The Social Emergency Part 1

The Social Emergency.

by Various.

PREFACE

This volume is the outgrowth of an extension course conducted by Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1913. The course was offered to teachers and to workers in various other fields of social service as an outline of the main problems of social hygiene and morals and as a guide to further study. An edition of forty-five hundred copies of the syllabus of the course was soon exhausted, and there appeared to be a sufficient demand for the publication of some of the lectures.

The chapters are the various lectures, condensed by the editor, but otherwise substantially as given, with the exception of chapters I, II, and XII, which are here presented for the first time. In the original course, Reed College fortunately had the services of Calvin S. White, M.D., and L.R. Alderman, officers of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society.

Their addresses have been omitted, because they were prepared rather to meet local conditions and the needs of the course than for the general public. For the same reason the greater part of the addresses of William House, M.D., and of the editor have been omitted.

_The Social Emergency_ does not purport to be a comprehensive or systematic treatment of the problems of s.e.x hygiene and morals; it presents merely the views of a number of persons on certain phases of the subject. Although no writer is responsible for the ideas of any other writer, yet nearly all the writers have read and approved all the chapters. Furthermore, the editor has had the aid of other competent critics. The proof has been read by Maurice Bigelow, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Teachers College, Columbia University; by Calvin S. White, M.D., Secretary of the State Board of Health of Oregon and President of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society; and by William Snow, M.D., Secretary of the American Social Hygiene a.s.sociation. Others, including Edward L. Keyes, Jr., M.D., and Harry Beal Torrey, Ph.D., have read the particular chapters concerning which they could give expert opinion. The editor is grateful to all these men, and to Florence Read, Secretary of Reed Extension Courses, who has given valuable aid. With their help he has endeavored to avoid the errors, the exaggerations, the narrowness of view, and the hysteria that characterize some of the current discussions concerning s.e.x and the social evil.

If there is one dominant truth in this volume, it is that any plan for meeting the social emergency that would relax the control of moral and spiritual law over s.e.x impulses is antagonistic, not only to physical health, but as well to the highest development of personality and to the progressive evolution of human society.

W.T.F.

REED COLLEGE, PORTLAND, OREGON, April, 1914.

INTRODUCTION

_By Charles W. Eliot_

This book is a collection of essays by several authors on the various aspects of social hygiene, and on the proper means of forming an enlightened public opinion concerning the measures which society can now, at last, wisely undertake against the vices and evils which in the human race accompany bodily self-indulgence and lack of moral stamina.

Till within five years, it was the custom in families, churches, and schools, to say nothing about s.e.x relations, normal or abnormal; and in society at large to do nothing about the ancient evil of prost.i.tution, to provide neither isolation nor treatment for the worst of contagious diseases, and to regard the blindness, feeble-mindedness, sterility, paralysis, and insanity which result from those diseases as afflictions which could not be prevented. The progress of medicine within twenty years, both preventive and curative, has greatly changed the ethical as well as the physical situation. The policy of silence and concealment concerning evils which are now known to be preventable is no longer justifiable. The thinking public can now learn what these evils are, how destructive they are, and by what measures they may be cured or prevented.

With this knowledge goes the responsibility and duty of applying it in defense of society and civilization.

This book is a sincere effort, first, to supply the needed knowledge of terrible wrongs and destructions; and, secondly, to indicate cautiously and tentatively the most available means of attacking the evils described.

It is an attempt to enlighten public opinion on one of the gravest of modern problems--indeed, the very gravest, with the exception of the warfare between capital and labor. The book is not intended for children, or even for adolescents, but rather for parents, teachers, and ministers who have to answer the questions of children and youth about s.e.x relations, or deal sympathetically with the victims of s.e.xual vice.

All efforts to deal directly with s.e.x relations in schools, churches, and clubs are hampered, and must be for some years to come, by the lack of competent instructors in that difficult subject. So far as instruction in educational inst.i.tutions is concerned, it seems as if the normal schools and the colleges for men or for women must be selected for the first experiments on cla.s.s instruction. Family instruction is in most cases impossible; because neither father nor mother is competent to teach the children what needs to be taught about both the normal and the disordered s.e.x relations. The ministers and priests are as a rule equally incompetent. They can give precepts or orders, but not explanations or reasons. Considerate managers of large industries ought to have a keen interest in all social hygiene problems, because they nearly concern industrial efficiency; but it is only lately that business men have begun to understand the close connection between public health and industrial prosperity, and most of them are not well informed on the subject.

Against prost.i.tution and drunkenness governments of many sorts have been struggling ineffectually for centuries. These two evils go together; but whether taken separately or together no government has yet adopted an effective mode of dealing with them. Fortunately medical science has lately placed in the hands of government, and of private a.s.sociations, effective means of defense against the social vices and their consequences; and the new social ethics call loudly on all men of good will to enlist in the warfare against these ancient evils, which to-day are more destructive than ever before, because of the prevailing industrial and social freedom, and the new facilities for individual traveling, and the migration of ma.s.ses of men.

