Sex-education Part 17

[Sidenote: Contagion of personality.]

(4) "The positive moral qualities which make us immune to the dangers of s.e.x are obtainable not through warnings as to dangers, but through the more positive activities just alluded to. All that is most practical and successful in this field of endeavor may be summarized as the _contagion of personality, human or divine_.

What is it that keeps any of us straight unless it is the contagion of the highest personalities whom we have known, in man and G.o.d?"

We must admit that, perhaps, "positive moral qualities" are not obtainable through warnings, but in this pragmatic age we must have good social results gained by any honorable means. Many people are kept from crime by warnings of the law. Of course, this is not a "positive moral" result for the unethical individual who must be restrained by fear of legal consequences, but we do not worry about the individual when society gains. Likewise, a man kept from s.e.xual promiscuity by fear of disease is not more positively moral, but he is a better member of society. No one will deny the importance of personality in its influence on positive moral qualities; but there are many people who are not influenced by personality, either human or divine. Other kinds of control, such as hygienic and legal, are necessary for such people.

[Sidenote: Good and evil.]

(5) "A positive evil can be driven out only by a much more positive good. The lower pa.s.sion can be conquered only by a higher pa.s.sion."

Here, again, Dr. Cabot seems to misunderstand the aim of hygienic teaching regarding s.e.x. It is not expected "to conquer the lower pa.s.sion" by hygiene, but to help keep it under control to the end that personal and social health will be improved. The opium evil (certainly a _positive_ one) is being driven out of China by military methods that are good only in their results in suppressing the drug. Likewise, hygiene of s.e.x will be a practical good in so far as it may reduce the venereal curse. "Positive good" in Dr. Cabot's moral sense is only of limited application so far as the majority of people are concerned. In fact, the whole idea of solving the s.e.xual problems by "consecration of the affections" makes its strong appeal only to those who have already grasped the higher view of s.e.x and do not need s.e.x-instruction. Other people cannot understand the phrase. We must find some more direct and practical attack on the s.e.x problems for the ma.s.ses; and I believe that this means scientific teaching which improves att.i.tude, and hygienic teaching which protects personal and social health. It is worth while to get these results even if we do not succeed in improving morals.

That, I believe, is another and quite independent problem.

[Sidenote: Dissociation of hygienic and moral teaching.]

In an address published in the _Journal of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis_, Vol. V, No. 1, January 1914, Dr. Cabot contended that the hygienic and moral aspects of s.e.x-education should not be a.s.sociated. It is possible that the following review and criticisms may be based upon a misinterpretation; but if so, I shall not feel lonely, for at the close of the discussion, Dr. Cabot said to his audience, "it is evident that I have not succeeded in touching even the surfaces of your minds, and have not made an atom of impression in making the distinction which I desired to make."

Dr. Cabot's main points are quoted below, and my comments follow each quotation.

(1) "Sanitation can often be conveyed effectively by information, but morality cannot be conveyed by telling things."

[Sidenote: Teaching morals.]

It is certainly true that sanitation can be taught by words. That words concerning moral things have no value is a proposition which Dr. Cabot did not clearly and convincingly support.

(2) "People often make sanitary mistakes from ignorance. So far as you are ignorant you cannot be immoral. Morality is conditioned upon knowledge of the right and wrong in question."

[Sidenote: Immoral or unmoral.]

Of course, one who is ignorant is unmoral and not immoral, but this does not divorce sanitary and moral problems of social disease. An ignorant and unmoral man may have unsanitary s.e.xual habits, but enlighten him regarding venereal disease and his habits make him immoral.

(3) "I cannot see that biology has moral value."

[Sidenote: Moral value of biology.]

But it may have moral influence just as literature and history and biography may have. Of course, pure biology alone will not make people more s.e.xually moral, but no responsible biologist has ever claimed that it will.

(4) "In morals, we are dealing with the will, and if we believe that the will is guided by intelligence, we must believe that all people who _know_ what is right will _do_ what is right."

[Sidenote: Knowledge and will.]

It does not follow that to know what is right is to do what is right.

