Sex-education Part 8

Such a eugenic record as that of this Kallikak family should be reviewed in every high school and college in connection with the topic "heredity" in a course of biology, for it will teach two important lessons: (1) The biological principle that defects, both physical and mental, are highly heritable, even for many generations; and (2) the ethical responsibility for the s.e.x actions of the individual who may start a long train of human disaster that may visit the children unto even later than the third and fourth generations. The first lesson is a purely biological one which suggests the eugenic argument that defective humans, like undesirable animals and plants, should not take part in the perpetuation of the species. The second lesson is not biological but ethical, suggesting individual responsibility for conduct which may disastrously affect other individuals' lives. It seems to me that so far as general education is concerned, the ethical lesson is the more impressive and more likely to lead to voluntary eugenic practice by individuals. It is my observation that even many intelligent people are not seriously impressed by the biological evidences for eugenics considered as a general problem, but their reaction is one of interest when one begins to present the question of ethical responsibility for the transmission of physical and mental defects to future generations. Such considerations have led me to the view, already suggested, that eugenic studies in courses of biology have their greatest practical value in their ethical implications, which, of course, by influencing individual responsibility for reproduction may lead to the desirable biological improvement of the human race. Teachers of biology should present, as an economic problem, the facts which will make better breeds of plants and animals by direct application of the biological laws of heredity; but they should present and apply parallel facts to human life in order to influence first of all individual responsibility for ethical control of reproductive activity, and thus indirectly work eugenically for an improved human race.

[Sidenote: Aim of eugenics.]

Thus the aim of eugenics is most likely to be attained through ethical rather than biological application of the teaching which our schools can give. The men and women who view life selfishly with no feelings of ethical responsibility towards others of the present or future will take no practical interest in the biological problems of human eugenics, although the economic problems of plant and animal breeding may interest some of these same people.

[Sidenote: Education and other aspects of s.e.x problems.]

In addition to the ethical-social bearings of biological teaching, our s.e.x-education will be incomplete until we learn how to attack the s.e.x problems directly and effectively with reference to the ethical, social, psychical, and aesthetic aspects. Perhaps we may be able to do this only with mature people; probably it is too much to hope that even a serious impression will be made on all intelligent people; but somehow s.e.x-education must be completed by adequate presentation of these aspects, for the problems of s.e.x are satisfactorily solved only in the lives of those fortunate individuals whose vision of the relation of s.e.x and life combines the viewpoints of biology, hygiene, psychology, ethics, religion, and last--but far from least--aesthetics.

[Sidenote: Only essential knowledge of social diseases.]

Finally, the educational application of the fourth aim demands some explanation. Sometime in the adolescent period all young people should learn the essential facts regarding the two social diseases and their relation to immoral living. There is the widespread impression that those advocating s.e.x-education believe in giving great prominence to the social diseases; but in opposition to this I cite the report of a committee of the American Federation for s.e.x Hygiene, published in the _Journal of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis_, January, 1913, and later reprinted as a pamphlet by the American Social Hygiene a.s.sociation. In that report there are _twenty-three_ recommendations concerning s.e.x-instruction; but _only_ one mentions social diseases and in these words: "During the later period of adolescence ... there should be given ... special instruction as to the character and dangers of the venereal diseases." That seems sufficient. It is not desirable that young people should review the horrible facts relating to perverted s.e.xuality. Ten or twenty brief and authoritative statements quoted impressively from medical and social literature ought to give fair warning of lurking dangers in immoral living. More extensive information has often proved dangerous. I would gladly advocate that this dark side of life be kept in sealed books if I did not know that so many young people need forewarning and definite guidance. Our educational system will not do its full duty if it fails to offer the needed help so that it may be obtained by all adolescent young people who are not so fortunate as to be guided by parents and other personal teachers.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] To avoid misunderstanding, let me repeat from the first lecture that I am constantly thinking of s.e.x-education in the larger sense; and instruction in schools can be, at best, only a part.

IV

THE TEACHER OF s.e.x-KNOWLEDGE

-- 18. _Who Should Give s.e.x-instruction?_

A large number of people have been convinced that young people need knowledge which will help them face the great problems of s.e.x; but they withhold their approval of the s.e.x-education movement because they are not satisfied that proper teachers exist. It is, therefore, evident that we cannot make permanent progress by emphasizing the need of s.e.x-education unless we can give a.s.surance that qualified teachers are available.