This book is intended to arouse public sentiment, spread accurate knowledge, check rash enthusiasm, and promote well-informed and resolute action.

CHAPTER I

THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY

_By William Trufant Foster_

Concerning matters of s.e.x and reproduction there has been for many generations a conspiracy of silence. The silence is now broken. Whatever may be the wisdom or the folly of this change of att.i.tude, it is a fact; and it const.i.tutes a social emergency.

Throughout the nineteenth century the taboo prevailed. Certain subjects were rarely mentioned in public, and then only in euphemistic terms. The home, the church, the school; and the press joined in the conspiracy.

Supposedly, they were keeping the young in a blessed state of innocence.

As a matter of fact, other agencies were busy disseminating falsehoods.

Most of our boys and girls, having no opportunity to hear s.e.x and marriage and motherhood discussed with reverence, heard these matters discussed with vulgarity. While those interested in the welfare of the young withheld the truth, those who could profit by their downfall poisoned their minds with error and half-truths. An abundance of distressing evidence showed that nearly all children gained information concerning s.e.x and reproduction from foul sources,--from misinformed playmates, degenerates, obscene pictures, booklets, and advertis.e.m.e.nts of quack doctors. At the same time the social evil and its train of tragic consequences showed no abatement. The policy of silence, after many generations of trial, proved a failure.

The past few years have seen a sudden change. Subjects formerly tabooed are now thrust before the public. The plain-spoken publications of social hygiene societies are distributed by hundreds of thousands. Public exhibits, setting forth the horrors of venereal diseases, are sent from place to place. Motion-picture films portray white slavers, prost.i.tutes, and restricted districts, and show exactly how an innocent girl may be seduced, betrayed, and sold. The stage finds it profitable to offer problem plays concerned with illicit love, with prost.i.tution, and even with the results of venereal contagion. Newspapers that formerly made only brief references to corespondents, houses of bad repute, statutory offenses, and serious charges, now fill columns with detailed accounts of divorce trials, traffic in women, earnings of prost.i.tutes, and raids on houses. Novels that might have been condemned and suppressed a few decades ago are now listed among "the best sellers." Lectures on s.e.x hygiene and morals are given widely, over four hundred such lectures having been given under the auspices of a single society. Fake doctors, while obeying the letter of new laws, are bolder than ever in some directions and use the alarm caused by the production of _Damaged Goods_, for example, as a means of snaring new victims. Generations of silence, enforced by the powerful influence of social custom, have been suddenly followed by a campaign of pitiless publicity, sanctioned by eminent men and women, and carried forward by the agencies of public education that daily reach the largest number of human beings--namely, the press, the motion picture, and the stage.

This far-reaching change in the customs of society is fraught with immediate dangers, because we do not know whether the mere knowledge of facts concerning s.e.xual processes, vices, and diseases will do a given individual harm or good. The effect of such information upon any person is unquestionably determined by his physiological age, by his nervous system, by the manner and time of the presentation of the subject; above all, by his will power and the controlling ideals that are acquired along with scientific facts. As yet, we have not discovered thoroughly trustworthy pedagogical principles, administrative methods, and printed materials for public education in matters of s.e.x. So difficult and complicated are the problems, and so disastrous are mistakes in this field of instruction, that the home, the church, and the school--the inst.i.tutions to which young people should naturally look for truth in all matters, the agencies best qualified to solve the problems--are extremely cautious and conservative.

While these agencies, which are concerned primarily with the welfare of the individual, the family, and society, have made some efforts to solve the problems, and to discover a safe and gradual transition from the old order to the new, other agencies, concerned primarily with making money, have rushed in to exploit the new freedom and the universal interest in matters of s.e.x. This pa.s.sing of the old order, and the invasion of the new order before we are prepared for it, const.i.tute the social emergency of the twentieth century. Great as are the industrial and political revolutions of modern times, it is doubtful if anything so deeply concerns the coming generations as our measure of success in confronting the present social emergency.

In no other phase of social education are mistakes so serious. Other changes, demanded by new ideas of the function of the school, have been made prematurely and clumsily, but without grave danger. We have adjusted ourselves readily enough to compulsory education, normal schools, higher education for women, expert supervision, the kindergartens, physical training, industrial schools, university extension, care of defectives, and vocational guidance. Every new type of school and every new subject has been introduced before there were teachers trained for the new work.

We stumbled along. Few were greatly concerned over mistakes in the teaching of penmanship and spelling and millinery and Latin and algebra.

Few protested against the inefficient teaching of physiology as long as it rattled only dry bones, and had no evident relation to the physical functions and health of the student. But the moment men proposed to teach a subject of vital consequence, there was a cry of protest--and rightly.

