvement in education will be secured by Mr. Hayes Fisher's

bill.

Another subject to which the attention of patriots and philanthropists

ought to be turned is the sort of employment open to children at

school-leaving age. The greatest care should be taken to diminish the

number of those who endeavour to achieve quasi-independence in those

occupations which are well known as "blind alleys." In England it is

rare that girls should seek these employments, but in Scotland there

is far too large a number of girl messengers. In this particular, the

case of the girl is superior to that of the boy. The "tweeny" develops

into housemaid or cook; the young girls employed in superior shops to

wait on the elder shopwomen hope to develop into their successors, and

the girls who nurse babies on the doorsteps are, after all, acquiring

knowledge and dexterity that may fit them for domestic service or for

the management of their own families a few years later.

The girls of the richer classes have not the same difficulties as

their poorer sisters. They generally remain at school until a much

later age, and subsequently have the joy and stimulus of college life,

of foreign travel, of social engagements, or of philanthropic

enterprise. Still, a residue remains even of girls of this class whose

own inclinations, or whose family circumstances, lead to an aimless,

purposeless existence, productive of much injury to both body and

mind, and only too likely to end in hopeless ennui and nervous

troubles. It should be thoroughly understood by parents and guardians

that no matter what the girl's circumstances may be, she ought always

to have an abundance of employment. The ideas of obligation and of

duty should not be discarded when school and college life cease. The

well-to-do girl should be encouraged to take up some definite

employment which would fill her life and provide her with interests

and duties. Any other arrangement tends to make the time between

leaving school or college and a possible marriage not only a wasted

time but also a seed-time during which a crop is sown of bad habits,

laziness of body, and slackness of mind, that subsequently bear bitter

fruit. It is quite time for us to recognise that unemployment and

absence of duties is as great a disadvantage to the rich as it is to

the poor; the sort of employment must necessarily differ, but the

spirit in which it is to be done is the same.

One point that one would wish to emphasise with regard to all

adolescents is that although occupation for the whole day is most

desirable, hard work should occupy but a certain proportion of the

waking hours. For any adolescent, or indeed for any of us to attempt

to work hard for twelve or fourteen hours out of the twenty-four is to

store up trouble. It is not possible to lay down any hard and fast

rule as to the length of hours of work, because the other factors in

the problem vary so greatly. One person may be exhausted by four

hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by

eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand

that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment,

and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as

mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as

portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must

necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in

feeding a machine, in nursing a baby, or in gardening operations.

CHAPTER V.

THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION.

The great problem before those who have the responsibility for the

training of the young is that of preparing them to take their place in

the world as fathers, mothers, and citizens, and among the fundamental

duties connected with this responsibility must come the placing before

the eyes of the young people high ideals, attractive examples, and the

securing to them the means of adequate preparation. As a nation it

seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of Israel in

the days of Eli: "the word of the Lord was precious (or scarce) in

those days; there was no open vision." We seem to have come to a time

of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a

widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is

little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching

and of training is but too little realised. In the endeavour to know a

little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and

exhaustive knowledge of anything. It would appear as if the remedy for

this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before

the years of adolescence, even while the child is yet in its cradle.

The old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be

once more household words and living entities before the race can

enter on a period of regeneration. We want a poet with the logic of

Browning, the sweetness of Tennyson, and the force of Rudyard Kipling,

to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and

love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of

which the England of bygone years had the promise.

Speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that

the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good

wife and a good mother. It is not necessary to say this in direct

words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided,

as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower

and perfection of her being. This is the hope and ideal that should

sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of

life. All learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should

take their place as a preparation to this end. Each generation that

comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded

it. It is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that

which is to come. We ought to recognise that all educational aims and

methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were

properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service

and help in their training. The deep primal instinct of fatherhood and

motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly

and successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of

their own bodies, their own minds, and their own souls. It is,

however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even

unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its

fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily

ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is

considered indiscreet and even indelicate. How are children to develop

a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their

wonderful destiny? If they do not recognise that at least in one

respect God has confided to them in some measure His own creative

function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure

their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function?

