The community and its youth

Part I 'ITie Community and Sex Education Page Chap, I ^he Necessity of sex education 1

II The Corainunity as the unit in sex education • . . . . 9

III A practical working program for the comraunity , « . 17

Fart II Sex in Life .

Chap. I The hiological place of reproduction and sex in life 24 II Psychological elements in reproduction and sex and

their effects on human life , , . . 30

III Sound and onsoand use of appetites including those

of sex , 39

IT Sex and character 49

V Individual and social results of failure to control

the sex impulses . . . 61

VI Spirit and method of securing sex control ..... 76

VII The home as the center of sex-social health . » . . 88

Chap. I Nature, scope, objects and prohleras of sex education 102 II Spirit, resources and manner of sex education . . , 113

III The method and the grading of sex education «... 127

IV The early home period in sex education ... ... 135

V The period of the early school grades 149

VI The time of puberty and of the junior high school . 156

VII The post-pubertal period of adolescence ...... 163

VIII !L'he period of maturity, marriage and parenthood , . 177

IX Graded Projects in Bex education ........ , 198

X Special Tasks of the various Comraunity Agencies . . 232

(In preparation; Part IV The. C ommunity as Environment

■'Ghap. I The practical use of recreative agencies ,• ,

II The legislative and law enforcement program

III The community control of venereal disease ,

IV Protective social measures . »

t

Chapter !• Jho Necessity of Sez Education; Problems. Possibilities and Linitationg >

Vi/3aat is As ^ve all Miow quite v/ell, Jfhygiene" relates to health

Health? it recognises that the various special parts of our bodies

are able and accustoned to do certain taslcs which are !r.ore

or less necessary for the health of the body as a living unit, iin organ may be eaid to be working healthily if it does its o\m particular v;ork in such a T:ay that the organ itself is not injured. And yet clearly this v;oiild be too narrow a definition of its health. Each organ also does its worls: in relation to the whole complex bdidy of v/hich it is a part* The liver must not merely transform and store and release sugar in a way v/hich does not injure its own powers; it must do. all this in harmony with the uses of sugo-r in the muscles and the suitable percentage of sugar in the blood. Health then is not merely sound worlcing from the point of viev; of a single cell or of a group of cells; but quite as much from the point of viex; of the adjustment of adapateition of such a cell or organ to the who le complex organism of which it is part«

is healtii One m3.ght say that a condition of health is the np.turn.1 or disease state of a body© At least it is the pattern toward which normal? we think, xmen we are optimistic^ However, it is also necessary to realize, because the human body is so complex and the hereditary combinations, v;hich each one of us receives from his long ancestry are so mixed, that this ideal, this perfect adjustment of all the parts to their own worlc and to one another, rarely happens. One might even liold under these circumstajices that there is no such thing to be e:rpected as a. per fectly healthful adjustment of all the structures -^rxd functions of any body; and that the best that can be done is to soften aid remove friction here and there, and thus keep dov/n the grosser maladjustment which make up actual disease of body or:imind»

How Good health is partly, but not solely, due to these

secure organic, alm.ost automatic, and usually unconscious re-

health? adjustments which our bodies make within and to the

world outside. We have, however, reached that place

in our knov/ledge of life where we can c onsciousl y aid the functions of our hmnm mechanism to remain normal when they are so, and to readjust them.selves when they bec om e deranged ^ It is part of the work of hygiene consciously to discover and apply Imowledgc and eaiperience so that we xnr^y increase as much as possible our health of body, mind and relatioiiSc

What is All of us have been inclined to think of disease and health the range as chiefly a matter of body. In a, dim way ^ve have recogof dis- nized that there are "minds diseased", and unhealthy ease and desires, emotions, attitudes and ideals. But we have health? been disposed to use such worcls as "insanity" and "sin to describe theseo Such terras are merely names for unsound and unhealthy states of minds and notives in just the saae v;ay as "fever" marks an adjustment of abnormal bodily processes, aihese terms do not erplain the malady of personality which tLey name; nor do they take It out of the suope of personal hygiene in its largest meaning, nor free us from responsibility to work for right adjustment hy every natural means. It is the purpose of the physician, the teacher, the spiritual adviser to apply what we Idiott about life and its development to the bringing about of healthy adjustment of the various intellectual, emotional, esthetic, moral, and religious, no less than the bodily functions, so that personality may be whole an d wholesome. All such are hygienic workers in a broad sense. It needs no argument that they should work intelligently.