[Sidenote: The teacher most important.]

The situation as regards teachers of s.e.x-instruction is very different from that of all other subjects concerning which young people should be taught. We cannot safely plan the teaching regarding s.e.x until we know the teacher. This will be evident, I think, after some general considerations concerning selection of teachers and some discussion of problems such as the first teacher, teachers for cla.s.ses, and some undesirable teachers. The general rule should be, first, find the safe and sure teacher and, second, select the facts and plan the lessons that the chosen teacher may give effectively.

[Sidenote: Teachers of same s.e.x for children.]

So far as young children are concerned, the needed instruction is so general in character that the s.e.x of the competent teacher is of little importance, but the information that ought to prepare for and guide through the mazes of adolescent youth should come to young people from teachers of the same s.e.x. If exceptions must be made rather than omit instruction altogether, some very mature women may safely guide both boys and girls through adolescence; but men, even physicians, should not undertake instruction of adolescent young women, unless parents and other mature people are present to help with att.i.tude. That women may well instruct boys I know, because the most impressive s.e.x lecture I ever heard was given by the late Dr. Mary Wood-Allen to the boys of the freshman cla.s.s when I was a college student. But note that I have said "some very mature women." The fact is that I fear danger for some boys if they are frankly instructed by attractive young women who are only ten to fifteen years older than their pupils. Hence, I urge great caution if there must be any exceptions to the general rule that teachers and pupils should be of the same s.e.x.

[Sidenote: Coeducational cla.s.ses.]

I realize the difficulty of applying this rule in many high schools where the foundations of s.e.x-education are well laid on the biological basis. There is no reason why the biological studies should not be coeducational through nature-study and biology as far as the development of frogs and birds and, in a general way, of mammals. In fact, both of my textbooks, the "Applied Biology" and the "Introduction to Biology," which emphasize reproduction of organisms more than other high-school books, have been used throughout in coeducational cla.s.ses.

However, these books stop where the problems of human life begin and should be supplemented by lessons for s.e.x-limited cla.s.ses. There are writers who suggest that segregation of the s.e.xes for teaching concerning human life may be at present a necessity because complete frankness on s.e.xual questions is certainly obstructed by tradition; but we must not ignore the deep social reasons why, in general, there must be maintained a certain amount of reserve between the s.e.xes in the consideration of some important problems of life. No educational theory or practice can possibly alter the fundamental physical or psychical relations of the s.e.xes which nature seems to have fixed immutably.

[Sidenote: Married women as teachers.]

One other point that deserves attention in this connection is the common statement that only married women, preferably mothers, can be competent instructors of young women. This strikes me as more than absurd. Personal experience is not always necessary for teaching in any line. The greatest medical teachers have not had the diseases they describe so clearly. The best elementary teachers and specialists on the care of children are not always mothers; on the contrary, some of these are men. The fact is that these teachers have learned, not from personal experience, but from the great acc.u.mulations of scientific knowledge of medicine, hygiene, and education. There is an abundance of such knowledge relating to s.e.x that may be clearly understood by bright women who have no bi-personal knowledge of s.e.x. Therefore, I believe that it is nonsense to insist that only women with complete s.e.xual experiences can be efficient guides for other women.

-- 19. _The Child's First Teachers of s.e.x-knowledge_

[Sidenote: Mothers and other first teachers.]

The first instruction which may begin to lay the foundation for the individual's s.e.x-education should be given in early childhood by parents, or by other adults, who happen to be on the most intimate personal terms with the child. Usually this means the mother; but there are numerous cases of teachers, governesses, grandmothers, and even fathers who have greater personal influence with certain children than their mothers have. The essential point is that the child should be instructed only by an adult who can exert the greatest personal influence.

[Sidenote: Mothers and adolescent boys.]