There is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when

and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august

destiny. We are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is

not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be

sanctified and blessed. It is, however, certain that the conspiracy of

silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil.

If a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the

eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always

pernicious and sometimes disastrous. If, on the other hand, such

knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her

purity of mind must be smirched and injured.

Even among those who hold that children ought to be instructed, there

is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. Some

say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of

marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less

shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural

and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. These

last would argue--why put the facts of reproduction on a different

footing from those of digestion and respiration? As facts in the

physical life they hold a precisely similar position. Upon the due

performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole

organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of

respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the

individual, it is essential to the life of the nation.

The facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a

perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them--the

cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more

the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types

of motherhood. Instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the

origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser to

answer the child's question by a direct statement of fact, that God

has given the power to His creatures to perpetuate themselves, that

the gift of Life is one of His good gifts bestowed in mercy on all His

creatures. The mother's share in this gift and duty can be observed

by, and simply explained to, the child from its earliest years; it

comes then with no shock, no sense of shame, but as a type of joy and

gladness, an image of that holiest of all relations, the Eternal

Mother and the Heavenly Child.

Somewhat later in life, probably immediately before puberty in boys

and shortly after puberty in girls, the father's share in this mystery

may naturally come up for explanation. The physiological facts

connected with this are not so constantly in evidence before children,

and therefore do not press for explanation in the same way as do those

of motherhood, but the time comes soon in the schoolboy's life when

the special care of his own body has to be urged on him, and this

knowledge ought to come protected by the sanction that unless he is

faithful to his trust he cannot look to the reward of a happy home

life with wife and children. In the case of the girl the question as

to fatherhood is more likely to arise out of the reading of the Bible

or other literature, or by her realisation that at any rate in the

case of human parenthood there is evidently the intermediation of a

father. The details of this knowledge need not necessarily be pressed

on the adolescent girl, but it is a positive cruelty to allow the

young woman to marry without knowing the facts on which her happiness

depends.

Another way in which the mystery of parenthood can be simply and

comfortably taught is through the study of vegetable physiology. The

fertilisation of the ovules by pollen which falls directly from the

anthers on to the stigma can be used as a representation of similar

facts in animal physiology. It is very desirable, however, that this

study of the vegetable should succeed and not precede that of the

domestic animals in the teaching of boys and girls.

Viewed from this standpoint there is surely no difficulty to the

parent in imparting to the child this necessary knowledge. We have to

remember that children have to know the mysteries of life. They cannot

live in the world without seeing the great drama constantly displayed

to them in family life and in the lives of domesticated animals. They

cannot read the literature of Greece and Rome, nay, they cannot study

the Book of Books, without these facts being constantly brought to

mind. A child's thirst for the interpretation of this knowledge is

imperative and unsatiable--not from prurience nor from evil-mindedness,

but in obedience to a law of our nature, the child demands this

knowledge--and will get it. It is for fathers and mothers to say

whether these sublime and beautiful mysteries shall be lovingly

and reverently unveiled by themselves or whether the child's mind

shall be poisoned and all beauty and reverence destroyed by depraved

school-fellows and vulgar companions.

In the hope of securing the purity, reverence and piety of our

children, in the hope that they may grow up worthy of their high

destiny, let us do what we may to keep their honour unsmirched, to

preserve their innocence, and to lead them on from the unconscious

goodness of childhood to the clear-eyed, fully conscious dignity of

maturity, that our sons may grow up as young plants, and our daughters

as the polished corners of the temple.

PART II.: BOYS.

BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

My contribution to this little book was originally intended for the

eyes of parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. Since 1913, when the

book was first published, it has been my privilege to receive from

these so many letters of warm appreciation that it seems needless to

retain the apologetic preface which I then wrote. The object which I

had in view at that time was the hastening of a supremely important

reform. I have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my words have

carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless

boys.