All depends upon the relative weight of opposing factors. A medical student may _know_ the facts regarding venereal disease; but he also knows the fact that his s.e.xual instincts are insistent. The fact of his pa.s.sion may be more weighty than his scientific knowledge; and his will may be guided by intelligent choice based on comparison of the two opposing facts. Hence, it is illogical to contend that knowledge may not influence moral conduct and that the will is not guided by intelligence.

[Sidenote: Cultivation of morality.]

(5) "Any good achieved in any branch of morality helps all morality. A person who learns any kind of self control is helped toward all kinds. Anything that helps self control in one field will help in all fields, the field of s.e.x as well as others.

Whatever makes a person more obedient to conscience in matters of truth or courage will help him in matters of chast.i.ty. We get morality not by consciously cultivating particular virtues, but by making ourselves useful men and women, by practice and by the love and imitation of our betters. Thus, morality is cultivated in hundreds of ways all at once."

This is sound, but it is in no logical way opposed to any other aspect of s.e.x-instruction discussed in this series of lectures.

(6) "Wherever the conditions of intimacy and interest exist,--intimacy with the right person and interest in the right thing,--moral training is going on."

[Sidenote: Influence of individuals.]

This is Dr. Cabot's strongest point. He believes in the moral influence of individuals. So do all leading advocates of s.e.x-instruction or of any other form of moral education. This is in no sense opposed to any accepted proposition of s.e.x-education.

(7) "Sanitation may increase immorality.... I do care more for morality than for sanitation. Where the two conflict I want morality to lead and to govern."

[Sidenote: Morals rather than health.]

Right here is the basis for Dr. Cabot's repeated attacks on the s.e.x-education movement. He believes that morality and sanitation are decidedly conflicting. His address fails to support this idea with regard to a single point concerned with the proposed s.e.x-education. He mentioned only two points wherein there is apparent conflict, namely, prophylaxis that allows immorality while avoiding venereal disease, and prevention of conception. Neither of these is directly involved in the s.e.x-education movement, and their immoral bearings are highly debatable.

[Sidenote: Ethics of venereal antisepsis.]

Venereal prophylactics may increase promiscuity of some unmoral and immoral men, but if universally and scientifically used by such men, there would be little or no infection of innocent women and children.

Therefore, I a.s.sert that the good that would come from the use of prophylactics by those who do not recognize moral control would be far more significant than the fact that venereal prophylactics might encourage immorality. Those who would use prophylactics would be no worse morally than they were before, but society would gain hygienically.

[Sidenote: Ethics of contraception.]

Regarding the morality of prevention of fertilization, the best of people hold opposing views. A great specialist in tuberculosis who entered the discussion of Dr. Cabot's paper convinced most of his hearers that hygienic prevention of fertilization of tubercular women is a very moral act for a physician to advise. The real question of morality involved in the problem of contraconception is not whether it is immoral that sperm-cells should be prevented from swimming on towards an egg-cell, but whether there is morality in a s.e.xual union that has its meaning only in affection and is not definitely intended for propagation. It is obviously a complicated problem of hygiene, psychology, ethics, aesthetics, religious beliefs, social traditions, and personal prejudice; and it is absurd to allow it to become entangled in the general propositions of s.e.x-education. As I have often said in this series of lectures, the larger s.e.x-education aims at making the best possible adjustments of s.e.x and life. If the aesthetic demands of affection are in real conflict with the animal function of propagation, then a pragmatically ethical solution is found in intelligent control of the original function. Ideally, the animal function of propagation should be a.s.sociated with the possibilities of affection that have developed in the highest human life; but there are numerous cases in which there must be dissociation of the functions of affection and propagation, or the alternative is s.e.xual asceticism.

Which is moral? This is a question concerning which the individual must weigh his personal views and decide. Only the bigoted victims of arrogance will see immorality in the one who disagrees with him on this question. I insist, then, that even if advanced s.e.x-education for adults should some day come to involve the problem of contraconception, there will be no conflict between hygienic knowledge and ethics, if the teaching leads to more perfect adjustment of s.e.x and life.

[Sidenote: Dr. Neumann's view.]

Probably the great majority of workers in the s.e.x-education movement do not in the least agree with Dr. Cabot's attempts to dissociate hygienic and moral problems. A far more helpful view is that expressed by Dr.

