[Illustration:
TELLING THE STORY OF LIFE; THE PRESENT DAY IDEA OF SEX INSTRUCTION.
“O, THOU CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS,”]
SELF KNOWLEDGE
AND
GUIDE TO SEX INSTRUCTION
VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR ALL AGES
A Complete and Comprehensive Guide to Parents for the Proper
Instruction of Their Children, Concerning the Delicate
Questions of Life; Timely Help for the Boy and Girl,
at the Ages of Greatest Danger, with Warnings
of the Pitfalls which Lie Hidden in
Their Pathway,
TOGETHER WITH
Vital Information for the Marriageable; Safe, Sane, Scientific
Counsel for the Married of all Ages, including Knowledge
Vital to those in Middle Life and Declining
Years, with a Word of Warning Against the Prevailing
Ignorance of God’s Sacred Laws of
Sex and Heredity
BY
PROFESSOR T. W. SHANNON, A.M.
International Lecturer on Moral, Social and Reform Topics; Member of Advisory
Board World’s Purity Federation; also Author of Eight other Purity Books
With Special Chapters by Hon. Stanley Finch, Special Commissioner for
The Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, U. S. Department of Justice;
B. S. Steadwell, President World’s Purity Federation and
Charles W. Eliot, Former President Harvard University
INTRODUCED BY
B. S. STEADWELL
Publisher “The Light,” Official Organ of The World’s Purity Federation
PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY
THE S. A. MULLIKIN COMPANY
MARIETTA OHIO
COPYRIGHTED, 1913, BY
THE S. A. MULLIKIN CO.
Agents wanted in all English-speaking countries. Address publishers
at foot of title page.
Dedicated
TO THE GRANDFATHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS,
TO THE FATHERS AND MOTHERS,
TO THE HUSBANDS AND WIVES,
TO THE BACHELORS AND MAIDS,
TO THE YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN,
TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS,
TO THE BABES THAT BE AND ARE TO BE,
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR.
[Illustration: YOURS FOR THE UPLIFT OF HUMANITY
T.W. Shannon]
PREFACE
Truth like gold is unaffected in quality by its environment, but the
environment of truth does affect the character of the person receiving
it. Half truths clothed in obscene language and imparted by the ignorant
or vicious have made mental, moral and physical wrecks of millions. The
same truth received from a pure mother, noble father, a good book or a
wise teacher, safeguards the youth and accomplishes untold good.
The purpose of this book is not only to enable parents, teachers and all
matured people, to inform themselves more fully concerning the vital
facts of life, but it furnishes a specific guide to all parents, who
would know how to tell their children the sacred story of life, and
counsel intelligently with their sons and daughters at the ages of
greatest danger and give them clean, concise and scientific sex
instruction with a view to safeguarding them against the demoralizing
half truths of vicious or ignorant schoolmates, servants or companions;
and to all others of sufficient age, who have an opportunity for service
to innocent and helpless children, who would have a wise word at the
right time; and to the young man and young woman, married or single,
who would avoid the pit-falls lying in the pathway of those ignorant of
God’s sacred laws of nature; and to all mankind who seek to make the
world better by more intelligent and better living.
The author of this book is sacrificing home life, financial interests,
and much that is dear to all human hearts, to humanity’s cause. He
lectures by day and works and travels by night and is unable to meet
half of the calls for service. During engagements of two or three days
he labors at night without money and without price in private interviews
with young men after his lectures until midnight, one, two, three and
four o’clock in the morning, hoping thereby to lend a helping hand to
thousands to the end of nobler, purer and better living. In this work he
has met with marvelous success. He now hopes to send his vital messages
to the four corners of the earth in book form in order that the
influence of his work may be felt in wider circles than he may ever hope
to reach in personal endeavors. The spirit in which this book has been
written is best expressed in the words of Henry Van Dyke:
“There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It
is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. There is a nobler
character than that which is merely incorruptible. It is the character
which acts as an antidote and preventive of corruption. Fearlessly to
speak the words which bear witness to righteousness and truth and
purity; patiently to do the deeds which strengthen virtue and kindle
hope in your fellow men; generously to lend a hand to those who are
trying to climb upward; faithfully to give your support and your
personal help to the efforts which are making to elevate and purify the
social life of the world.”
