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THE
SOCIAL EMERGENCY
_Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals_
EDITED BY
WILLIAM TRUFANT FOSTER
PRESIDENT OF REED COLLEGE
PRESIDENT PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION FOR SEX HYGIENE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CHARLES W. ELIOT
PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
[Illustration: Publishers Stamp]
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY WILLIAM TRUFANT FOSTER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A.
PREFACE
This volume is the outgrowth of an extension course conducted by Reed
College in Portland, Oregon, in 1913. The course was offered to teachers
and to workers in various other fields of social service as an outline of
the main problems of social hygiene and morals and as a guide to further
study. An edition of forty-five hundred copies of the syllabus of the
course was soon exhausted, and there appeared to be a sufficient demand
for the publication of some of the lectures.
The chapters are the various lectures, condensed by the editor, but
otherwise substantially as given, with the exception of chapters I, II,
and XII, which are here presented for the first time. In the original
course, Reed College fortunately had the services of Calvin S. White,
M.D., and L.R. Alderman, officers of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society.
Their addresses have been omitted, because they were prepared rather to
meet local conditions and the needs of the course than for the general
public. For the same reason the greater part of the addresses of William
House, M.D., and of the editor have been omitted.
_The Social Emergency_ does not purport to be a comprehensive or
systematic treatment of the problems of sex hygiene and morals; it
presents merely the views of a number of persons on certain phases of the
subject. Although no writer is responsible for the ideas of any other
writer, yet nearly all the writers have read and approved all the
chapters. Furthermore, the editor has had the aid of other competent
critics. The proof has been read by Maurice Bigelow, Ph.D., Professor of
Biology, Teachers College, Columbia University; by Calvin S. White, M.D.,
Secretary of the State Board of Health of Oregon and President of the
Oregon Social Hygiene Society; and by William Snow, M.D., Secretary of the
American Social Hygiene Association. Others, including Edward L. Keyes,
Jr., M.D., and Harry Beal Torrey, Ph.D., have read the particular chapters
concerning which they could give expert opinion. The editor is grateful to
all these men, and to Florence Read, Secretary of Reed Extension Courses,
who has given valuable aid. With their help he has endeavored to avoid
the errors, the exaggerations, the narrowness of view, and the hysteria
that characterize some of the current discussions concerning sex and the
social evil.
If there is one dominant truth in this volume, it is that any plan for
meeting the social emergency that would relax the control of moral and
spiritual law over sex impulses is antagonistic, not only to physical
health, but as well to the highest development of personality and to the
progressive evolution of human society.
W.T.F.
REED COLLEGE,
PORTLAND, OREGON,
April, 1914.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. By Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., President Emeritus of
Harvard University 1
I. THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY. By William Trufant Foster, Ph.D., LL.D. 5
II. VARIOUS PHASES OF THE QUESTION. By William Trufant Foster 13
III. PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS. By William House, M.D., Member of the
Executive Committee, Oregon Social Hygiene Society 25
IV. MEDICAL PHASES. By Andrew C. Smith, M.D., Member of the
Oregon State Board of Health 32
V. ECONOMIC PHASES. By Arthur Evans Wood, A.B., Instructor in
Social Economics, Reed College; Member of the Vice Commission, Portland,
Oregon 45
VI. RECREATIONAL PHASES. By Lebert Howard Weir, A.B., Field
Secretary of the Playground and Recreation Association of America 70
VII. EDUCATIONAL PHASES. By Edward Octavius Sisson, Ph.D.,
Commissioner of Education for the State of Idaho; recently Professor of
Education, Reed College 84
VIII. TEACHING PHASES: FOR CHILDREN. By William Greenleaf Eliot,
Jr., A.B., Minister of Church of Our Father, Portland; Member of the
Executive Committee, Oregon Social Hygiene Society 104
IX. TEACHING PHASES: FOR BOYS. By Harry H. Moore, Executive
Secretary, Oregon Social Hygiene Society 127
X. TEACHING PHASES: FOR GIRLS. By Bertha Stuart, A.B., M.D.,
Director of the Gymnasium for Women, University of Oregon 154
XI. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PHASES. By Norman Frank Coleman, A.M.,
Professor of English, Reed College 168
XII. AGENCIES, METHODS, MATERIALS, AND IDEALS. By William Trufant
Foster 190
LIST OF REFERENCES 203
INDEX 219
THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY
INTRODUCTION
_By Charles W. Eliot_
This book is a collection of essays by several authors on the various
aspects of social hygiene, and on the proper means of forming an
enlightened public opinion concerning the measures which society can now,
at last, wisely undertake against the vices and evils which in the human
race accompany bodily self-indulgence and lack of moral stamina.
