EDUCATIONAL PHASES
_By Edward Octavius Sisson_
The education of youth as it exists has a great gap wherever the subjects
of reproduction and sex are concerned. Children are taught at home many
things about every other part of their lives, but usually nothing about
this; at school they learn the anatomy and physiology of bones and
muscles, of sense-organs, and nervous system, of glands and alimentary
canal, of respiration and circulation; but a sudden silence falls just
before sex is reached. We study everything about life except its origin,
and in ignoring that we lose a most fascinating and beautiful field of
inquiry, an essential part of knowledge, and a vital element in moral
intelligence.[30]
The aims of sex education may be stated in the main as follows:--
(1) The first aim is individual prudence. Every normal human being must
undergo crucial tests and solve vital problems in his own sex life. The
most beautiful successes of life and its most conspicuous failures are
both exceedingly frequent in the realm of sex. The conditions of the
sexual life are sufficiently alike in all normal cases so that the
experience of the race is valuable to the individual in meeting his own
problems. Each child as he passes onward through youth to maturity is
treading a road new to him, not lacking in danger and pitfalls, nor
without opportunities for great reward. Education must give him all the
available advance information concerning the road he is to travel.
(2) The second aim is general intelligence. Sex is a universal element in
all living beings, with the exception of the very lowest; it pervades the
life of the spirit as well as the life of the body. No man, therefore, can
be intelligent concerning things in general without a clear, definite and
accurate knowledge of the fundamental facts of sex. One of the strongest
new visions concerning sex is the marvelous way in it ramifies into all
fields of thought and action. Not a few of the most eminent workers in
modern science incline to consider all aspects of human life, including
even religion itself, as emanations or processes from the sex basis. Such
in particular are G. Stanley Hall in America and Freud in Germany. Without
going to such extremes we may still recognize the fact that in all sorts
of physical and psychic problems in morals, religion, and sociology, sex
plays an important part and must be understood if we are to grasp the
situation and its meaning.[31]
(3) The third aim is social enlightenment. The human spirit in our own day
is manifestly addressing itself to the solution of the special social
problems which involve the sexual life of men. Three of these problems may
be specified: (a) The so-called "social evil," including not merely
prostitution, but also all other forms of waste and injury through sexual
errors; (b) the problem of family life, including marriage and the rearing
of children, as well as pathological aspects such as desertion and
divorce; (c) the vast problem of eugenics or race culture.
In all these fields the problems of sex are involved. Men and women who
desire to bear their whole burden as members of a progressive society must
contribute to the solution of these great social problems, and to do this
wisely must know something about the basic facts of sex life.[32]
The first and basic part of sex education is bodily regimen: children and
youth must live an abundant, vigorous, wholesome physical life.[33] Cities
have threatened to be the "graves of the human species" in this respect.
Sedentary life chokes and misdirects the currents of nervous energy and
the very circulation of the blood. The lad who plays vigorously, even
violently; who can "get his second wind," turn a handspring, do a good
cross-country run, swim the river, possesses a great bulwark of defense
against sexual vice, especially in its secret forms.
The revival of play, of play for all, boys and girls, weak as well as
strong, is one of the most hopeful movements on foot to-day. Let us base
our promotions from grade to grade, and especially for "graduation" from
school, partly upon physical tests, requiring each student to make of
himself physically, not a record-breaking athlete, but the best that can
be made out of the stuff in him.
Food, sleep, clothing, bathing, fresh air,--all these are vital also;
whatever turns the flow and thrill of life into wholesome channels,
abolishes indolence, stagnation, morbidity, and fosters abundance of
bodily life,--such is the regimen of sex health.
No bodily regimen can be effective without mental control. Nowhere does
mind affect body more immediately and powerfully than in the realm of sex.
The educator has two great tasks in this respect: first to improve the
general environment in which the young must live and develop. As things
are, our streets, store-windows, books and magazines, and especially
public amusements, such as theaters and dance halls, abound in sexual
suggestion and stimulation.[34] These agencies stimulate an excessive
stream of sexual desire, with all its physical accompaniments, in boys
and men: the natural and inevitable result is an overwhelming impulse
toward illicit satisfaction in self-abuse or sexual immorality. Society in
self-defense and the interest of its youth must wage war upon this
mercenary exploiting of the sex impulse. Licentious thinking is the great
foe of continence; the saying of Jesus may be paraphrased thus with
physiological correctness: "He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her
hath already committed the sexual act in his _nervous system_."
Hence, the second task in this connection is to arouse and arm the youth
against the lusts of the mind, and lead him in a resolute fight for
mastery over his own thoughts. "Do not harbor in your mind anything you
would fear to have your enemies know, or blush to have your friends know,"
is a good motto for boys and youth.