Prof. Shannon observes that the spirit of society and the attitude of
our government has been to protect our forests, inspect our swine and
neglect our children, but that a wiser and more hopeful day is dawning.
More interest in the study and application of the laws of Heredity has
been taken in the past ten years than in the previous ninety. Newspapers
and magazines contain articles by leaders of eugenic thought; purity
organizations are springing up throughout the country and sounding the
word of warning against the prevailing ignorance of these subjects;
books are being written; sermons and lectures delivered and the masses
are becoming interested. In this Prof. Shannon is doing his part. The
sale of his books to date have reached in excess of a quarter of a
million copies with no organized effort behind them. Each copy sold
seems to sell two others, and with the business growing by leaps and
bounds and getting beyond his control, the present publishers with a
sales system unexcelled, were selected as a medium for placing his
messages literally into the homes of millions.
Prof. Shannon is a member of the Advisory Board of the World’s Purity
Federation and lectures under the auspices of this movement. Eight years
as teacher of Biology, after his graduation from college, his experience
in writing eight other purity books and years of research and lecturing
on these subjects have eminently qualified him for the high position he
holds to-day with the World’s Purity Federation, and as author of a
number of books on moral, social and reform topics which are to-day
meeting with such an enormous sale. He sends forth this volume on its
mission of usefulness to the human race with the implicit faith that it
will be the means of safeguarding the youth wherever it goes and make
thousands of homes happier and brighter and the world a better place to
live.
THE PUBLISHERS.
INTRODUCTION
The saddest thing in all this world is a human wreck,--a man or a woman,
young or old, who is undone and who, in one or more walks of life, is a
failure. There are so many of them! Mental wrecks, physical wrecks,
nervous wrecks, social wrecks, business wrecks, character wrecks. The
aspect of these derelicts is the more pitiable because of the
possibilities before every well-born human being, who, with the
endowment of intelligence and other gifts and powers bestowed upon him
by a kind Creator, is capable of rising to heights of human perfection.
Ample provision made for man’s every need and want by God, and yet we
find misery where there ought to be happiness, poverty where there ought
to be riches, darkness where there ought to be light, ignorance where
there ought to be knowledge, vice where there ought to be virtue, and
turmoil and strife where there ought to be peace. Only too accurately do
the poet’s words apply:
“Of all the sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”
This problem of human wreckage becomes more depressing when we consider
that in the breast of every person there is an innate desire to live
true, to win success. The day dreams of every boy and girl picture
themselves as the hero or the heroine in the story which weaves into its
plot their ideal men and women. Their ideals may be low, that is the
fault of their environment and training, but their ideals always
represent their own highest conceptions of manhood and womanhood. But
sooner or later struggle comes, appetite craves, and passion cries out,
and if they are unprepared for life’s real conflict, they go down, and
another failure is recorded and another wreck left to float and endanger
every other craft upon life’s seas, until human wreckage is becoming so
enormous that it is a question in the minds of scientists and
sociologists as to how long humanity can keep up its present pace and
survive the centuries.
The causes of human wrecks are many, far too many to be tabulated or
enumerated. In a sentence they result from the principle that it is
easier to coast than to climb; so much easier to float than to struggle
against the current. Like the weeds that kill out the crops, just so is
humanity beset by enumerable temptations at every turn, social and
economic customs force downward a great many who would otherwise rise to
higher things, and, it is suspected, that in the very nature of man
there is a strong tendency to evil which can be overcome only by divine
grace. Appetite and passion are the two forces to which man’s higher
aspirations most often give way. Intemperance and impurity, in their
broader meaning, are the two bars upon which most human wrecks have
stranded. Social impurity, or the abuse of the sex function and nature,
is by far the most insidious, and with respect to the number and
degradation of its victims, the greatest evil in the world to-day.