Till within five years, it was the custom in families, churches, and
schools, to say nothing about sex relations, normal or abnormal; and in
society at large to do nothing about the ancient evil of prostitution, to
provide neither isolation nor treatment for the worst of contagious
diseases, and to regard the blindness, feeble-mindedness, sterility,
paralysis, and insanity which result from those diseases as afflictions
which could not be prevented. The progress of medicine within twenty
years, both preventive and curative, has greatly changed the ethical as
well as the physical situation. The policy of silence and concealment
concerning evils which are now known to be preventable is no longer
justifiable. The thinking public can now learn what these evils are, how
destructive they are, and by what measures they may be cured or prevented.
With this knowledge goes the responsibility and duty of applying it in
defense of society and civilization.
This book is a sincere effort, first, to supply the needed knowledge of
terrible wrongs and destructions; and, secondly, to indicate cautiously
and tentatively the most available means of attacking the evils described.
It is an attempt to enlighten public opinion on one of the gravest of
modern problems--indeed, the very gravest, with the exception of the
warfare between capital and labor. The book is not intended for children,
or even for adolescents, but rather for parents, teachers, and ministers
who have to answer the questions of children and youth about sex
relations, or deal sympathetically with the victims of sexual vice.
All efforts to deal directly with sex relations in schools, churches, and
clubs are hampered, and must be for some years to come, by the lack of
competent instructors in that difficult subject. So far as instruction in
educational institutions is concerned, it seems as if the normal schools
and the colleges for men or for women must be selected for the first
experiments on class instruction. Family instruction is in most cases
impossible; because neither father nor mother is competent to teach the
children what needs to be taught about both the normal and the disordered
sex relations. The ministers and priests are as a rule equally
incompetent. They can give precepts or orders, but not explanations or
reasons. Considerate managers of large industries ought to have a keen
interest in all social hygiene problems, because they nearly concern
industrial efficiency; but it is only lately that business men have begun
to understand the close connection between public health and industrial
prosperity, and most of them are not well informed on the subject.
Against prostitution and drunkenness governments of many sorts have been
struggling ineffectually for centuries. These two evils go together; but
whether taken separately or together no government has yet adopted an
effective mode of dealing with them. Fortunately medical science has
lately placed in the hands of government, and of private associations,
effective means of defense against the social vices and their
consequences; and the new social ethics call loudly on all men of good
will to enlist in the warfare against these ancient evils, which to-day
are more destructive than ever before, because of the prevailing
industrial and social freedom, and the new facilities for individual
traveling, and the migration of masses of men.
This book is intended to arouse public sentiment, spread accurate
knowledge, check rash enthusiasm, and promote well-informed and resolute
action.
CHAPTER I
THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY
_By William Trufant Foster_
Concerning matters of sex and reproduction there has been for many
generations a conspiracy of silence. The silence is now broken. Whatever
may be the wisdom or the folly of this change of attitude, it is a fact;
and it constitutes a social emergency.
Throughout the nineteenth century the taboo prevailed. Certain subjects
were rarely mentioned in public, and then only in euphemistic terms. The
home, the church, the school; and the press joined in the conspiracy.
Supposedly, they were keeping the young in a blessed state of innocence.
As a matter of fact, other agencies were busy disseminating falsehoods.
Most of our boys and girls, having no opportunity to hear sex and marriage
and motherhood discussed with reverence, heard these matters discussed
with vulgarity. While those interested in the welfare of the young
withheld the truth, those who could profit by their downfall poisoned
their minds with error and half-truths. An abundance of distressing
evidence showed that nearly all children gained information concerning sex
and reproduction from foul sources,--from misinformed playmates,
degenerates, obscene pictures, booklets, and advertisements of quack
doctors. At the same time the social evil and its train of tragic
consequences showed no abatement. The policy of silence, after many
generations of trial, proved a failure.
The past few years have seen a sudden change. Subjects formerly tabooed
are now thrust before the public. The plain-spoken publications of social
hygiene societies are distributed by hundreds of thousands. Public
exhibits, setting forth the horrors of venereal diseases, are sent from
place to place. Motion-picture films portray white slavers, prostitutes,
and restricted districts, and show exactly how an innocent girl may be
seduced, betrayed, and sold. The stage finds it profitable to offer
problem plays concerned with illicit love, with prostitution, and even
with the results of venereal contagion. Newspapers that formerly made only
brief references to corespondents, houses of bad repute, statutory
offenses, and serious charges, now fill columns with detailed accounts of
divorce trials, traffic in women, earnings of prostitutes, and raids on
houses. Novels that might have been condemned and suppressed a few decades
ago are now listed among "the best sellers." Lectures on sex hygiene and
morals are given widely, over four hundred such lectures having been given
under the auspices of a single society. Fake doctors, while obeying the
letter of new laws, are bolder than ever in some directions and use the
alarm caused by the production of _Damaged Goods_, for example, as a means
of snaring new victims. Generations of silence, enforced by the powerful
influence of social custom, have been suddenly followed by a campaign of
pitiless publicity, sanctioned by eminent men and women, and carried
forward by the agencies of public education that daily reach the largest
number of human beings--namely, the press, the motion picture, and the
stage.