When we come to instruction in matters of reproduction and sex, the first
principle is that it should be given in organic relation with the rest of
life and thought. It arises naturally in two main connections: in response
to the child's own questions and problems; and as part and parcel of
biological science. The common questions of the little child, "Where does
the baby come from?" or perhaps even earlier, "How does the hen make the
eggs?"--an actual question of a four-year-old--are the signal and the open
door for easy and natural enlightenment. Seize the opportunity: tell the
truth, as simply and briefly as possible, and the beginning is made; watch
for and utilize all such opportunities, as they come, and the main road of
the task is marked out; shock is minimized, if not eliminated, mutual
confidence is engendered, and a priceless reward may be won. But if at
that first question we falter, quibble, blush, lie, jest, or repel, we
have entered the wrong road which leads eternally astray. Let no question
ever be either ignored or neglected, least of all repelled. It is the
golden opportunity for parent, teacher, or friend. To guarantee against
the child seeking promiscuous and irresponsible sources of information,
let his questions ever find the warmest welcome and kindest response at
the parent's knee.[35]
Now the movements of the child's own mind in matters of sex and
reproduction may either be actual questions more or less explicit, or they
may be subtler seekings for light,--hints, vague inquiries, gropings after
what he cannot phrase or hesitates to utter; these inward stirrings are
vital, and the alert and sympathetic and patient parent can in the main
perceive them and bring them to light. But success need not be hoped for
in this respect unless first the beginnings are attended to; uncounted
parents can testify to the infinite difficulty of breaking to the boy or
girl the silence long practiced with the child. Nor will occasional or
spasmodic fits of interest and action by the parent achieve much;
Emerson's proverb holds inflexibly here; "What wilt thou have?" quoth God;
"pay for it and take it." Pay we must in time, in thought, in perseverance
and patience, in study of the problems and self-preparation for the task.
Happily the progress of sex hygiene among adults is yearly increasing the
number of fathers and mothers who are awake and active.
We have spoken of meeting the motions of the child, as though the educator
might never need to take the initiative; in all probability that might be
true in an ideal state. As things are it would be unsafe to rely
absolutely upon questions; the parent and on occasion other educators must
take the initiative in some cases. In doing so, however, the most
scrupulous care should be taken to be sure that the mind of the learner is
ready for the particular instruction.
* * * * *
In biological instruction what is needed is not an artificial appendix or
addendum, but simply that we should cease to mutilate science by omitting
its most fruitful and essential elements. Nature study for little children
is the first available field; it should begin even before the kindergarten
age, with the simplest and easiest observations, and proceed by gentle
gradations of progress; it finds abundant and fascinating material in
growing plants, eggs, brooding chickens, kittens, puppies, and, best of
all, the new baby, where the home questions and the nature study meet in a
profound emotional and intellectual experience.[36]
The botany, zoölogy, physiology, and hygiene the upper grades and the
high school the natural mediums for further scientific treatment.[37] It
will probably be found advisable to separate the sexes for this part of
the work, and have boys taught by men and girls by women. Not a few high
schools and colleges are already carrying on such instruction with entire
success.
It seems quite clear that the school must set itself, wisely, indeed, but
also resolutely and effectively, to provide clear, true, scientific
knowledge of the origin of life and the laws of sex. The educator can,
must, and will answer truly and purely, all questions in these matters on
which the child and youth are now left to random, miscellaneous,
clandestine sources, and get vile, false, and pernicious answers.
* * * * *
As childhood passes into youth and the pubertal changes begin, the
objective curiosity of the earliest years passes gradually into the
intense concern of personal problems. The general principle is the same:
do not drag in the subject of sex and reproduction, but do not evade or
ignore it when it appears; deal with it truly, purely, honestly,
fearlessly, as an essential and organic part of truth and life.
The safe and happy outcome in these personal problems can be guaranteed in
only one way--that the young person should be able to turn with complete
confidence and little embarrassment to some trusted and intimate
counselor, preferably the parent, but otherwise physician, pastor, older
friend, with whom he has already discussed sexual questions, and who he
knows will receive his advances with sympathy, answer his questions with
frankness and intelligence, and hold his confidence sacred. Happy the
youth or maiden who has such a guide in the crises of unfolding powers and
perils.
The chief problem of this part of the education is the accurate and timely
adaptation of what is taught to the needs of the successive periods of
development. Hence chronological or "calendar" age and school grade are
both unreliable guides to the educator: a group of fifteen-year-old boys,
or of eighth grade boys, includes some who are children not yet entered
upon pubescence, others who are mature,--that is, have attained the power
of reproduction,--and still others who are in process of change. These
three groups cannot be treated identically; each period has its own
peculiar needs. The problem of sorting out the individuals and meeting the
needs of each group is difficult because of our traditional neglect of the
whole task. But of any particular lesson we may agree with him who says,
"Better a year too early than an hour too late."