This book is one of the most valuable ever written because it treats
fully and wisely this question of personal and social purity; it points
out the reefs, the bars, the snags, the icebergs, the shallow and
dangerous places where human wrecks are made; it guides those who accept
it as their pilot into the deep waters of an unobstructed channel where
the voyage of life will be ever safe, successful, glorious. Here will be
found an incentive to climb rather than to coast, an inspiration to
struggle even against the current if in the struggle may be won some of
the more valuable prizes of life. Here is a book that holds high the
single standard of morality, and demands that men shall be as pure as
women; it stands boldly for the education of the young in sex hygiene,
and proclaims a truth that ought long ago to have been universally
known, that it is the right of every person to know every knowable fact
pertaining to themselves, and that such knowledge ought to be imparted
to them before the lack of it has brought injury to their lives. This
is a book that will help to forever banish that false modesty and
prurient thinking which has made the tremendous growth of public vice a
reality, until every girl is in danger of enslavement and every boy
threatened with its corruption.
This is not a pioneer book on these questions. Other most excellent
works have preceded it, for which we should all be grateful, and have
paved the way for this latest volume. The excellence of this work
consists largely in its completeness. It is a book for the home, for
every home, and for every member of the home. It tells exactly what
ought to be known concerning the sex nature and life of the individual,
and the normal relations of the family and society, and best of all it
teaches parents how to impart this saving knowledge to their children.
Any and every home that takes this book as a friend and counselor, and
faithfully studies its pages, will fortify every person within the
portals of that home against the baneful influences of impurity and
vice.
The writer has known Prof. T. W. Shannon, the talented author of this
book, for some years, and we have watched his efforts with interest and
admiration. A voluminous writer, a wide traveler, he has probably
reached more people with his uplifting message of purity through his
books and upon the platform than any other living man of the same age.
His methods are never sensational and he does not stoop to uncovering
all the cesspools of sin and vice, but he leads people upward by
directing their minds and hearts to the beauty and rewards of pure
living and right thinking. Through the strength of his personality and
the profound truth in his message, he has helped thousands of college
students and other young men to avoid the pitfalls which have brought
disaster to so many young lives. By education and experience Prof.
Shannon is eminently fitted to prepare just such a book as this and his
authorship should at once entitle it to a high place among the standard
works of the day dealing with these problems.
As the volume has received my own endorsement, even so I trust it may be
most cordially received into the homes of America, that our sons and our
daughters may be fortified through the truth, presented in an attractive
and safe and sane manner, against the temptations which constantly meet
them; that human wrecks may be fewer, and that every life may have a
fair chance to attain all for which it was created.
B. S. STEADWELL.
La Crosse, Wisconsin,
December 18, 1912.
CONTENTS
FIRST DIVISION
THE HOME
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE ESSENTIALS OF A HOME 15
II THE FATHER’S RELATION TO THE HOME 24
III THE MOTHER’S RELATION TO THE HOME 29
IV THE BOY’S RELATION TO THE HOME 34
V THE GIRL’S RELATION TO THE HOME 41
VI TRAINING AND GOVERNMENT IN THE HOME 47
SECOND DIVISION
HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS
TO A CHILD
VII THE RIGHT OF A CHILD TO A KNOWLEDGE OF SEX 63
VIII FIRST STORY--BABY PLANTS 87
IX SECOND STORY--BABY OYSTERS AND FISH 99
X THIRD STORY--BABY BIRDS 104
XI FOURTH STORY--BABY ANIMALS AND MAN 108
XII PRACTICAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED 117
THIRD DIVISION
HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS
TO A GIRL
XIII A TALK TO MOTHERS 122
XIV MOTHER’S FIRST TALK--THE FEMALE FORM 130