Social Many v;riters, ancient and modern, have likened human society Hygiene to an organism. In many ways it is fruitful to think of includes it as such, if we do not press the analogy too far. what? Individuals are related to one another in small groups

somewhat as the cells and tissues are tied together in

organs; and these smaller xmits work in our general and complex society somewhat as organs work in a complex body. Social health and ill-health are just as real as individual disease and health. Furthermore any ailment of body, mind, or motive in any individual; any poor adjustment of an individual to another individual or to any group, or of one group to another, means friction and strain and unwholesomeness in society. In society, as in the individual, unwholesome mental attitudes and relations may be quite as disastrous as physical diseases. These social strains can be foreseen and adjusted just as really as the personal derangements ^vithin the individual. The task is more complex and more difficult; but it is no less important, if civilization is to survive and develop rationally. Social hygiene then means the scientific application of all our experience and knov/ledge, and even best guesses where we have nothing better, to the conditions of our group life,- physical, emotional, economic, social, educational, esthetic, ethical, and religious. Health and whole someness cannot spring from the mere chance mixture of \inwholesome elements!

IVhy do we The comfort and desirability of good adjustments within need to oneself and to our fellows are so obvious, it would seem exhort unnecessary to put on campaigns to urge either personal people or social health upon people. Nevertheless i it _is necesabout sary for seif-^t>rotection, if for no other reason. Since health? the health of each is so v/fapped up with that of every

^ other, why are people so careless of the problems of

health? Apparently the follov/ing factors are at least a part of the reasons why people must be urged: -

1. Ignorance . We do not always realize that most of our personal and social had adjustments can be made better, by sane attention; nor know what steps to take to improve them.

2. Appetites . Our human desires are keen, and by imagina - tion we increase their strength. This tends to make us discount and disregard the later ill effects of present indulgence, even when we know,

3. The surroundings . These are often highly artificial and may greatly strengthen the temptation to over-indulge cur appetites, may weaken our resistance, and thus may steer us toward unsuitable behavior, ill health, and the injury of others.

^* I.r.dolence. E^en v'hen we fully appreciate the bad effects that may follow? the line of least resistance, xve often lack the positive vigor and energy to do the harder thing.

We can remove igm^ ranee; \7e can improve surroundings; and we can even change and guide appetites by suitable educational methods. For these reasons we believe that our indolence and inertia may in time give way, in part, to enthusiasm for health, sanity, and social adjustment, happiness, and usefulness. In some degree we can influence public opinion so that it will have a positive and tonic effect upon the individual.

The Home The home is in a peculiar way an agency which deter;7iines the center the health of body and mind of every individual in it. of social Ivlost of us enter society, as well as life itself thru health. the home. The home as an educating and nourishing unit

is peculiarly powerful, furthermore, in its influence

upon the general organization and health of the larger society. Because of this preponderent influence of the home; because human social health is wrapped up at every point with the wholesoraeness of marriage relations, parenthood, the fraternal spirit, the education of children, and other aspects of normal family life, there is a growing tendency to connect and identify the idea of social hygiene particularly v/ith the preservation and i mprovement of the monogamous home . This is at least its most important task. If it fails in this, we can scarcely hope to preserve for human society those sympathies, devotions, sacrifices and refinements which connect with marriage and parenthood and have gradually grought us out of the crude competitive struggle for individual ezistence into at least the beginnings of a social evolution.

What are The wholeeoraeness or happiness of a home, whether for the the essen- units that make it up or for the society of which it is tials of a part, does not come as an accident. Neither does it the home result as a mere haphazard balancing up of counterand its currents of selfishness in the individuals that compose health? it. Often, to be sure, this is all we find in certain

family groups. But such homes have not been the basis

of the social evolution we have reached. The home rests upon two very old biological functions and groups of impulses which in the course of evolution have become inseparable, > reproduction and _sex. Unless we take proper account of the biological, psychological and social meanings of sex and reproduction and the complications for which they are responsible in society, v.'e cannot possibly get at the motives which underlie not merely the home but society itself. Furthermore, unless we rightly guide and train these motives We cannot p->ssibly have social health anywhere - in the home or out; Of it. Underlying the home and its health are reproduction and sex,- including the attractions and impulses and desires of sex, the love and devoti'jn of mates from the merely physical elements to the most humane and spiritual, parenthood and the care and love for children, parental education of children, filial confidence and devotion, and the relations and emotions of brotherhood. There are no more powertni or elevating motives than these in human life. That they should be^ common and continue in an atmosphere of trust, confidence and love iSessential to social health. Hence it is that each human individual needs to understand and appre<^iate reproduction and sexat ■fbeir actual and possible values.

