to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish
prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race
by furthering productivity of the Fit, by early marriages and
healthful rearing of their children.
There is much to be said for and gainst the wholesale acceptance of this
theory. In essence, it imperils the personal selection for marriage; and
comes very close to being an officious attempt to interfere with human
freedom. Yet, it is gaining ground in the world’s legislation. To the
individual, it may seem to impose unnecessary hardships and restrictions;
but that is not its aim.
Extreme advocates of eugenics say flatly that “we should rather bring
the propagation of the race to the level of the stud-farm, than that it
should go on in the old haphazard way which surely leads to catastrophe.”
While we do not want science for domestic animals and chance for men,
the average thinking person will reject this stringent proposal. But
some middle course lies open. Legislation prohibiting certain matings
would be obnoxious, but certain laws making health attractive would
meet with approval. There are extreme cases when laws should act, not
to prohibit mating, but child-bearing. If the state should believe that
certain persons were absolutely unfit for parenting children, it is
possible, by a simple operation, to insure them against this, without
detriment to the health of either sex. There are times when this is
highly desirable. Switzerland, in ten years, largely abolished a certain
type of feeble-mindedness by this method. If science believes that such
traits as feeble-mindedness, insanity, epilepsy, dipsomania and syphilis
are inheritable in such proportions that prohibition of offspring should
be required, such a law should be resorted to.
But, since such laws are not at present prevalent, it remains for
each man and woman to choose wisely and healthily. If a young woman
is certain that she cannot be happy without mating with a man who is
consumptive, paralytic or inflicted with some other inheritable disease,
she should enter upon the marriage with a firm will against giving
birth to any children. This may seem a very harsh stricture, but if the
young woman will stop to realize that having children by such an unfit
father may carry on the disease in a worse form through her children or
grandchildren, she will grant the wisdom of the plan. No woman wants
deformed or unhealthy children. If she marries a man in such a condition,
she does it open-eyed, but to go through the trials of child-birth for
the sake of a life that will be marred by illness, is another matter. It
is not only unfair to the parents, but brutally unfair to the child. If
people would get over the idea that children owe all to their parents,
and come to realize how much parents owe to their children, they would
see the sense of such reasoning. After all, it is a great responsibility
to bring a life into the world. Remember that the person for whose life
you are responsible had no choice in the matter. You bring them here. It
is up to you to see that they arrive in a not too happy world, equipped
with every possible weapon to gain happiness. The children of unhealthy
parents are unfairly handicapped from the start.
_The Future of Eugenics._—Certain scientists do not regard eugenics as
simply as we have done. Bertrand Russell, in _Icarus_, is sure that
eugenics will become universal.
This power will be used, at first to diminish imbecility, a
most desirable object. But probably, in time, opposition to the
government will be taken to prove imbecility, so that rebels
of all kinds will be sterilized. Epileptics, consumptives,
dipsomaniacs and so on will gradually be included; in the end,
there will be a tendency to include all who fail to pass the
usual school examinations.
He believes that the result will increase the average intelligence, and
decrease brilliance.
Viscount Haldane, considered by some as a greater scientist, and a more
brilliant critic, indicates that eugenics may come in by a pleasanter
though more startling route. By 1950, he anticipates the production of
the first ectogenetic child, or child born from a womb withdrawn from the
mother’s body for all of the embryonic period. By a simple operation, he
prophesies that science will be able to remove an ovary from a woman,
and keep it growing in a suitable fluid for as long as twenty years,
producing a fresh ovum each month, of which 90 percent can be fertilized,
the embryos grown successfully, for nine months, and then brought out
into the air. Many nations will hail this movement because of the falling
birthrate that they are at present suffering from. He believes that
such an absolute separation of reproduction from love will make a deep
and profound effect upon morality. It will be possible then for each
generation to choose only the perfect parents to produce the coming
generation. There is much to be said in favor of this amazing idea, and
of course, a great deal to be said against it. But the ever-increasing
growth of intelligence will ultimately wipe out the majority of the
objections.
The foremost thinkers of today regard eugenics as a matter worthy of
their discussion and serious consideration. We offer what science may
suggest as possible solutions of the race problem. How the state and
country may regard these discoveries is another and quite unpredictable
matter. It is very probable that things will not advance as briskly as
these two quoted scientists anticipate. Nor need we be too much concerned
with the fate of 1950. It remains for each individual to give his and her
consent to adequate eugenic protection. Greater happiness will result
from a certainty that the parties to any marriage are fit for parenthood.