XV MOTHER’S SECOND TALK--DAWNING OF WOMANHOOD 138
XVI MOTHER’S THIRD TALK--CHOOSING A CHUM 143
XVII MOTHER’S FOURTH TALK--CONFIDENTIAL ADVICE 146
XVIII MOTHER’S FIFTH TALK--A SMALL GIRL’S ETHICS 157
XIX MOTHER’S SIXTH TALK--HOW TO GROW BEAUTIFUL 162
FOURTH DIVISION
HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS
TO A BOY
XX A TALK TO FATHERS 166
XXI FATHER’S FIRST TALK--BOYS MAKE MEN 173
XXII FATHER’S SECOND TALK--PERFECT BOYS MAKE
PERFECT MEN 182
XXIII FATHER’S THIRD TALK--IMPERFECT BOYS MAKE
IMPERFECT MEN 195
XXIV FATHER’S FOURTH TALK--HOW TO LIVE A PURE
LIFE 204
XXV FATHER’S FIFTH TALK--THE TRUE YOUNG
KNIGHT 211
FIFTH DIVISION
VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR THE YOUNG WOMAN,
MARRIED OR SINGLE
XXVI THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SEX 218
XXVII THE VICIOUS NOVEL 225
XXVIII THE PUBLIC DANCE 232
XXIX A YOUNG WOMAN’S ETHICS 237
XXX THE WRONGED GIRL 245
XXXI THE MIRACLE OF MOTHERHOOD 258
XXXII PRACTICAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED 266
XXXIII BEAUTY BY BATHING 276
XXXIV PHYSICAL CULTURE 291
SIXTH DIVISION
VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR THE YOUNG MAN,
MARRIED OR SINGLE
XXXV THE DEEPER SIGNIFICANCE OF SEX 304
XXXVI CONTINENCE 313
XXXVII PROSTITUTION 318
XXXVIII VENEREAL DISEASES 322
XXXIX A YOUNG MAN’S ETHICS 331
XL MANHOOD WRECKED AND REGAINED 337
XLI PRACTICAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED 345
XLII PHYSICAL CULTURE 371
SEVENTH DIVISION
HEREDITY, OR VITAL FACTS FOR THE MARRIED
AND MARRIAGEABLE
XLIII HEREDITY, A FACT 386
XLIV HEREDITY AND REPRODUCTION 413
XLV CHOOSING A COMPANION 435
XLVI PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND MORAL PREPARATION FOR
PARENTHOOD 445
XLVII PRENATAL TRAINING 454
XLVIII DELINQUENCIES, CAUSES AND REMEDIES 468
XLIX BIRTHMARKS 494
L HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT AND REDEMPTION 506
LI COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 518
EIGHTH DIVISION
VITAL FACTS FOR MARRIED OR UNMARRIED, OF
MIDDLE LIFE AND OLD AGE
LII VITAL FACTS CONCERNING THE “CHANGE OF LIFE”
IN WOMAN, AND THE YEARS TO FOLLOW 528
LIII VITAL FACTS CONCERNING THE “CHANGE OF LIFE”
IN MAN, AND THE YEARS TO FOLLOW 540
LIV PRACTICAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED 550
NINTH DIVISION
MORAL, SOCIAL AND REFORM TOPICS
LV SCHOOL INSTRUCTION IN SEX HYGIENE--BY
CHARLES W. ELIOT 560
LVI THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC--BY HON. STANLEY
W. FINCH 570
LVII THE PURITY MOVEMENT--BY B. S. STEADWELL 599
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLORED PLATES
Telling the Story of Life Frontispiece
A Gift from Heaven
God’s Richest Blessing to a Home
I Love You
HALF-TONES AND CHARTS
PAGE
Home 17
Ideal Relations in the Home 35
Let Them Play Together 39
Chums in the Home 43
Danger 79
Flower 94
Female Internal Organs 133
Sexual Organs of Male 186
Developing Knighthood 212
Friendship 238
Beauty by Bathing, No. 1 277
Beauty by Bathing, No. 2 278
Beauty by Bathing, No. 3 282
Beauty by Bathing, No. 4 283
Beauty by Bathing, No. 5 290
Physical Culture, No. 1-6 295
Physical Culture, No. 7-12 297
Physical Culture, No. 13-14 302
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 1 375
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 2 376
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 3 377
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 4-5 378
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 6 379
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 7 380
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 8 381
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 9 382
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 10 383
Physical Culture Exercise, No. 11-12 384
A Wild Rose 388
American Beauty Rose 389
A Wild Strawberry 392
A Cultivated Strawberry 393
Results of Personal Liberty 402
Protected 403
Louise and Mary Carter, Twins 418
Well Born 446
Neglected 478
Heredity Chart, Emma W. 506
Heredity Chart, No. 1 508
Heredity Chart, No. 2-A 509
Heredity Chart, No. 2-B 511
Well Preserved and Contented Old Age 529
Climax of a Well-Spent Life 541
Hon. Stanley W. Finch 571
John B. Hammond 575
Touring Purity Conference at Los Angeles 579
Touring Purity Conference, Chattanooga 583
Trial of a White Slaver 595
B. S. Steadwell 601
T. Albert Moore, D.D 605
Touring Purity Conference, New Orleans 611
[Illustration: HOME.]