Sex- Since sex and reproduction influence the emotions, the social imagination, the thoughts, the attitudes, the choices, education and the behavior so profcmdly, we cannot rightly thinlc is of sex education and training as sone thing apart from character educati'^n of character and life. For health then, our education, problem is to get this home and all its cloaractermaking factors intn our character education in its proper proportions all through the formative years. In very large degree, sex problems and training of children with respect to them have been ignored altogether, or have been delayed beyond the time when the help should be given, or merely-, treated in a negative way by condemning or forbidding certain specific acts or associations as 'Hvrnng", or dangerous. Or we have merely "generalized" character and have exhorted the young to seek it, without giving them suitable clues as to how their various natural impulses are related to it, and how they may be used or abuded in building the complex of character. We are learning that character education cannot be compassed by merely denying or repressing the various impulses. These inherited impulses have not only a fruitful past history; they are important in a constructive way to individual life now. The solution of the problem will not come by condemning the impulses, as essentially sinful. It is a question of understanding, of guidance, of delay and control, of refinement, of use of natural impulses in such ways as will bring social health and personal happiness and development by the use we make of them. Sex is no more an exception to this principle of finding the wise use of impulses than is curiosity and love of truth or than the natural desire for entertainment and novelty,

1/Vhy has The sex impulses are so powerful and have so been abused sex been and perverted that our thoughts about sex have for ages so left been peculiarly directed to these perversions* There out of our has been in consequence a grooving reticence about the conscious whole matter of sex, as our morality and social sense education? have increased. This reticence of decent people has

left the field open to those who for commercial reasons

or for love of the vulgar xvould exploit sex and they have made full and fatal use of iti The result is a vicious circle. Our very delicacy has been made to insure that a coarse and vulgar interpretation of sex shall first come to our young people. When they discover the fine and high meanings of sex,- if they ever do, they are already full of complexes and embarrassments on the subject which again meke them deal unnaturally and evasively with it to their own children.

Surely a factor in our human life which makes all that goes under the terms "manly" and "\vomanly"; which has made these qualities seem admirable and fine; which gives us boys and girls, men and women, courtship and marriage, husband and V7ife, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and all the associations, loves, devotions, and sacrifices growing out of these relations (v.'hich in the total we call family and home) ; r;hich through the home has done more than any other single quality to organize and inspire human society and to make life v/orth while, caT^nfct reasonably be left out of our education for life. It may be difficult, with our false training, to put it back into education wisely and effectively; Taut it surely is not sane further to ignore it, when icnorance cannot solve any of its many problems, and only perpetually vulgarizes them and makes them more difficult.

ViTiat The first necessary step for us as adults is thoroughly then is to reuiove from our own mind this false conception of, our first and attitude toward sex, and to find \7ays to prevent task? it arising in our children. The first step involves

' 3elf~edu cati::r. of adults. This means that we must

study and iiiiucrritnnd the naturalness and the strength of the sex and reproductive qualities and the T7onderful part v;hich reproduction and sex and the impulses and appetites and emotions and relations v.hich grow out of these play in our individual development and in our social evolution in order that the v^hole idea may be redeemed for us. It means that our v7hole attitude should become positive and constructive and clean, instead of negative, vulgar, embarrassed and fearful. The perversions and vulgarities will take an entirely subordinate place.

'T^e The second step can, \7ith safety, only follow the Second first. It implies that, we, after we appreciate the Step? influence of sex upon human life at its full value,

, • ■ must also discover the best ways and times and persons

to bring our children, little by little, so to appreciate the greatness of sex at its best, that they will be unwilling to sacrifice this best for any cheaper, more shoddy substitutes which lie so openly and temptingly before them.

^Vhat has Of course there have been times when civilized men have brought dealt pretty frankly about sex matters in their conthis versation and literature. Ordinarily this has accomchange of panied openly coarse and lascivious social customs, attitude Because of the perfectly natural human interest in the toward subject, there has always been an es-p?.oi';ation of this sex? sex interest for commercial gain in literature, art,

and amusements. Maaay of our plays, films, many bocks

and dance and amusement halls are present day examples of such exploitation,. For some generations past, however, because of these very things there has been a grov/ing disposition to cover up the sex interest. This may be said to be a definite part of the educational philosophy of the two or three generations immediately back of us. While the impulses that have led to this reticence have on the whole been decent and sound ones, it is questionable to what degree reticence itself has actually ministered to social health. Apparantly it may have been a step in our advance toward a sound attitude in the matter, if we do not continue to regard it as the actual solution.