_Birth Control._—The chief reason why many people are against eugenics is
that it demands birth control. Many religions denounce this practice,
and in general the state is against it. No doctor is allowed to give
advice on this subject.
The very persons who shudder and brand any passion as animal, regard
promiscuous breeding as human. There is nothing more animal-like than
being merely a vehicle for breeding purposes. Yet that, according to the
laws of state and religion, is all that marriage is for.
This theory is expected to apply to the poor; it does not concern the
rich. Artificial methods of preventing conception are widely known among
those who could well afford to have children. In many localities it is
a crime to furnish this information. A doctor, though he knows that the
parents are unfit for parenthood, may not do anything to prevent the
birth of a child. The poor, therefore, who have the greatest need for the
information, cannot acquire it, in general.
Of course, any form of abortion, or killing the embryo after it has been
conceived in the womb, can be said to resemble murder. But the prevention
of conception is another matter. No actual life is being terminated; then
one is merely being prevented for the good of all concerned. One cannot
expect human beings to remain continually continent. This is unnatural
and wrong, to say nothing of being harmful to the parties concerned.
Ultimately, the stringent laws on this subject will be altered for the
general good of present generations and those yet unborn.
V. PROPER EDUCATION.
_In School._—The most outstanding error, the one most fraught with dire
consequences, is the taboo on sex, and the consequent silence upon
any matter pertaining to it. All life is dependent upon sex, and all
civilization is combined in an effort to make it appear non-existent by
ignoring it.
With silly sham codes and an absurd veil of surface morality, civilized
society blinds its eyes to sex, and tries to believe that in so doing it
is eradicating man’s most fundamental yearning. Naturally, it does no
such thing. But what does it do? If it were only a negative result that
it achieved, it would be hardly worthy of notice, and could be passed
over with a light laugh as a fond parent ignores the amusing make-believe
of a child. Such is not the case. The conventions and moral codes are
more deadly than a mere sop thrown out to soothe Rotarian consciences.
This smoke screen, released to blind the enemy, has deadened the eyes of
the defense, and left them open to the most insidious advances of their
declared foe. All that conventional morality has succeeded in doing is
promulgating an ignorance that is more devastating than anything the
most licentious knowledge could possibly foster. Young persons, reaching
maturity, blunder onto sex, blinded by ignorance. Small wonder that they
make so many grave mistakes. It is hard on both sexes, but harder on
girls. In spite of our broadening attitude, girls still pay the price of
ignorance in most communities. What chance has a young girl, brought up
to believe that she was dropped through the window by a stork, or that
her mother found her under a rose bush, when she goes out into a man-made
world? She has been taught to keep her boy friends at a proper distance,
but when she is alone, and lonely, she finds it not too hard to give the
first kiss. Once given, she can see no harm in it. Somehow it doesn’t
seem nearly as evil as her parents had told her it was. She does not
know that the kiss is a mere preliminary, and when she finally yields,
she does not realize the full import of her action. She has only blind
ignorance with which to defend herself from the world, only ignorance to
protect her from disease, or illegitimate motherhood.
Has this ignorance kept girls any purer? No. An appalling number of
babies are born to ignorant girls every year. The crime is not only
against the girl, but the baby, who comes into the world branded by the
stigma of illegitimacy. And society blames the girl for not knowing how
to take care of herself when all of the social energies have been united
to maintain her ignorance.
Perhaps the worst result of this sex-ignorance is prostitution. We wonder
how many people know where the recruits to this profession are gathered.
To be sure, there are some who enter it voluntarily, but they are few.
The great majority of them are innocent girls, usually from small towns
or country homes, who fall into the trap of some wily man, a trap not
baited by the man, but by the girl’s ignorance. Since this has been the
result of ignorance, is there a remedy? Yes, education.
Almost everything is taught in our schools today, from how to add two
and two to the theory of the fourth dimension. What is taught about sex?
In general, nothing. In most of the grade schools there is a course in
hygiene, but this assiduously avoids all mention of the most important
hygiene of all—sex-hygiene. There are courses which teach the structure
of the human body. They give long Latin names to each bone, from the
skull to the great toe. But, when they reach the central sections of
man’s anatomy, they hurriedly locate the stomach and intestines, and
rush on to the thigh bone, leaving a great void between. The reasons
for this are absurd. First there is the puritanical teaching that the
body is vile, and that any conversation about it is evil. But they do
not consider that head, shoulders, chest, thighs, feet are vile. Those
portions of the body are acceptable, even to puritan thinking. Only the
generative organs are banned. The second reason given for not teaching
sex in the schools is that the imparting of scientific information on the
subject will stimulate undesirable conduct on the part of the pupils.