SELF KNOWLEDGE AND GUIDE TO SEX INSTRUCTION
FIRST DIVISION
THE HOME
CHAPTER I
THE ESSENTIALS OF A HOME
=The basic incentive for marriage.=--A completed home embraces a father,
mother and one or more children, bound together by natural love for each
other. The initial step in home building is taken when a man and woman
decide to assume the duties, responsibilities and functions of marriage.
Courtship and marriage may be prompted by a number of motives. There is
but one natural and worthy motive--LOVE. This motive may be a little out
of date in some circles, but it remains essential to a normal home, a
happy productive home. This expression of love is awakened to conscious
activity through acquaintance and friendship, becomes a joyful reality
in courtship, is consummated in marriage and is perpetuated through
life, because of a chaste, pure, unselfish sex preference of one man
for one woman and that one woman for that one man. If for any reason,
this sex preference is ever broken, the bonds of love between husband
and wife will be weakened, if not severed for all time. This bond of
union may be broken in a number of ways. There may be other causes of
domestic inharmony, all of which can be adjusted so long as sex
preference, or love, binds the two as one. Under the guidance of
unselfish sex selection, few mistakes would ever be made, in the choice
of a companion.
=The tests of true love.=--A man and woman bound by pure love for each
other, may live in a shack or a humble rented cottage, they may have to
toil late and hard to support a family of growing children, but they and
the children will be happy and usually healthy and strong, bound
together by mutual love. They will remain true to each other through
adversity, sickness and death.
=Mismated.=--If husband and wife are not bound to each other by a natural
sex preference, or love, though they may hold in their possession broad
acres of land, railroad bonds and heavy deposits in the bank, live in a
mansion and move in the élite circles of society, they will not love
each other, their children, or be able to build a REAL home.
=Other incentives for marriage.=--It is quite customary,
[Illustration: A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR PURE LIVING]
in some grades of society, to choose a life companion for social or
financial advantage. Such unions are not natural. They are cold business
transactions. A man prompted by these motives sees in a woman the
qualities of a good housekeeper, a social queen, or a financial gain. A
woman prompted by unnatural motives sees in a man opportunities for
social prestige, a life of luxury and ease. They drift apart instead of
their personalities blending, through love, as one. Soon he spends his
days in his daily vocation and his evenings in the lodges. She finds her
only pleasure in following the latest fashions and devoting her time to
various social functions. Each have their secrets and manage to avoid
public disgrace.
Should a child be born into such an unnatural home, it would receive an
unfortunate heredity and a still more unfortunate environment. The
initial of its life was accidental, its prenatal rights were not
regarded, its advent was not welcomed, it is now turned over to a hired
nurse. Such a child is more unfortunate than an orphan. In no true sense
has it a father or mother. This child, when visitors are about, or when
the family is making a public display, may be petted, pampered and
spoiled by its parents and on all occasions lavishly supplied with dress
and toys; thus egotism will be stimulated and propensities gratified and
this child will be placed at a decided disadvantage in life. Compared
with this child, the little ragged street urchin is to be congratulated.
When the natural, God-designed and God-honored, sex instinct is
perverted and base desire supplants love, in the choice of a companion,
the home instinct is degraded, love dethroned and inharmony prevails.
The Romance, of Courtship and the Honeymoon, is Transitory. There is a
certain amount of the glamour, mystery, novelty, romance and poetry
connected with courtship and the honeymoon, while perhaps natural at the
time, but in the very nature of the case cannot be permanent. The plain,
practical, everyday experiences of life must become prominent in every
successful home. The fairyland, of flowery visions, rippling streams of
sentiment, poetic fancies of bliss and the lunar and stellar raptures of
love, must yield, after a period of such experiences, to mundane
realities where these beautiful dreams terminate and air castles are
destroyed and life once more becomes real.