The earliest safeguard, rather regimen than instruction, is the
inculcation of the idea and habit of "Hands off" the sex organs. The
little child is taught this by his mother, and it becomes second nature.
The pre-pubescent boy and girl may receive some slight but impressive
additional perception as to the danger of meddling in any way. They should
also be warned strictly against any other person who offers to tamper with
their sex organs or adjacent parts of the body. Let them understand that
they are justified in any means of defense, the fist, a club, or a stone;
and that the offender is forever damned by his act and must never again
be trusted; and, of course, that they should at once lay the whole case
before their parents or other persons in authority.
The special instruction of the pre-pubescent and pubescent periods is as
yet by no means fully agreed upon among experts. We can give here only a
few points that seem fairly clear.
(1) Girls should know in advance enough of the general facts of
menstruation so that the onset of the period may not cause, as it now does
in thousands of cases, shock and sometimes dangerous errors of conduct.
They should also know that the sexual nature of men is active and
aggressive instead of passive and defensive as in the woman; and that
hence the woman must in general take the leading part in the control of
the sexual relation, or, at least, of those preliminary intimacies that
tend to culminate in sexual union. If it be contended that this is a
delicate and difficult idea to convey, liable to be exaggerated and to
produce false attitudes, the answer is that if difficulty is to deter us
we may as well stop the whole task of sex education before we begin; and
moreover that the disasters now resulting from ignorance are ten times
worse than any probable results of instruction.
This sexual difference means not only that the girl must be intolerant of
improper advances, but also that for her own sake and that of her sister
women she must beware of conduct, attitudes, or forms of dress that tend
unduly to excite the sexual impulses in boys and men.
In view of the enormous morbidity and mortality inflicted upon innocent
women and their children by sexual disease, the girl should learn the main
facts concerning the nature, effects, and incidence of gonorrhea and
syphilis. Health certificates of prospective bridegrooms will probably be
more easily enforced if such intelligence becomes general. The time for
such instruction is difficult to state, and would vary with the social
environment; probably late adolescence would be early enough in most
cases; earlier information is indispensable for girls who by reason of
their economic or social status are peculiarly exposed to sexual
temptation and danger.
Training for motherhood, a great gap in our educational system, is a
closely related theme, of incomparable importance, but beyond the scope
of this work.
(2) Boys should learn early the rewards of continence: that the
conservation of the sexual secretions is the indispensable condition of
manly growth in stature, muscular powers, voice, heart, and brain. They
should learn the possibility and healthiness of continence--always
understanding that mental continence is the prerequisite of physical
continence.
They should know in good time that nocturnal emissions are quite normal,
when not too frequent, and indicate not lost manhood or the danger of it,
but merely the fact that the sexual glands are now for the first time all
developed and active. This is one of the simplest and most commonplace
facts in the whole range of sex knowledge, yet, through ignorance of it,
unknown multitudes of boys have suffered anxiety sometimes amounting to
terror, have become moody and dejected, lost interest in work and studies;
and finally thousands of them, ashamed to ask counsel or enlightenment
from any decent source, have had recourse to the venereal quack, who so
artfully spreads his snares for them in daily paper and widely circulated
pamphlet. Once the victim is in his hands there is almost no limit to the
evil that may result.[38] High-school principals tell of watching the
faces of their boys during a lecture on sex hygiene and noting the visible
signs of relief and new hope when the lecturer explained the true nature
and meaning of emissions.
So far as the so-called "sexual necessity" is concerned, let boys
understand that it is unknown among animals; that its completest
embodiment is found in degenerates and imbeciles; and that athletes,
thinkers, priests, scholars, warriors, the finest men of every type, hold
their passions strictly subject to their wills. Let them know that the
world is well supplied with wretches whom this very "sexual necessity" has
robbed of their precious virile powers, but that the cases of impotence
through chastity are certainly unproved and probably non-existent except
in the imagination of people who want to believe in them. And finally that
numberless fathers of big healthy families were as chaste as the wives who
bore their children.
Boys should learn that the man who insists on premarital sexual necessity
has two roads open to him--one that of the libertine and seducer, the most
contemptible of creatures; the other that of the whore-follower, whom
nature perpetually menaces with vile and pestilential plagues, making him
a misery to himself and menace to all clean persons who associate with
him, especially his future wife and unborn children.