The so-called undesirable conduct is participated in anyhow, and it is
rendered the more harmful through ignorance. The majority of intelligent
persons today realize the error of these taboos, but, when asked to
advocate sex-knowledge, they decline to support such a reform.
In the last few years there has been some advance made, through the
study of biology. The study of plant and animal life is an excellent
introduction to that of human life. This is particularly true of the
latter, of which human life is merely a more advanced stage. But it is to
be feared, that if the smug teachers of these subjects realized this they
would immediately expunge it from school curriculums. However, botany
and zoology are taught, and it behooves the student to give them careful
attention, as it is his only chance of learning anything about sex under
the present standards. There is no shame attached to conversation about
flowers, their seeding and blooming. We speak of pollen, stamen and
pistil without any maiden blushes. We learn of the promiscuity in nature
without raising horrified hands. The development of the young from the
fertilized ovum to the production of the seed and the plant gives a
symbolic picture to the mind of what she is to expect in the human world.
In zoology we come to the next step in this surreptitious learning. Here
certain things are regarded shameful by some persons. To the farmer,
there is nothing wrong in what a city person may think is not nice.
But the farmer would not regard with the same latitude similar human
functions. We do not blush when we speak of a chicken laying eggs,
nor of the pet cat’s litter of kittens. Even in the most fastidious
society anyone may with propriety call attention to a tom cat’s nightly
song of wooing. A clear knowledge of zoology will give any student
fair comprehension of her own sex-life. In the higher animals, the sex
functions almost parallel our own. Learned through these channels,
instead of through filthy gutter talk, sex unfolds itself to the youthful
mind as an interesting and natural phenomenon, divested of all shame and
guilt.
The third step in teaching sex in schools is in the study of human
physiology. At present this is a much-neglected subject. But, the time
will come when it is included in every school course. It can be taught to
segregated classes. No emphasis need be placed on the generative organs,
provided they are mentioned in their proper place. The tendency of the
pupils to giggle will disappear if the teacher is sufficiently cool and
detached. The teaching, to be valuable, must be comprehensive both as to
the organs, and their use and abuse.
_At Home._—The best place for a child to learn the proper facts of sex is
in the home. The right education at home is more than ever essential at
present, since there is no attempt to teach such matters in the schools.
But even when the schools have broadened to include this subject, it
should be fully and adequately discussed at home. This education should
begin as soon as the child manifests any curiosity on the subject. In
general, a child is still very young when she asks, “Where did I come
from?” The taboo-inhibited parent need not think that the child fully
accepts the threadbare stork or rosebush story. The child may ask for
fuller information, but more often, she merely remains silent. For
several years, she may learn nothing to contradict this story. But,
one day, through her reading or her companions, truth or near-truth
will come to her. It will have two deep effects upon her young mind.
First, it will start that hideous belief that there is something wrong
with sex, something evil about it, that prompted her parents to hide
it under a foolish legend. All right, that is what we want, the parent
may answer. But the second effect is such that no parent can desire. It
gives the child her first glimpse of deception, and breaks her faith in
her parents. Remember, that all of the child’s early training has been
to convince her that she must always tell the truth. She is punished for
lies and deceptions. Then, she suddenly discovers that these parents, who
taught her to speak the truth, have lied to her. She does not stop to
reason why, she only sees the fact. And a very disillusioning fact it is.
Very few parents realize that the art of lying is taught by themselves
while they are trying to instil truth as a virtue into the young mind.
Example is more powerful than words, or even punishment. The child learns
that the parents teach truth, then lie themselves. If the parents are
strict, and, by punishment, prevent the child from deception during its
childhood, the lesson she learns is only that force has the right of
deception. She comes to the conclusion that the elders can do as they
wish, and need not be honorable, and the lesson lingers.
How much better is the simple truth. Certainly no one advocates telling
a child all of the scientific facts that govern sex. But when the child
asks, tell her simply the truth, in a plain sweet manner. Tell her that
she was carried close under her mother’s heart, until she was big enough
to come out into the world. From this simple beginning, the story can be
filled in as the child’s mind grows old enough to understand.