When the termination of this romantic period comes to the young wife,
whose vision of marriage was received from sensational novels, fashion
journals, the theater and gay social gatherings, and to the young
husband, kid-gloved, well-starched and much-cravatted, it will be
unexpected and very disastrous to their imaginary love. Cruel and
prudish are they, who are responsible for creating artificial social
visions in the minds of the youth. But when the termination of romance
comes to the young husband and wife, whose courtship and marriage have
been true to nature, this will be supplanted by the dawning
consciousness of life’s real mission in marriage and they will discover
that the truest, sweetest and most enduring pleasures and joys of life
have only begun.
=The first born.=--Fortunate and happy is that young couple, who, before
the romance of marriage is over, becomes aware that preparations must be
made for the first little stranger into their home. If the faint
prophecies, of the approaching advent of their first-born, thrill their
lives with hopeful and joyful anticipations, marriage will now have a
deeper significance, the bonds of love and dependence become stronger
and the pleasures of life more real. The supremest moment of marriage
comes when the young husband, who for the first time, in the birth
chamber, stands by his wife’s side, holding her hands in his; stoops and
kisses her lips, cheeks and brow, as she bravely and beautifully endures
the throes of parturition. Such an experience is enough to transform a
brute into a man. When the first-born is placed to the young mother’s
breast, a deep, profound, but quiet happiness knows no bounds in two
hearts that beat as one. This is the primary purpose of marriage. A
cooing baby is nature’s own sequel to the honeymoon.
[Illustration: GOD’S RICHEST BLESSING TO A HOME.]
Health, happiness and life worth living is made possible through
parenthood.
If a child was intelligently planned for and warmly welcomed into every
home, the first year of married life, then one by one at reasonable
intervals until the family consists of four to eight healthy, happy,
well-cared-for children, most of the problems of marriage would be
solved.
=The childless homes.=--All efforts to evade the fiat of nature and God,
“multiply and replenish the earth,” not justified by the authors of this
law, will lead to health blighted, happiness destroyed, a home wrecked
and two souls will be arrested in their endless progress. In homes,
voluntarily childless, and in homes where one or two little intruders
were accidentally and unwillingly admitted, can be found the most
serious and perplexing social problems.
=Childless homes made happy.=--The involuntarily childless homes, and the
homes voluntarily childless, because of justifiable reasons, need not be
unhappy. Their paternal and maternal natures may be developed by
adopting homeless children. In this land there are many such happy
homes. If the mother love, in childless homes, annually wasted on poodle
dogs, was expended on homeless children, there would soon be no
childless homes, orphan homes and homeless children, and more happiness
in the world.
=How shall family troubles be solved?=--While natural sex preference and
the birth of children solve almost all the domestic problems and make
possible the solution of all family troubles, they do not render the
husband and wife immune to all differences, disagreements,
incompatibilities and perplexities. It is not possible for the husband
to see everything from his wife’s view point, or the wife to see
everything from the husband’s point of view. If they differ in taste,
retain their personalities, have lofty ambitions, possess sensitive
natures and have their individual ideals, they will often differ in
their opinions, and, occasionally very good people will find themselves
in disastrous disputes. Commendable ideals and virtues, as well as
faults, may become the sources of domestic trouble. What should they
do--separate? No. Secure a divorce? Certainly not. Let these steps be
the last possible resort. Where a family of children are to be scattered
and injured by the disgrace, perhaps a divorce should not be sought, on
any grounds. The bleeding hearts and blasted hopes caused by one divorce
is greater than that caused by a score of deaths. Divorce degrades
morals, withers ideals and causes untold human suffering. What is the
remedy? Agree to let past differences, disagreements and quarrels remain
in the past. Don’t bring the dead yesterdays over into the living
to-days. Each morning, give each other a clean slate. Resolve each
morning to please, rather than to displease your partner. By doing this,
irreconcilable differences will gradually disappear. This does not mean
that they should lose their individualities, or compromise with their
convictions. This is not a radical or expensive remedy, but one that
works in nearly every case.