One result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. It did not

occur to me, as I wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young

men. It was not written at all for this purpose. In some respects its

influence over them has, however, been increased by this obvious fact.

In this book boys have, as it were, overheard a confidential

conversation about themselves carried on by adults anxious for their

welfare, and some at least are evidently more impressed by this

conversation than by a direct appeal--in which they are liable to

suspect exaggeration.

I have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. These

confirm in _every_ way the conclusions set forth in this book, and

prove that the need for guidance in sex matters is acute and

universal. The relief and assistance which many boys have experienced

from correspondence with me, and the interest which I find in their

letters have caused me--spite of the extreme preoccupation of a

strenuous life--to issue a special invitation to those who may feel

inclined to write to me.

Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex

instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are

curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually

strongly denounce. While I have my own views as to the best method to

adopt, I am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in

suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method

is infinitely superior to no method at all.

Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some

favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public

teaching. Some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would

prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a

matter-of-fact science subject. Some wish the parent to give the

teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially

trained for this purpose. Good results have been obtained by every

one of these methods.

During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my

hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in

these pages, and I am confident that of boys who have been wisely

guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated

with those who are generally and openly corrupt. I must, however,

emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends

ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his

devotion to the Right.

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power."

Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most

difficult of all virtues.

F. ARTHUR SIBLY.

WYCLIFFE, STONEHOUSE, GLOS.

_September 1918._

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The term puberty will so often be used in the following chapters that

a brief account of the phenomena of puberty may appropriately be given

at the outset of this work. Puberty is a name given to the age at

which a boy becomes capable of being a father. In temperate climates

this age is reached at about fifteen years, though some boys attain it

at twelve and some not until seventeen. The one obvious and invariable

sign of puberty is a change of pitch in the voice, which assumes its

bass character after an embarrassing period of squeaky alternations

between the high and low tones.

The age is a critical one, as several important changes take place in

body and in mind. The reproductive organs undergo considerable

development and become sensitive to any stimulus, physical or mental.

The seminal fluid, which in normal cases has hitherto been secreted

little, if at all, is now elaborated by the testicles, and contains

spermatazoa--minute organisms which are essential to reproduction.

Under the stimulus of sexual thoughts this fluid is secreted in such

quantity as to give rise to involuntary discharge during sleep. These

nocturnal emissions are so often found among boys and young men that

some physiologists consider them to be quite normal. My experience

leads me to doubt this conclusion.

Another physical change associated with puberty is the growth of hair

on the pubes and on the face: in this latter situation the growth is

slow.

With the capacity for fatherhood comes a very strong awakening of the

sexual instinct, which manifests itself in passion and in lust--the

unconscious and the conscious sex hunger. The passion shows itself in

a ludicrously indiscriminate and exaggerated susceptibility to female

attractions--a susceptibility the sexual character of which is usually

quite unrecognised. Among boys who have sex knowledge there is also a

tendency to dwell on sexual thoughts when the mind is not otherwise

occupied. Passion and lust do not at once develop their full strength;

but, coming at a time when self-control is very weak, and coming with

all the attraction of novelty, they often dominate the mind even in

normal cases, and may become tyrannous when the reproductive system

has been prematurely stimulated.

A heightened self-consciousness and an antagonism to authority so

often follow the attainment of puberty that they are usually

considered to be its results. My own experience with boys satisfies me

that this conclusion is not correct. Self-consciousness, when it

occurs in boyhood, is usually the result of an unclean inner life.

Puberty merely increases the self-consciousness by intensifying its

cause. When the mind is clean there is no marked change in this

respect at puberty. The antagonism to authority so often observed

after puberty is the product of unsatisfactory external influences.