Henry Neumann, leader of the Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society:

"Problems of hygiene, whether of s.e.x, or nutrition, or temperance and the like, are no less moral problems. They are problems of habit; and habits are impossible without strong incentives to start them and keep them going.... Ethical instruction is often misunderstood to be barren preaching. It is nothing of the sort.

It consists in clarifying views of life. It begins with the fact that there are certain tendencies in our nature which may work ill or good. Then it tries to show to what these lead. It uses what is best in us to make over what is worst. That is why problems of s.e.x-hygiene should be regarded as at bottom problems of s.e.x-morality."

-- 47. _The Arrogance of the Advocates of s.e.x-education_

In an article in the _Educational Review_, February, 1914, Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, writes concerning what he calls "the teaching of child hygiene" as follows:

[Sidenote: Dr. Maxwell's criticisms.]

"There are those to-day who claim that s.e.xual information and problems should be thrust upon the attention of boys and girls by the teachers in the public schools, that this teaching is necessary for the protection of virtue and the prevention of disease, and that, if anyone hesitates to encourage the spread of such literature and the teaching of such knowledge, he is an arrant and presumptuous blockhead. The arrogance of the extreme advocates of child hygiene blinds them to certain all-important truths. The first is that our teachers are not prepared, and, in too many cases, are not the most suitable persons to teach the subject. The second is that to bring the adolescent mind face to face with s.e.xual matters engenders the habit of dwelling upon the s.e.xual pa.s.sion, and in that may lie spiritual havoc and physical ruin. A premature interest in the s.e.xual pa.s.sion debases the mind and unsettles the will. The third is that parents have no right to ask the teacher to do the work that is peculiarly theirs.

"And yet some good may emerge from this discussion. Parents may be incited to do their duty in placing s.e.x information before their children whenever conditions demand such knowledge. And princ.i.p.als and teachers, particularly princ.i.p.als, whenever they have the acuteness to detect the tendency to wrong-doing, will no longer hesitate to utter the word of warning in season. As for the extravagant claims made for the teaching of s.e.x-hygiene, I have too much faith in the good sense of the American people to believe that it will ever be generally and regularly taught in American schools. Surely, we have learned something since the law compelled us to teach the untruths regarding the effects of stimulants and narcotics that were published in the early school manuals of physiology and hygiene."

[Sidenote: Reply to Dr. Maxwell.]

I comment as follows: (1) Dr. Maxwell refers only to the "extreme advocates." They did exist in abundance a few years ago, but are already rare in the group of well-known educators. (2) Most teachers are not prepared and never can be prepared to teach the human aspect of s.e.x problems, especially the hygienic in the strict sense. (3) Conservative s.e.x-instruction such as was advocated by the advisers of the American Federation for s.e.x-hygiene (see "Report" by Morrow and others, 1913) aims to guard against "premature interest in the s.e.xual pa.s.sion." (4) While I sympathize with Dr. Maxwell's view that teaching the elementary hygiene of s.e.x is the parent's duty, I am forced to recognize the futility of advocating that all or even a respectable minority of parents should undertake their duty (see -- 4). The truth is that most of them will not, and cannot if they will, try to do so. (5) Dr. Maxwell's idea that s.e.x-hygiene should be taught only when an astute princ.i.p.al or parent "detects wrong-doing" is, to say the least, an educational theory that will astonish one who knows even the elementary facts regarding the secrecy of the s.e.xual life of young people in general. Will he next be logically consistent and advocate that all moral education should be given only after children show signs of wrong-doing? (6) s.e.x-hygiene, as Dr. Maxwell understands it to be concerned directly and solely with human s.e.xual problems, will never be taught in American schools controlled by people of good sense; but s.e.x-instruction from the larger viewpoint is taught in some of the best of Dr. Maxwell's high schools. (7) All advocates of s.e.x-instruction who have a national reputation for educational sanity agree that legislation is most undesirable. (8) It is obvious that like so many others who have become confused regarding the s.e.x-education movement, Dr. Maxwell has been impressed chiefly by the pioneer work that emphasized only hygienic teaching regarding s.e.x.

-- 48. _Lubricity in Education_