The movement to bring sex and reproduction out in the open for positive social evolutionary purposes is recent. The reformers who have been combating vice as vice, no less than those who have been combating the venereal diseases and the causes of them, have led in this publicity. The eugenics movement of recent years, which insists that we must find ways to keep out of our racial blood those strains which cannot possibly be made healthy, has popularized many of the underlying facts of reproduction and sex. Most recent of all is the contribution of the educators . These hold that ',7e can never so clean up the racial stock nor so improve the social environment that vre can expect the individual youth unaided and without interpretation to understand and appreciate and use his reproductive and sex endowment, either for his own greatest happiness and development and for the highest social evolution. In some way the race mast hring its own experiences, observation and raasonine: to the aid of ^^h e yo ung so that they will be glad to save themselves some of the mistakes the race has made.

V/hy is It may v;ell be asked: "If the race has been muddling education along thus far, and has on the whole been coming up urgent? from grosser and more primitive to more controlled

and intelligent customs, why is definite sex education

so urgent?" This, among other things, makes it urgent; - never before has human consciousness been so focussed on our own progress ; never before have so many people been so impatient of merely unconscious, irrational, muddling progress; and never before has the power of education to mould individual character and public opinion been so clear. Peculiarly this sex question is a problem to which the best conscious and rational attention must be given if v;e are to escape the penalties of unwise solutions. Furthermore, growing out of the general progress and greatly increased by the war conditions, there has been a breaking up of the power of the old social-moral sanctions in relation to sex as to other things. Unless a sane and convincing, as well as natural and basic, education can bring the sex and reproductive relations to a social solution within a reasonable tiie, the future of the monogamous home and all our hard won advances are precarious, not to say doomed. Unless v;e can support the home by overwhelming scientific biological-psychological-social-ethical sanctions and convince our children to the very foundations of their character that it must bo preserved and inproved, our civilization will falter, if it does not actually fail. Laws, conventions, formal morality, and preaching will not long save or improve the home. Education in character by way of sex and social understanding and appreciation may.

In what As suggested above, v/e may improve human beings and fit ways can them better for a healthy lot in life in three principal we improve ways: first we may improve the environment and thus give the health the natural capacities of the individual a better chance, of the just as v;e may cut out the weeds and grass from our human gardens; secondly, the native qualit5.es of the individual race? may be educated (chiefly in youth) by observation, teaoh-

ing, example, exercise, and the like, just as we train our

animals; and thirdly, by selective marriages and breeding of humaji beings it is possible, just as in farm animals, to develop through heredity any quality v/hich v;e might wish to increase.

VThile we do not yet know just hov- much improvement can be worked in human beings by either one of these methods, and while in some ways they may work together for the health of any individual.

we have come to understand that they do not work together as fully

as we used to think. For example, there is no evidence that we

can improve the environment of the individual and educate or drill h^m

in respect to any quality or power he may have, and then expect

heredity to take up these results of environment or education and

give any part of these gains directly to the descendants of this

individual.

Can we Uo, our human problem is not nearly so simple as that, work in- We are apparently compelled in every generation to do heritance all the educational work over again , and perpetually and educa- to keep the environment as favorable as possible, tion to- Of course we are learning better how to do these things; gether? we are accumulating some knowledge (along with mush'

error); and when an individual learns by observation

and experience, he can make a better home, one which can educate the young earlier and more wisely. But we have no evidence that he can change the "blood " in any other way except by breeding. Inheritance may pass on abilities which a parent had originally; or it may produce new abilities by combining in new ways the elements in two parental strains. It gives the materials on which the, educator may v7ork : but we have to depend on the educator, in respect to sex and everything else, to make the most of these raw materials over and over again with each new generation. Breeding might slowly work permanent improvement in the race; education may work rapid improvement in the individual, but it ends with the individual.

\7hat then If this is true, it follows that each child starts is the anew with this full sex endo\wnent, both animal and meaning spiritual, unaffected at birth by any experience or of our controls which his parents have worked out. All ple-a for these mysterious urges from the past go through their sex full development in every boy and girl no matter how education? much their parents have learned. None of the personal

victories of the past can remove the struggle he must

make. His instincts do not have in themselves what will guide in their own control. They are not saturated with the social gains of humanity. These can only be brought to him through social instruction and his own reason, or through his own experience interpreted by his reason and the guidance of others. This is really our choice; shall we force our sex-driven youths to follow their desires, to learn the hard lessons of experience, and after forming tastes and habits v^hich degrade to bring their reason to bear in breaking up their bad habits and controlling their desires, and then to try to make another and better start? Or shall we rather from the beginning bring the best racial experience and the safest deductions based upon this to his aid, not in the form of commands and prohibitions, but in the most persuasive and convincing educational way we can master? Shall we let him learn to his hurt by repeating experimentally the mistakes of the race; or shall we help him short-circuit human experience and get the sound ideas, ideals, and attitudes without first having been crippled by the xalr.e? Sir. education at.Gurr.es, v- believe on good evidence, that this more constructive approach can be made in a much larger per cent of human beings than now, and that a greater proportion can be brought wholesomely to exercise the necessary controls*