With puberty the desire to stand well with others, and in particular

the desire to seem manly, increases. If a debased public opinion

demands of a boy the cheap manliness of profanity, tobacco, and

irreverence, the demand creates a plentiful supply, while it also

suppresses as priggish or "pi" any avowed or suspected devotion to

higher ideals. A healthy public opinion, working in harmony with a

boy's nobler instincts, calls forth in him an earnest devotion to high

ideals, and causes him to exercise, on the development of his powers

and in a crusade against wrong, the new energies which a wholesome

puberty places at his disposal.

CHAPTER I.

PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE.

Of the perils which beset the growing boy all are recognised, and, in

a measure, guarded against except the most inevitable and most fatal

peril of all. In all that concerns the use and abuse of the

reproductive organs the great majority of boys have hitherto been left

without adult guidance, and have imbibed their ideas from the coarser

of their companions and from casual references to the subject in the

Bible and other books. Under these conditions very few boys escape two

of the worst dangers into which it is possible for a lad to fall--the

artificial stimulation of the reproductive organs and the acquisition

of degraded ideas on the subject of sex. That many lives are thus

prematurely shortened, that many constitutions are permanently

enfeebled, that very many lads who might otherwise have striven

successfully against the sexual temptations of adult life

succumb--almost without a struggle--to them, can be doubted by no one

who is familiar with the inner life of boys and men.

Of these two evils, self-abuse, though productive of manifold and

disastrous results, is distinctly the less. Many boys outgrow the

physical injuries which, in ignorance, they inflict upon themselves in

youth; but very few are able wholly to cleanse themselves from the

foul desires associated in their minds with sex. These desires make

young men impotent in the face of temptation. Under their evil

dominance, even men of kind disposition will, by seduction, inflict on

an innocent girl agony, misery, degradation, and premature death. They

will indulge In the most degrading of all vices with prostitutes on

the street. They will defile the atmosphere of social life with filthy

talk and ribald jest. Even a clean and ennobling passion can do little

to redeem them. The pure stream of human love is made turbid with

lust. After a temporary uplifting in marriage the soul is again

dragged down, marriage vows are broken and the blessings of home life

are turned into wormwood and gall.

That a system so destructive of physical and of spiritual health

should have lasted almost intact until now will, I believe, shortly

become a matter for general amazement; for while evidence of the

widespread character of youthful perversion is a product of quite

recent years, the assumptions on which this system has been based are

unreasonable and incapable of proof.

Since conclusive evidence of the prevalence of impurity among boys is

available, I will not at present invite the reader to examine the

assumptions which lead most people to a contrary belief. When I do

so, I shall hope to demonstrate that we might reasonably expect to

find things precisely as they are. In the first and second chapters we

shall see to what conclusions teachers who have actual experience in

the matter have been led.

There are several teachers whose authority in most matters stands so

very much above my own that it might seem presumptuous to begin by

laying my own experiences before the reader; but I venture to take

this course because no other teacher, as far as I know, has published

quite such definite evidence as I have done; and I think that the more

general statements of such eminent men as Canon Lyttelton, Mr. A.C.

Benson, and Dr. Clement Dukes will appeal to the reader more

powerfully when he has some idea of the manner in which conclusions on

this subject may be reached. I have some reason, also, for the belief

that the paper I read in 1908 at the London University before the

International Congress on Moral Education has been considered of great

significance by very competent judges. By a special decision of the

Executive of the Congress it--alone of all sectional papers--was

printed _in extenso_ in the official report. Later on, it came under

the notice of Sir R. Baden-Powell, at whose request it was republished

in the _Headquarters Gazette_--the official organ of the Boy Scout

movement.

It certainly did require some courage at the time to put my results

before the public, for I was not then aware that men of great eminence

in the educational world had already made equally sweeping, if less

definite, statements. Emboldened by this fact and by the commendations

above referred to, I venture to quote the greater part of this short

paper.

"The opinions I am about to put forward are based almost entirely on

my own twenty years' experience as a housemaster. My house contains

forty-eight boys, who vary in age from ten to nineteen and come from

comfortable middle-class homes.

"Private interviews with individual boys in my study have been the

chief vehicle of my teaching and the chief source of my information.