Here mistakes will not do: here incompetent teachers cannot be trusted.

Ill-advised efforts to teach s.e.x hygiene may aggravate the very evils we are trying to a.s.suage. Because the subject is of vital importance, education in s.e.xual hygiene and morals must proceed cautiously and conservatively; according to tried methods, psychologically sound; always under the control of men and women of maturity, who see the present emergency in its many phases, who know how to teach, whose character is in keeping with the highest ideals of their work, and who approach their subject with reverence and their pupils with the joy and inspiration which come from a large opportunity to serve mankind.

Unhappily, not all of those who have been stimulated by the new freedom of speech to thrust themselves forward as teachers of s.e.x hygiene, and as social reformers, are safe leaders. Some are ignorant and unaware that enthusiasm is not a satisfactory subst.i.tute for knowledge. Some are hysterical. At a recent purity convention, a woman said, "I know little about the facts, but it is wonderful how much ignorance can accomplish when accompanied by devotion and persistence." That declaration was applauded. Some people appear to believe that they will arrive safely if they go rapidly enough and far enough, even though they may be going in the wrong direction. Many r.e.t.a.r.d the movement for social hygiene by making statements they do not know to be true, especially in respect to the extent of s.e.xual immorality, the number of prost.i.tutes, and the prevalence of venereal disease. Young people of opposite s.e.xes, finding evidence on every hand that the traditional taboo is removed, discuss the subject for personal pleasure.

The books in the field of social hygiene which have most scrupulously and successfully avoided everything that might be s.e.xually stimulating are not the ones bought by the largest numbers. The demand for erotic publications is so great as to warn us in advance that the new freedom will prove dangerous for many whose minds are already unclean. The propaganda for social purity is unlike many others, in that there is special danger of doing injury to the very ones in special need of help. The fact that the young, the ignorant, the hysterical, and the s.e.xually abnormal, as well as commercialized agencies, are using the newfound license in dangerous ways is reason enough for the liberal and whole-hearted support of the American Social Hygiene a.s.sociation and affiliated societies.

These private organizations are striving to meet the present social emergency. They are temporary expedients. Their chief aim is public education. They should frustrate the efforts of all dangerous agencies and hasten the day when the home, the church, and the school shall meet their full responsibilities in the teaching of s.e.xual hygiene and morals.

CHAPTER II

VARIOUS PHASES OF THE QUESTION

_By William Trufant Foster_

It is necessary to take into account all phases of the social emergency.

The question is not merely one of physiology, or pathology, or diseases, or wages, or industrial education, or recreation, or knowledge, or commercial organization, or legal regulation, or l.u.s.t, or social customs, or cultivation of will power, or religion. It is all of this and more. The danger is that we shall see only one or two sides of a many-sided problem.

A solution may appear adequate because it leaves essential factors out of consideration.

One physiological factor in the situation is of fundamental importance, namely, the discrepancy between the age of s.e.xual maturity and the prevailing age of marriage,--an artificial condition largely determined by social customs, by modern educational systems, and by standards of living.

While society has set forward, generation after generation, the age at which marriage seems feasible, the age of p.u.b.erty has remained virtually the same. This unnatural condition--as artificial as the clothes we wear--is a phase of the emergency which should be considered by those who condemn as unnatural and forced the education of adolescent boys and girls in s.e.xual hygiene and morals. Partly as a result of this has come the general acceptance of the double standard of chast.i.ty which has bitterly condemned the girl--made her an outcast of society--and excused the boy for the same offense, on the false plea of physiological necessity.

With the sanction of this double standard, tacitly accepted by society, thousands of prost.i.tutes have been harbored and protected. What shall we do with them? We may drive them out of certain districts and certain houses, and even certain cities, but they are still with us, and we are responsible for them. If they are denied resorts where men seek them, they will seek men. Most of them are unable, without special training, to earn a living in any other way, and many of them would not if they could. A majority are mentally defective and should be wards of society. Any plan which fails to take care of these women--adequately, permanently, and humanely--ignores one of the greatest of the problems which history, with the sanction of society, has made a factor of the present emergency.

The medical phase of the present situation is not often ignored, except by those who hold that there is no such thing as disease. All countries are alarmed over the prevalence of venereal infection. Definite information, however, concerning the extent of these diseases, the sources and conditions of contagion, and the complications and results, is not to be had; because society still persists in treating venereal diseases as not subject to public registration and control, in spite of their terrible attacks on tens of thousands of innocent victims.

The fear of contracting disease has long been used in attempts to promote a single standard of chast.i.ty. Such fear has no doubt played its part and will continue to keep many prudent men away from prost.i.tutes. But in looking forward to the work of the next generation, we must face the need of higher motives than the fear of disease, for science may at any time discover positive safeguards against contagion, thus diminishing one of the factors of the present emergency and by the same stroke accentuating others.