Many parents who believe in s.e.x-education for their children hold that the mothers should give all necessary hygienic guidance and teach the elementary facts of life to the children of both s.e.xes in the pre-adolescent years, but that with the dawn of adolescence the girls should continue to be instructed by their mothers, while the boys should be guided by their fathers. So far as girls are concerned, this seems to be a fairly good plan; but nine times out of ten it is not best for the boys for several reasons: First, the sudden change of att.i.tude on the part of the mother will surely impress upon the boy that there is something about s.e.x in boys that even his mother dares not talk over with him. At about this same time when the mother begins to avoid the s.e.x question with her boy, he will surely begin to get vulgar information and impressions from his boy companions. He will in all probability begin to hear the impure and obscene stories and vulgar language that are so common among many men and boys, and he will be sure to learn that the vulgarity which he hears must not be repeated in the presence of his mother and sisters. It is a most critical time in the mental att.i.tude of the boy. His mother has so far been directing him towards purity and then suddenly sets him adrift. If there is ever a time in a boy's life when he needs intimacy with his mother, it is in the early adolescent years of twelve to fourteen. A strong mother's heart to heart guidance at that time will influence the boy more than all the s.e.x-education which the schools and colleges combined can ever hope to offer. Such is the problem of home teaching for adolescent boys. I emphatically protest against the foolish and even dangerous idea that because a boy is beginning to metamorphose into a man his mother should cease to help him with the problems of s.e.x. Lucky is that adolescent boy whose mother realizes her duty and her opportunity and holds him as intimately as if he were a girl of corresponding age.

-- 20. _Selecting Teachers for Cla.s.s Instruction_

The references to "the teacher" in the following are primarily applicable to those who may be called upon to give s.e.x-instruction as cla.s.s work in schools, colleges, churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and other educational organizations.

The chief question for discussion in this lecture is that of selecting the teacher of those phases of s.e.x-instruction that are directly related to human life, that is, personal s.e.x-hygiene and s.e.x-ethics. So far as biological facts of s.e.x are concerned, there are no special problems such as may not be handled by teachers of biology in general according to the accepted methods (see Lloyd and Bigelow, "Teaching of Biology in the Secondary School" and Bigelow, "Teacher's Manual of Biology").

[Sidenote: Regular teachers if possible.]

As already suggested, a large part of the s.e.x-instruction is simply an extension of biological science, hygiene, and ethics; and in secondary schools and colleges should be given by selected teachers of the regular staff and whenever possible as a part of regular courses. There may be some necessary modifications to this plan; for example, in Teachers College the course on s.e.x-education and another series of lectures on s.e.x-physiology and hygiene for women are open to students who do not take the biology courses in which the s.e.x-instruction logically belongs.

[Sidenote: s.e.x-hygiene and ethics.]

The culminating stages of any complete scheme for formal s.e.x-education of young people will be s.e.x-hygiene considered in its strict sense as that special phase of s.e.x-education which deals with problems of health, and s.e.x-ethics which determines the responsibility of individuals for control of s.e.xual instincts. While nature-study and biology and general hygiene may be organized so as to present the major portion of the facts which should be included in a complete scheme of s.e.x-instruction in schools and colleges, the application of these facts to personal life is the most difficult problem of s.e.x-education. In fact, it is the only real problem, for long before s.e.x-education became a definite movement the most efficient science teachers were presenting the fundamental facts on which we now propose to build with certain hygienic and ethic instruction which directly touches the personal life of the student. As already said, the human application will require only a few lessons, preferably in connection with nature-study, biology, ethics, or hygiene. But although brief, such instruction is the keystone in the arch of s.e.x-education, and it is very important that there be no serious mistakes in selecting the teachers.

[Sidenote: s.e.x specialists not desirable.]

I have mentioned special teachers as necessary for instruction with direct reference to specialists human life. I hasten to add that I still agree with the report of the special committee (Morrow, _et al._) of the American Federation for s.e.x Hygiene that it is not desirable that any teacher should make a specialty of this type of instruction and of no other. We do not want "s.e.x specialists" in the schools (see pp. 10 and 20-23 of the Report of the Committee). It is important that all teachers should have general information regarding the s.e.x problems of young people in order to be able to help individual pupils.

-- 21. _Certain Undesirable Teachers for Special Hygienic and Ethical Instruction_

It will be most helpful if we consider the problem of selecting teachers with a view to rejecting those who certainly should not undertake the special hygienic and ethical teaching, for teachers who are good in other subjects and who are fortunately free from certain disqualifications discussed in the following, may by means of study adapt themselves for the final and most important stages of s.e.x-education.