My objects in these interviews have been to warn boys against the

evils of private impurity, to supply them with a certain amount of

knowledge on sexual subjects in order to prevent a prurient curiosity,

and to induce them to confide to me the history of their own knowledge

and difficulties. In my early days I interviewed those only who

appeared to me to be obviously suffering from the effects of impurity,

and, of late years, the extreme pressure of my work has forced me very

reluctantly to recur to this plan.

"For several years, however, I was accustomed to interview every boy

under my care during his first term with me. Very rarely have I failed

in these interviews so to secure a boy's confidence as to learn the

salient facts of the history of his inner life. Sunday afternoon

addresses to the Sixth Form on the sexual dangers of late youth and

early manhood have resulted at times in elder boys themselves seeking

an interview with me. Such spontaneous confidences have naturally

been fuller, and therefore more instructive, than the confidences I

have invited.

"Many people are inclined to look upon the instruction of boys in

relation to adolescence as needless and harmful; needless because few

boys, they imagine, awake to the consciousness and problems of sex

until manhood; harmful because the pristine innocence of the mind is,

they think, destroyed, and evils are suggested of which a boy might

otherwise remain unconscious. To one who knows what boys really are

such ideas are nothing less than ludicrous.

"Boys come to our school from many different classes of preparatory

and secondary schools. Almost every such school seems to possess a few

boys who delight to initiate younger boys into sexual knowledge, and

usually into knowledge of solitary vice. The very few boys who have

come to me quite ignorant of these matters have come either straight

from home at ten or eleven, or from a school in which a few young boys

are educated with girls. Of boys who have come under my care as late

as twelve I have known but two who even professed total ignorance on

sexual subjects, and in one of these cases I am quite sure that no

such ignorance existed.

"In a large majority of cases solitary vice has been learned and

practised before a boy has got into his teens. The lack of insight

parents display in relation to these questions is quite phenomenal.

The few who mention the subject to me are always quite satisfied of

the complete 'innocence' of their boys. Some of the most precocious

and unclean boys I have known have been thus confidently commended to

me. Boys are wholly unsuspicious of the extent to which their inner

life lies open to the practised eye, and they feel secure that nothing

can betray their secrets if they themselves do not.

"In no department of our life are George Eliot's words truer than in

this department: 'Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves

from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those

who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the

deep human soul within us--full of unspoken evil and unacted good.' We

cannot prevent a boy's obtaining information on sexual questions. Our

choice lies between leaving him to pick it up from unclean and vulgar

minds, which will make it guilty and impure, and giving it ourselves

in such a way as to invest it from the first with a sacred character.

"Another idea which my experience proves to be an entire delusion is

the idea that a boy's natural refinement is a sufficient protection

against defilement. Some of the most refined boys I have had the

pleasure of caring for have been pronounced victims of solitary sin.

That it is a sin at all, that it has, indeed, any significance, either

ethical or spiritual, has not so much as occurred to most of them. On

what great moral question dare we leave the young to find their own

way absolutely without guidance? In this most difficult and dangerous

of all questions we leave the young soul, stirred by novel and blind

impulses, to grope in the darkness. Is it any wonder if it fails to

see things in their true relations?

"Again, it is sometimes thought that the consequences of secret sin

are so patent as to deter a boy from the sin itself. So far is this

from being the case that I have never yet found a single boy (even

among those who have, through it, made almost complete wrecks

physically and mentally) who has of himself connected these

consequences with the sin itself. I have, on the other hand, known

many sad cases in which, through the weakening of will power, which

this habit causes, boys of high ideals have fallen again and again

after their eyes have been fully opened. This sin is rarely a

conscious moral transgression. The boy is a victim to be sympathised

with and helped, not an offender to be reproved and punished."

I desire to call the attention of the reader to two points in the

foregoing extract. I was particular in giving my credentials to state

the character and limitations of my experience. Everywhere in life one

finds confident and sweeping generalisations made by men who have

little or no experience to appeal to. This is specially the case in

the educational world, and perhaps most of all in discussions on this

very subject. Some men, at least, are willing to instruct the public

with nothing better to guide them than the light of Nature. It would

greatly assist the quest of truth if everyone who ventures to address

the public on this question would first present his credentials.