This far-reaching change in the customs of society is fraught with
immediate dangers, because we do not know whether the mere knowledge of
facts concerning sexual processes, vices, and diseases will do a given
individual harm or good. The effect of such information upon any person is
unquestionably determined by his physiological age, by his nervous system,
by the manner and time of the presentation of the subject; above all, by
his will power and the controlling ideals that are acquired along with
scientific facts. As yet, we have not discovered thoroughly trustworthy
pedagogical principles, administrative methods, and printed materials for
public education in matters of sex. So difficult and complicated are the
problems, and so disastrous are mistakes in this field of instruction,
that the home, the church, and the school--the institutions to which young
people should naturally look for truth in all matters, the agencies best
qualified to solve the problems--are extremely cautious and conservative.
While these agencies, which are concerned primarily with the welfare of
the individual, the family, and society, have made some efforts to solve
the problems, and to discover a safe and gradual transition from the old
order to the new, other agencies, concerned primarily with making money,
have rushed in to exploit the new freedom and the universal interest in
matters of sex. This passing of the old order, and the invasion of the new
order before we are prepared for it, constitute the social emergency of
the twentieth century. Great as are the industrial and political
revolutions of modern times, it is doubtful if anything so deeply concerns
the coming generations as our measure of success in confronting the
present social emergency.
In no other phase of social education are mistakes so serious. Other
changes, demanded by new ideas of the function of the school, have been
made prematurely and clumsily, but without grave danger. We have adjusted
ourselves readily enough to compulsory education, normal schools, higher
education for women, expert supervision, the kindergartens, physical
training, industrial schools, university extension, care of defectives,
and vocational guidance. Every new type of school and every new subject
has been introduced before there were teachers trained for the new work.
We stumbled along. Few were greatly concerned over mistakes in the
teaching of penmanship and spelling and millinery and Latin and algebra.
Few protested against the inefficient teaching of physiology as long as
it rattled only dry bones, and had no evident relation to the physical
functions and health of the student. But the moment men proposed to teach
a subject of vital consequence, there was a cry of protest--and rightly.
Here mistakes will not do: here incompetent teachers cannot be trusted.
Ill-advised efforts to teach sex hygiene may aggravate the very evils we
are trying to assuage. Because the subject is of vital importance,
education in sexual hygiene and morals must proceed cautiously and
conservatively; according to tried methods, psychologically sound; always
under the control of men and women of maturity, who see the present
emergency in its many phases, who know how to teach, whose character is in
keeping with the highest ideals of their work, and who approach their
subject with reverence and their pupils with the joy and inspiration which
come from a large opportunity to serve mankind.
Unhappily, not all of those who have been stimulated by the new freedom of
speech to thrust themselves forward as teachers of sex hygiene, and as
social reformers, are safe leaders. Some are ignorant and unaware that
enthusiasm is not a satisfactory substitute for knowledge. Some are
hysterical. At a recent purity convention, a woman said, "I know little
about the facts, but it is wonderful how much ignorance can accomplish
when accompanied by devotion and persistence." That declaration was
applauded. Some people appear to believe that they will arrive safely if
they go rapidly enough and far enough, even though they may be going in
the wrong direction. Many retard the movement for social hygiene by making
statements they do not know to be true, especially in respect to the
extent of sexual immorality, the number of prostitutes, and the prevalence
of venereal disease. Young people of opposite sexes, finding evidence on
every hand that the traditional taboo is removed, discuss the subject for
personal pleasure.
The books in the field of social hygiene which have most scrupulously and
successfully avoided everything that might be sexually stimulating are not
the ones bought by the largest numbers. The demand for erotic publications
is so great as to warn us in advance that the new freedom will prove
dangerous for many whose minds are already unclean. The propaganda for
social purity is unlike many others, in that there is special danger of
doing injury to the very ones in special need of help. The fact that the
young, the ignorant, the hysterical, and the sexually abnormal, as well as
commercialized agencies, are using the newfound license in dangerous ways
is reason enough for the liberal and whole-hearted support of the American
Social Hygiene Association and affiliated societies.
These private organizations are striving to meet the present social
emergency. They are temporary expedients. Their chief aim is public
education. They should frustrate the efforts of all dangerous agencies and
hasten the day when the home, the church, and the school shall meet their
full responsibilities in the teaching of sexual hygiene and morals.