This requires, first, proper knowledge on the part of the parent. It is
the duty of every woman who is a mother or who expects to become one,
to learn all of the facts about sex. This knowledge will have a twofold
value. It will assist in her own life, and will equip her properly to
answer her daughter’s questions.
When a girl enters adolescence, it is imperative that her mother tell
her frankly and without shame all of the details and practices of sexual
life. Knowledge is the best protection that any girl can have. The duty
of the wise parents is to enlighten their children fully about the
possible ways before them, and what good or ill will be won by following
each. The girl who has a thorough comprehension of these facts may be
depended upon in the majority of cases to decide far more wisely and
constructively problems connected with the sexual urge, than the girl who
is reared in blindness and receives such information as she gathers from
doubtful sources, thick with the slime of evil minds.
_Love Education._—The adolescent and the young woman will find this
information too elementary to be satisfactory. Love is more than a matter
of human psychology and its functioning. It is a very subtle art. There
must be, ultimately, education in the art of love. The savage races all
believed in this. The ceremonies of initiation that were held at the time
of puberty of the young men and women, were merely the culmination of an
education in love-making that was given frankly and openly in all the
tribe. These practices still prevail among such tribes as have evaded the
missionaries.
The average man or woman, barring such stray and frequently fouled hints
as he receives from friends and companions equally ignorant, enters upon
marriage with no understanding of what he is called upon to do. When the
daughter of a nice respectable family marries, she is, presumably at
least, a virgin. The young man may or may not be; the assumption being
that he is not. His sexual knowledge has been gained through prostitutes
and “common girls.” More often he has no idea what to do. The girl, we
repeat, is virginal. She is not supposed to have any but the most vague
ideas on the subject. If the girl really has no knowledge of men, she is
shy. Naturally, the largest part of the burden falls upon the man. But
the girl should know in advance what sex means. If she does know, it will
do a great deal to dissipate her unnecessary shyness.
We repeat, love is an art. The girl must realize that she may suffer a
tremendous shock which will render her frigid for life. Medical records
are black with the countless cases where the experiences of the nuptial
night have wrecked the whole subsequent content of the woman, and
in extreme cases, her reason. Young wives who commit suicide on the
honeymoon are frequently so impelled by the man’s initial and usually
quite unconscious brutality. Love is an art, calling for infinite tact on
the part of both the man and the woman.
It will require an immense change in modern conceptions before any
wholesale education in the art of love can be given in this country.
None the less, it is indispensable to right living and happy loving. It
remains for the wise individual to educate herself, by extensive reading
of literature upon the subject, and by a personal contact with those in
a position to know. It is an idealistic dream to hope for such education
now. But, we can be optimistic, for the history of any radical idea is
that it has been proposed, hooted at, persecuted, and finally adopted.
VI. THE PRICE OF ERROR.
_Youthful Restraint._—While full sex-knowledge is advised at an early
age, sexual practices are by no means so desirable. The adolescent girl
should save her strength until she has acquired full bodily maturity.
This is best, not only for herself, but for her children. The children
of immature women are, in nine cases out of ten, weaklings. The girl is
not bodily prepared for this great strain. She has not enough strength
of body or mind to give to the proper development of the child she is
carrying. Since the girl herself is not fully grown, since her mind
is young and still largely unformed, and her body just stepping out
of childhood and groping toward womanhood, how can she expect to give
birth to a child fully equipped with all the potentialities of ripe
maturity? The offspring of girls are necessarily more than immature,
since, obviously, the child cannot possess more than its parents give it.
Therefore, self-restraint, during the body-forming period of adolescence,
is the only way of securing a rounded flowering into womanhood, and the
surety of healthy children.
Sexual restraint during adult life is an entirely different matter.
There is a certain misguided medical backing available to support
the theory that men and women can abstain for life without damage to
them. There are occasional high bloodless ascetics who can change the
suppressed desire into a mysticism soothing to themselves and to others
of the race. But for the average man and woman, a life of abstinence is
a physiological crime. Such people are warped and twisted out of any
chance of normal happiness. Such living runs diametrically opposite to
the true physiological needs implanted in every human being. On a large
scale, it is suicidal to the race; individually, it is destructive of
a rounded normal development. The woman who remains denied for life
acquires all the caricatured attributes of the “old maid.” She acquires
a sour disposition, and is the bitterest gossip concerning even the
normal sexual practices of other women. She is the waspish snappy school
teacher to whom the guiding of the youthful mind is assigned, with
ultimate harm to it. In both men and women, a life of abstinence is worse
than a mistake: it is, in its truest sense, a perversion.