This involves, at least for the present state of society, some information
regarding the two chief venereal diseases: that all prostitutes,
professional or otherwise, are sooner or later infected, and that no
reglementation can give security. They should know something of the
horrors of syphilis, its loathsomeness, its extraordinary power to
penetrate to the physiological Holy of Holies, poison the germ cells, and
damn in advance the unborn children of its victim. They must know the
fatal treachery of gonorrhea: how it lurks unsuspected in the victim who
supposes himself cured, and strikes, like a bolt out of clear sky,
blinding newborn infants, and robbing innocent wives of motherhood,
health, or life itself.
To object to this instruction because it is gruesome, or because it may
seem like intimidation, is sentimentalism: in this matter, as elsewhere in
the realm of knowledge, the truth should scare no one who does not need to
be scared. It is better to be safe than sorry; and it is better to be
scared than syphilitic. "I dare do all that may become a man," says
Macbeth; "who dares do more is none"; let a man dare if he will with his
own body, aye, his own soul; he is but a coward who does not shrink from
buying voluptuous moments with the hazard of wife and child. Hydrophobia
is far less perilous than venereal disease, and if one hundredth as many
were attacked by it the world would be placarded with scarlet danger
signs; the man who decried the precautions as intimidation would be shut
up in a home for imbeciles. If this is intimidation, let us have more of
it.
Above all, boys should learn the beauty and glory of the true relation of
the sexes; the bond of love and unity between man and woman truly
married--in soul as well as body. As he cherishes and vindicates the honor
of his father and mother and sisters, so should he be taught to use his
intelligence and heart to hold sacred in youth the powers and functions
that will enable him to become in turn husband and father, to give a clean
soul and body in marriage to a pure woman, and to pass on the germ of life
to the children of his body. A few lessons on heredity will show him that
he is but the steward of an inheritance that has come down from a thousand
ancestors and may well be perpetuated through generations to come.
Prudence is good; but no narrow selfish motive will meet the need. The lad
who is "good" merely for the sake of his own skin is usually a poor
creature; the finest lad--who might perhaps hazard his own individual
fate--will refuse to gamble with the souls and bodies of those others who
shall be his own flesh and blood. No virtue is safe that is not
enthusiastic: and only altruism is truly enthusiastic.
The boy and girl, now young man and young woman, must both learn that
prostitution is a social sin:[39] the "scarlet woman" has been truly
called the eternal priestess bearing the sins of humanity. This is a vast
theme; we have got beyond the realm of mere sex education;--but truth is
one, and life is one, and neither logic nor humanity will consent to our
stopping short of the whole truth. Social intelligence--the illumination
of man's life with man--the scientific and spiritual comprehension of the
apostolic dictum, "We are all members one of another"--and "if one member
suffer, all members suffer with it"--these are the great arrears of
education. But there never was a time when the spirit of man moved so
rapidly forward as here and now, and the movement for sex education is but
one striking phase of the great advance.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] An examination of tables of contents and indexes of standard school
texts in nature study and biology will reveal the almost universal absence
of all ideas relating to sex and reproduction. There are two or three
recent exceptions.
[31] G. Stanley Hall, _Educational Problems_, vol. I, pp. 388-97, Thomson
and Geddes, _Problems of Sex_, pp. 5-17.
[32] Thomson and Geddes, _op. cit._, pp. 46-52; Saleeby, _Parenthood and
Race Culture_; Morrow, _Social Diseases and Marriage; Hall, Educational
Problems_, vol. I, pp. 424-43.
[33] Fisher, _National Vitality_; Hall, _Youth_, chaps. II, V, VI, XII.
[34] "What makes a Magazine?" _Twentieth Century Magazine_, September,
1912, pp. 11-20; _The Exploitation of Pleasure._ Russell Sage Foundation.
[35] See Mrs. Woodallen Chapman, _The Moral Problem of the Children_, esp.
pp. 61-93. Also the chapter in this book on the education of children.
[36] An epoch-marking book in this field is Miss Torelle's _Plant and
Animal Children and How They Grow._ (Heath.) See also pamphlet, _The
Origin of Life_, by R.E. Blount. (Scott, Foresman & Co.)
[37] "The Teaching of Sex in Schools and Colleges," _Social Diseases_,
October, 1911. Addresses by G. Stanley Hall, Maurice A. Bigelow, Josiah
Strong, Charles W. Eliot, and Mary Putnam Blount, _Sexual Reproduction in
Animals: the Purpose and Methods of teaching it._ Proceedings N.E.A.,
1912, pp. 1324-27.
[38] Hall, G.S., _Adolescence_, vol. I, pp. 459-62.
[39] Jane Addams, _A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil._