The Boy and the Sunday School Part 18

Ignorance of life does not beget purity, respect and honor. A boy's regard for a girl cannot proceed from lack of knowledge, although this lack may be termed innocence. A girl's love for the best for self and others is impossible unless she has knowledge tinged with the awe of G.o.d's purposes. Too often have our boys and girls been merely innocent, such innocence causing their fall. The tree of knowledge sometimes demands a high price for its fruit. To safeguard lives unblighted, the purity and processes of life's mystery must be imparted through instruction to our growing youth.

This can best be done by the parents--father or mother--for since children (boys or girls) ripen and come to p.u.b.erty, individually and independently, the parent is G.o.d's choice for this task. To group boys and girls together for this instruction is terribly wrong, as the group must contain those whose need for information varies. To talk on these matters in mixed groups of boys and girls is to incite wrong impulses and is criminal. The parent is G.o.d's instructor in these things--a father to the son and a mother to the daughter. Anything else is second or third best and only to be done under great necessity. Under unusual conditions a _Christian physician_ may instruct small groups of like physiological age, but the parental way is best, because it is both natural and permanent and we seek both.

=Sunday School and s.e.x=

Parents must be trained for this high duty. To this end Fathers' and Mothers' Meetings should be promoted separately by the Sunday school.

Not one merely but a series, so that every father and mother may be able to attend. It would be well to promote these in small groups by invitation and acceptance until every father and mother was reached. A regular course of education might be arranged, viz.:

First Lecture--How to meet the questions of children.

Second Lecture--How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of p.u.b.erty.

Third Lecture--Adolescence: The Physiology and Anatomy of the s.e.x Organs and Methods of s.e.x Instruction.

Fourth Lecture--Hygiene: Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.

These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night address by the pastor of the church.

The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a _Christian Physician_.

Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field--boys and girls--should be discussed.

The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers or publicity. Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of the boy and girl that is in question. Keep away from muck-raking, be constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.

The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we desire social health among our boys and girls. The land is full of the plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools. The street reeks with the s.m.u.t and filth of wrong s.e.x knowledge, and our boys and girls are getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral. The Sunday school can help our common, public health by helping the parent. It should major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.

=s.e.x Instruction for Boys=

Great care should be exercised in the giving of s.e.x instruction to boys of any age. In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a right to approach the boy on the subject. Even a father should make it his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before he becomes his boy's teacher. In the second place, books or pamphlets on the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the s.e.x functions.

Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too sentimental. There are a great many books on the market which had been better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned.

The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form, and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would have with his son about his studies or work. The gush of sentiment plays havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the precipice, just to look over. First, there should be the spoken word concerning the function of the s.e.x organs; and then, if the need is urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way. The less a boy thinks about these things the better. The instruction should be for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not for the purpose of giving him expert advice.

Another thing is necessary for good s.e.x instruction. Up till a little while ago it was the custom of workers with boys to caution the lads against self-abuse. They used all kinds of colored slides and fearful examples to impress on the boy the horror of the act, and very often inflamed the boy to exactly the thing they were shooing him from. But today we are learning the fact that the positive is of more force than the negative, and that the "thou shalt" is better than the "thou shalt not." There is a real reason why the later adolescent boy should give no attention to the "thou shalt not," and so fall into the snare of the negative; for it is the law of his being to "prove all things." It is far better to lay emphasis on the legitimate purposes of the boy's s.e.x life, the glory it gives him and the beauty of the self-sacrifice it begets, than to say a single word on the other side.

I have found it a good thing to refer to the practice of self-abuse of any kind as a sure sign of weak mentality, and this has produced a greater impression than anything else that I have formerly said. Boys, it should be remembered, have brains and are really able to think. When they act wrongly it is so often from lack of knowledge or because of wrong knowledge. If I were to teach a boy my business I should tell him everything that would make the business better, and say nothing of how to put it "to the bad." Now what would we all do if our business was to help boys to live clean lives, speak truth, bless the community with unimpaired manhood and honor G.o.d with their united physical powers?

=Methods of Instruction=

It is necessary to keep in mind the stage of development of the boy. It certainly would be foolish to tell a lad of eight years the facts that should be given to a sixteen-year-old. Great tact and intelligence, coupled with a knowledge of the stages of physical growth that a boy is pa.s.sing through, are necessary.

A boy of under twelve years should be approached biologically: the s.e.x element in nature study should be gradually disclosed to him. In this period, when the spirit of curiosity is strong in the boy and he is continually asking questions on the mystery of life--for instance, how the stork or the doctor can bring the little brother or sister--it is the best thing to answer the question with just enough truthful information to satisfy. Great harm may be done by piling the mind of the child with facts that cannot but be misunderstood. In the enthusiasm for doing things right, there must be a guard against going too far.

The second stage of a boy's physical development, the early adolescent stage--twelve to fifteen years--is the physiological. p.u.b.erty marks its advent, although the exact sign of its arrival is hard to determine. It has been easy to discover it in a girl's life, but it still remains a matter of some guessing in a boy. _A recent work of Dr. Crompton states that the kinking of the hair upon the pubic bone is a sure sign of the beginning of the period_. Some physical directors have found this a satisfactory sign, and have made this the basis of a graded work with boys. It is in this period, then, that the boy should learn something of the anatomy and physiology of the male s.e.xual organs.

The third stage of s.e.x instruction for boys is during the later adolescent period--at least over fifteen years--and this should be pathological. A free discussion of the so-called social evil and the forms of venereal disease would certainly educate the boys to a proper conception of the entire subject. All questions should be discussed in ordinary language and business-like style.

=Sources of Knowledge for s.e.x Instruction=

1. THE BIOLOGICAL PERIOD (UNDER TWELVE YEARS).

--A Frank Talk with Boys and Girls About Their Birth (Free).

--A Straight Talk with Boys About Their Birth and Early Boyhood (Free).

Chapman.--How Shall I Tell My Child? (.25).

Muncie.--Four Epochs of Life (Chapters 7-12) ($1.50).

Thresher.--Story of Life for Little Children (Free).

--When and How to Tell Children. (Oregon State Board of Health.)

2. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PERIOD (TWELVE TO FIFTEEN YEARS).

Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (.50).

How My Uncle, the Doctor, Instructed Me in Matters of s.e.x (.10).

Lowry.--Truths (.50).

--The Secret of Strength (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon) (Free).

--Virility and Physical Development (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon) (Free).

--Address the Secretary of the Social Hygiene Society, 311 Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation Building, Portland, Oregon.

3. THE PATHOLOGICAL PERIOD (OVER FIFTEEN YEARS).

Educational Pamphlets, Nos. 1 and 6 (American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis) (.10 each).

--Four s.e.x Lies (Oregon State Board of Health) (Free).

Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (Chapter on s.e.xual Hygiene) (.50).

Health and the Hygiene of s.e.x (.10).

The Young Man's Problem (.10).

=A Word of Caution=

Let it be repeated that s.e.x instruction should be undertaken with great tact and thoughtfulness. The one who gives the instruction--whether parent or teacher--should post himself thoroughly and he should be practical, go slow, not forcing the lad's development by unnecessary knowledge, avoiding gush and sentiment. He should not seek confession or allow the boy to confess to him, for confession will raise a barrier between the two later on; he should help the boy without invading the lad's innermost life, his soul; he should learn that there are recesses in the boy's self that are his own and that bear no invasion, and he should respect this right of privacy.