There is danger lest the reader should discount the significance of

the statements I make in the foregoing paper by falling into the error

of supposing that the facts stated apply, after all, to one school

only. This is not by any means so. The facts have been collected _at_

one school; but those which refer to the prevalence of sex knowledge

and of masturbation have reference solely to the condition of boys

when they first entered, and are significant of the conditions which

obtain at some scores of schools and in many homes. I venture here to

quote and to warmly endorse Canon Lyttelton's opinion: "It is,

however, so easy to be misunderstood in this matter that I must insert

a caution against an inference which may be drawn from these words,

viz. that school life is the _origin_ of immorality among boys. The

real origin is to be found in the common predisposition to vicious

conceptions, which is the result of neglect. Nature provides in almost

every case an active curiosity on this subject; and that curiosity

must be somehow allayed; and if it were not allayed at school, false

and depraved ideas would be picked up at home.... So readily does an

ignorant mind at an early age take in teaching about these subjects

that there are no conceivable conditions of modern social life not

fraught with grave peril to a young boy, if once he has been allowed

to face them quite unprepared, either by instruction or by warning.

And this manifestly applies to life at home, or in a day-school, or

in a boarding-school to an almost equal degree."[A]

[Footnote A: _Training of the Young in Relation to Sex, p. 1 et

seq_.]

One of the facts which I always tried to elicit from boys was the

source of their information, or rather the character of that source,

for I was naturally anxious not to ask a boy to incriminate any

individual known to me. In many cases, information came first to the

boy at _home_ from a brother, or cousin, or casual acquaintance, or

domestic servant. In one of the worst cases I have known the

information was given to a boy by another boy--an entire stranger to

him--whom he happened to meet on a country road when cycling. Since

boys meet one another very much more at school than elsewhere and

spend three-fourths of their lives there, of course information is

more often obtained at school than at home. My own experience leads me

to think that in this respect the day-school--probably on account of

its mixed social conditions--is worse than the boarding-school.

Before passing from matters of personal experience, it may interest

the reader if I give particulars of a few typical cases to illustrate

some points on which I have insisted.

_Case A._--The father and mother of a boy close on thirteen came to

see me before entering the lad. They had no idea that I was specially

interested in purity-teaching; but they were anxious to ascertain what

precautions we took against the corruption of small boys. They struck

me as very good parents. I was specially pleased that they were alive

to the dangers of impurity, and that the mother could advert openly to

the matter without embarrassment. I advised them to give the boy

explicit warning; but they said that they were anxious to preserve his

innocence as long as possible. He was at present absolutely simple,

and they hoped that he would long remain so. It was a comfort to them

that I was interested in the subject, and they would leave the boy

with confidence in my care. As soon as I saw the boy, I found it

difficult to believe in his innocence; and I soon discovered that he

was thoroughly corrupt. Not merely did he begin almost at once to

corrupt other boys, but he actually gave them his views on brothels!

In a private interview with me he admitted all this, and told me that

he was corrupted at ten years of age, when he was sent, after

convalescence from scarlet fever, to a country village for three

months. There he seems to have associated with a group of street boys,

who gave him such information as they had, and initiated him into

self-abuse. Since then he had been greedily seeking further

information and passing it on.

_Case B._--A delicate, gentle boy of eleven, an only son, was sent to

me by an intellectual father, who had been his constant companion. The

lad was very amiable and well-intentioned. A year later he gave me

particulars of his corruption by a cousin, who was three years older

than he. Since that time--particularly of late--he had practised

masturbation. He had not the least idea that it was hurtful or even

unrefined, and thought that it was peculiar to himself and his

cousin. He knew from his cousin the chief facts of maternity and

paternity, but had not spoken to other boys about them. He was

intensely anxious to cleanse himself entirely, and promised to let me

know of any lapse, should it occur. In the following vacation he

developed pneumonia. For some days his life hung in the balance, and

then flickered out. His father wrote me a letter of noble resignation.

