1. WHAT IS PUBERTY?--The definition is explained in another portion
of this book, but it should be understood that it is not a prompt or
immediate change; it is a slow extending growth and may extend for
many years. The ripening of physical powers do not take place when the
first signs of puberty appear.
2. PROPER AGE.--The proper age for puberty should vary from twelve to
eighteen years. As a general rule, in the more vigorous and the more
addicted to athletic exercise or out-door life, this change is slower
in making its approach.
3. HYGIENIC ATTENTION.--Youths at this period should receive special
private attention. They should be taught the purpose of the sexual
organs and the proper hygienic laws that govern them, and they should
also be taught to rise in the morning and not to lie in bed after
waking up, because it is largely owing to this habit that the secret
vice is contracted. One of the common causes of premature excitement
in many boys is a tight foreskin. It may cause much evil and
ought always to be remedied. Ill-fitting garments often cause much
irritation in children and produce unnatural passions. It is best to
have boys sleep in separate beds and not have them sleep together if
it can be avoided.
4. PROPER INFLUENCE.--Every boy and girl should be carefully trained
to look with disgust on everything that is indecent in word or action.
Let them be taught a sense of shame in doing shameful things, and
teach them that modesty is honorable, and that immodesty is indecent
and dishonorable. Careful training at the proper age may save many a
boy or girl from ruin.
5. SEXUAL PASSIONS.--The sexual passions may be a fire from heaven, or
a subtle flame from hell. It depends upon the government and proper
control. The noblest and most unselfish emotions take their arise
in the passion of sex. Its sweet influence, its elevating ties,
its vibrations and harmony, all combine to make up the noble and
courageous traits of man.
6. WHEN PASSIONS BEGIN.--It is thought by some that passions begin at
the age of puberty, but the passions may be produced as early as
five or ten years. All depends upon the training or the want of it.
Self-abuse is not an uncommon evil at the age of eight or ten. A
company of bad boys often teach an innocent child that which will
develop his ruin. A boy may feel a sense of pleasure at eight and
produce a slight discharge, but not of semen. Thus it is seen that
parents may by neglect do their child the greatest injury.
7. FALSE MODESTY.--Let there be no false modesty on part of the
parents. Give the child the necessary advice and instructions as soon
as necessary.
8. THE MAN UNSEXED, by Mutilation or Masturbation. Eunuchs
are proverbial for tenor cruelty and crafty and unsympathizing
dispositions. Their mental powers are feeble and their physical
strength is inferior. They lack courage and physical endurance. When
a child is operated upon before the age of puberty, the voice retains
its childish treble, the limbs their soft and rounded outlines, and
the neck acquires a feminine fulness; no beard makes its appearance.
In ancient times and up to this time in Oriental nations eunuchs are
found. They are generally slaves who have suffered mutilation at a
tender age. It is a scientific fact that where boys have been taught
the practice of masturbation in their early years, say from eight to
fourteen years of age, if they survive at all they often have their
powers reduced to a similar condition of a eunuch. They generally
however suffer a greater disadvantage. Their health will be more or
less injured. In the eunuch the power of sexual intercourse is not
entirely lost, but of course there is sterility, and little if
any satisfaction, and the same thing may be true of the victim of
self-abuse.
9. SIGNS OF VIRILITY.--As the young man develops in strength and years
the sexual appetite will manifest itself. The secretion of the male
known as the seed or semen depends for the life-transmitting power
upon little minute bodies called spermatozoa. These are very active
and numerous in a healthy secretion, being many hundreds in a single
drop and a single one of them is capable to bring about conception in
a female. Dr. Napheys in his "Transmission of Life," says: "The
secreted fluid has been frozen and kept at a temperature of zero for
four days, yet when it was thawed these animalcules, as they are
supposed to be, were as active as ever. They are not, however, always
present, and when present may be of variable activity. In young men,
just past puberty, and in aged men, they are often scarce and languid
in motion." At the proper age the secretion is supposed to be the most
active, generally at the age of twenty-five, and decreases as age
increases.
10. HYGIENIC RULE.--The man at mid-life should guard carefully his
passions and the husband his virile powers, and as the years progress,
steadily wean himself more from his desire, for his passions will
become weaker with age and any excitement in middle life may soon
debilitate and destroy his virile powers.
11. FOLLIES OF YOUTH.--Dr. Napheys says: "Not many men can fritter away
a decade or two of years in dissipation and excess, and ever hope to
make up their losses by rigid surveillance in later years." "The
sins of youth are expiated in age," is a proverb which daily examples
illustrate. In proportion as puberty is precocious, will decadence be
premature; the excesses of middle life draw heavily on the fortune
of later years. "The mill of the gods grinds slow, but it grinds
exceedingly fine," and though nature may be a tardy creditor, she is
found at last to be an inexorable one.
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