There are five types of teachers who should be regarded as disqualified for teaching personal s.e.x-hygiene and s.e.x-ethics.

[Sidenote: Embarra.s.sed teachers.]

First, those men and women who are unable to speak of s.e.x-hygiene as calmly and seriously as they do of any other phase of hygiene had better not undertake the instruction of young people. There are many such men and women among teachers who, so far as scientific training is concerned, ought to be good teachers of s.e.x-hygiene. As an ill.u.s.tration of this att.i.tude that leaves the wrong impression with students, it is reported that a good teacher of hygiene recently prefaced a brief talk to college girls as follows: "I shall now consider a process that no cultured woman ever mentions except with bated breath. I refer to menstruation."

[Sidenote: Abnormal teachers.]

The second kind of people who should not teach s.e.x-hygiene are the men and women who are the unfortunate victims of s.e.xual abnormality, either physical or psychical, that more or less influences their outlook on life. Certain neurotic and hysterical men or women who lack thorough physiological training and whose own s.e.xual disturbances have led them to devour omnivorously and unscientifically the psychopathological literature of s.e.x by such authors as Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing, and Freud, are probably unsafe teachers of s.e.x-hygiene. Especially is this true of the women of this type whose introspective morbidity has led them to diagnose their own functional disturbances as the direct result of "over-s.e.xuality" and restraint from normal s.e.xual expression--a diagnosis that is probably wrong nine times in ten cases. Such a woman is a very dangerous teacher of s.e.x-hygiene for adolescent girls; and a positive menace to older unmarried women who, if free from absorbing work, may spend their leisure in becoming more or less restless under the unsocial, if not unphysiologic, conditions of unwelcome celibacy.

This is no imaginary danger. The reader of this will not be interested in details, but the author has received from physicians and others reliable information concerning several extremely abnormal women of the above-described type who are taking an active interest in the s.e.x-instruction of young people and are actually suggesting to their friends among young women the dangerous and untrue doctrine that prolonged celibacy for women results in repressed s.e.xuality that surely leads to ill health. Such ideas, it is true, are traceable to certain well-known radical writers on the psychopathology of s.e.x; but we must remember that the great majority of physicians and other scientific investigators who have studied such problems refuse to believe that repressed s.e.x instincts in either men or women do the harm that a few extremists have claimed. But even if it were known beyond the shadow of a doubt that repressed s.e.x instincts may injure people, it would be unwise to intrust young people to instruction by teachers who have a hypochondriacal interest in such a doctrine of repression. Such suggestions can do only harm to the vast majority of persons who receive them. To say the least, it is unfortunate that the psychopathology of s.e.x has become so widely circulated among those who are not well trained in physiology and psychiatry.

[Sidenote: Teachers who emphasize s.e.xual abnormality.]

The third kind of people who should not be intrusted with teaching s.e.x-hygiene are the men and women who, without a scientific perspective, have plunged into the literature of s.e.xual abnormality until they have come to think that knowledge concerning perverted life is an important part of s.e.x-education for young people, especially for those of post-adolescent years. I know of teachers and physicians who advise young people not much over twenty years of age to read such psychopathological works as those of Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, and Freud, and various works dealing with commercialized vice. Here is a grave danger. The less that people without professional use for knowledge of s.e.xual pathology know concerning it, the better it will be for their peace of mind and possibly for their morals. Therefore, I urge that he who enthusiastically studies the abnormalities of s.e.x life without reference to scientific research or professional demands, is not likely to be the kind of teacher who will present abnormal life only so far as is necessary to an understanding of the perfectly normal.

[Sidenote: Pessimistic teachers.]

The fourth kind of people who ought not to instruct the young in personal problems of s.e.x-hygiene are the men and women whose own unhappy romances or married life, or whose knowledge of vice conditions, have made them pessimistic concerning s.e.x-problems. There are in our schools and colleges to-day some such men and many such women, and there will be danger for young people when the growing freedom of expression allows these s.e.xual pessimists to impress their own hopeless philosophy of s.e.x upon students. The educational world does not need such teachers, but rather those who can follow the late Dr. Morrow in seeing a bright side of life that almost dispels the darkness of s.e.xual errors.