Terribly as he felt his loss, he was greatly consoled, he said, by the

knowledge that his boy had died while his mind was innocent and before

he could know even what temptation was. It is needless to add that I

never hinted the real facts to the father; and--without altering any

material detail--I am disguising the case lest it should possibly be

recognised by him. I have often wondered whether, when the lad's life

hung in the balance, it might not have been saved if Death's scale had

not been weighted by the child's lowered vitality.

_Case C._--A boy of fourteen came to me. He was a miserable specimen

in every way--pale, lethargic, stupid almost beyond belief. He had no

mother; and the father, though a man of leisure, evidently found it

difficult to make the lad much of a companion. I felt certain from the

first that the boy was an exceptionally bad victim of self-abuse; And

this I told his father, advising him to investigate the matter. He was

horrified at my diagnosis, and committed the great indiscretion of

taxing the boy with self-abuse as though it were a conscious and

grave fault. The father wrote during the vacation saying that he

found I was entirely mistaken: not, content with the lad's assurance,

he had watched him with the utmost care. As soon as the boy returned

to school I interviewed him. He admitted readily that he had long

masturbated himself daily--sometimes oftener. He had first--as far as

he could remember, at about six--had his private parts excited by his

nurse, who apparently did this to put an irritable child into a good

temper! My warning had little effect upon him, as he had become a

hopeless victim. He was too delicate a boy for us to desire to keep;

and after a brief stay at school, during which we nursed him through a

critical illness, he left to finish his education under private

tuition at home.

_Case D._--This boy came to me at thirteen. He was always a

conscientious and amiable boy, but was nervous and dull. By fifteen

his dullness had increased, and he complained of brain-strain and

poorness of memory. Finally he began to develop St. Vitus's dance. I

sent him to our school doctor, who returned him with a note saying

that his condition was serious--that he must stop all work, &c. &c. I

was in my study when the lad came back, and I at once told him what

was the matter. He frankly admitted frequent self-abuse, which he had

learned from an elder brother. He had not the least suspicion that the

habit was injurious; but was very apprehensive about his future until

I reassured him. He wanted me to write at once and warn a younger

brother who had fallen into the habit. By great effort he got himself

rapidly under control. His nervous twitchings disappeared, his

vitality improved, the brain-fag gradually ceased; and when he left,

eighteen months later, he was fairly normal. His improvement continued

afterwards, and he is now a successful man of business and a married

man.

_Case E._--This boy entered at twelve. He was very weak physically and

highly nervous--owing, his people thought, to severe bullying at a

previous school. He was an able boy, of literary and artistic tastes,

and almost painfully conscientious. He was very shy; always thought

that he was despised by other boys; and was a duffer at games, which

he avoided to the utmost. With my present experience I should have

known him to be a victim of self-abuse. Then, I did not suspect him;

and it was not until he was leaving at eighteen for the University

that we talked the matter over, on his initiative. Then I found that

he had been bullied into impurity at eleven, and was now a helpless

victim. After two years at the University he wrote me that, though the

temptation now came less frequently, he seemed absolutely powerless

when it did come; that he despised himself so much that the impulse to

suicide often haunted him; but that the cowardice which had kept him

from games at school would probably prevent his taking his life. With

the assistance of an intense and devoted religious life he gradually

began to gain self-mastery. It is some years now since he has

mentioned the subject to me.

These are merely specimen cases. Cases A, B, and C illustrate my

assertions that parents are wonderfully blind; Cases B and E, that

quite exceptional refinement in a boy gives no protection from

temptation to impurity; Case D, that a boy, even in an extreme case,

does not know that the habit is injurious. In respect of their

severity, C, D, and E are not normal but extreme cases. The reader

must not imagine that boys ordinarily suffer as much as these did.