What can We know that we can impart Imowledge, form habits and we edu- get skills by teaching and practice. But can we accate in tually educate desires, appetites, instincts, impulses, huraans? feelings, emotions, raotives, likes and dislikes, standards,

ideals, attitudes, and purposes? Knowledge is not

enough to insure right sez, or other, conduct among us. While it helps, it helps much less than we often think. Unless we can train these warmer springs of character in regard to sex or anything else, v/e do not have much chance of moulding either character or 6onduct. We have no evidence that there is one of these human powers or functions that cannot be trained. There is increasing evidence that they can be trained. No one at the present moment can set any limits to the degree to which character can "be improved or degraded by the training or education of these elements of emotions, knowledge, conduct, and habits that go to determine character^ These are the qualities which we must learn how to educate. They are not supernatural qualities and do not require supernatural treatment in order to give sound foundations, to character; but they do require the utmost science, common sense, sympathy and devotion that we can bring to bear.

Chapter II. The Commimity as the Unit In Sox Education ; Its Tasks and Resources

How does In the preceding chapter, reference v/as raado to the i sex tear influence of reprodr.otion and sex on the life of the on com- individual, the farai],y, and society. ITo other human munity functions so stir and aninate our feelings, thought, life? relations and conduct. This continue to be true in

all coramun:* ties, quite independently of the size or

special interests of the cotTiaunity, Ko comr.iunity is so democratic or so exclusive, so intellectual or so frivolous, so homogeneous or so cosmopolitan that reproduction, sex and the health of the home are not still the most vital factors of its life.

Range and To be sure, the particular manner and the levels on variety \vhich the sex impulses express themselves in a community of the may differ as much as light from darkness. They may manifesta- express themselves on the lov/est planes of individual tions of indulgence and dehauchery, or they may be highly sensisex tive to and be used in the service of the highest social impulses? idealism. They have part in the normal physical develop-

, ment of youth; they give rise to the exceedingly dangerous

and difficult venereal diseases; they support prostitution and irregular sex relations, or they build homes and families in an atmosphere of confidence and loyalty; they give rise to the most inspiring and satisfying emotional states and social relations between men and v/oraen, or they produce repressions, tensions, complexes, neuroses and insanities. The sex and reproductive motives find expression in and connection with every aspect and interest of human life,- physical, emotional, intellectual, esthetic, social, economic, eugenic, ethical, moral and religious. This does not mean that sex is the only factor in any of these human interests but that is has a really vital connection with all of them, and these various connections determine whether the sex life of the individual or of the community will be gTOss and uncontrolled or. will be constriictive and social.

How is Too often V7hen we use the word sex we think only in this terms of certain more common forms of reasonably m2.ture range sex relations and expressions o as a matter of fact, we related can never use sex advan tage tus ly for education until to age? vve appreciate in what remarkable and cradei v/ay sex

normally influences the whole life aiid dev-ilopment of

young people at different ages. '7e cannot go into great detail here, hut the following will serve to illustrate the point. Before birth the internal sex cells produce the initial differences between the bodies and the uiinds of boys and girls. Sex makes the differences in the emotions ^/hich an infant boy or girls feels for the father and for the mother. It is sex which makes boys like boys and girls fond of girls, before puberty. Sex causes the changes from boyhood to naanhood and from girlhood to womanhood. Sex accounts for the development of love, courtsliip, chivalry, marriage, devotion of mates, and all the fineness of hone and family life. From conception to maturity sex is continually malting a definite contriTbution to all the individual quali-cies and social relations of hiinan beings en all levels from the most physical to the most spiritual and social.

In the light of all this variety of the work of sex upon the individual, our problem is to find \7ays to insure that at every stage 5, -before birth, in the earl^ home years, in childhood, at puberty, during adolescence, in preparation for marriage and homenaMng, in parenthood itself, - the sex of each individual Bh'ill make the best contribution -.vhich it can make to conduct, to developnent, and to character. "v7e must meet the normal grov7th and urges of sex timely, appropriately, satisfyingly, constructively, educatively, appreciatively, -and ^vith a long look ahead. Our purpose is to see that these powerful inner energies and alluring outer oportunities shall not mislead our inexperienced young people. It is to put all the resources of science, love, experience, pedagogy and religion in the most persuasive and convincing r/ay possible at the service of our children from the beginning, leaving nothing to chance.