The Social Emergency Part 8

5. Virility and disease.

(a) Disease generally an unnecessary evil.

(b) Relative seriousness of tuberculosis, typhoid, syphilis, gonorrhea, diphtheria, colds, headaches, adenoids, enlarged tonsils.

(c) Body and mind.

6. Virility and certain glands.

(a) Importance of the thyroid gland and the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

(b) Difference between stallion and gelding.

(c) Seminal vesicles.

(d) Quack doctors.

7. Virility and reproduction.

8. Fatherhood and the next generation.

In our att.i.tude toward the boy, we must show him that we respect him, that we have faith and confidence in him, and expect great things of him. We should meet him on the level of a boy's everyday interests in sport, use simple language, and no unnecessary technical terms. Some workers with boys unwisely force confessions of guilt. We should respect the boy's right of privacy.

When we deal with boys in the ma.s.s, the grouping is difficult. Boys who have reached the period of p.u.b.erty should be in a separate group from pre-p.u.b.escents, and boys who are well advanced in adolescence--those who have been p.u.b.escent for two or three years--should be taught in still a third group. This applies to single talks as well as to courses of instruction.

As far as we know the best basis of division between the p.u.b.escent and pre-p.u.b.escent boy (when physical examinations are not possible) is the change of voice. Only one who understands these matters well and knows the boys should do the grouping. Even such a man should not adopt an arbitrary basis of grouping but must take one boy at a time and place him in the group for which he seems best fitted.

We should endeavor to include the father in our plans of s.e.x instruction and be careful not to break down such confidence as exists between father and son. We shall find that only a small proportion of fathers give their sons any instruction in s.e.xual matters, and that it is difficult to stir them to action. In one investigation, it was found that one hundred boys out of one hundred and twenty-one had received no s.e.x instruction from their fathers.[57]

When confidence between father and son does exist, we should help the father rather than relieve him of his task. It is difficult to discover fathers who have confidential relations with their boys unless each family is dealt with separately. The Oregon Social Hygiene Society has conducted father and son meetings, and has required the father either to accompany the boy or sign a card signifying his willingness to have his son attend.

Few fathers have attended, sometimes none at all. On one occasion there were thirty-five boys and not one father.[58] Requiring permission may be regarded as an a.s.sumption that the talk is questionable; and, furthermore, the requiring of special permission is likely to create an undesirable att.i.tude on the part of the boy. Plans for father and son meetings which will be free from these objections will possibly be developed by other schools or social hygiene societies. Our aim is so to educate one generation of boys that when they become fathers they will inform their son regarding these sacred relationships and functions of life.

The boy is normally clean and wholesome. His first question regarding the origin of life is a good question. When denied wholesome information, the further investigation which often follows is indicative of desirable qualities of character. Later, though disturbed by false ideas which have been forced upon him, he still wishes to be clean and strong. He desires to master low pa.s.sions. He would rather have muscular strength and endurance and energy and will power and courage and chivalry than any amount of money. He shudders at the thought of causing suffering to an innocent woman or child. He would sacrifice his life for the girl whom he regards as the personification of loveliness and purity. If we will but deal with him fairly and honestly, he will see in birth an ever-recurring miracle; he will regard his body as a sacred temple; he will see in s.e.x power a source of richer and fuller life; he will respect women; he will regard marriage as the most sacred relationship in life. Thus n.o.ble manhood, a nation's greatest a.s.set, will in large measure be achieved.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] John L. Alexander (editor), _Boy Training._ a.s.sociation Press, New York, especially pp. 11 to 22.

[42] _Pedagogical Seminary_, vol. IX, no. 3. Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts.

[43] G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. I, p. 459.

[44] Prince A. Morrow in the _Transactions_ (vol. I, p. 88) of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.

[45] Charles Wagner, _The Simple Life_, p. 181. (McClure, Phillips & Co.) Caleb Williams Saleeby, _Parenthood and Race Culture._ (Moffat, Yard & Co.) Francis G. Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 162.

(Grosset & Dunlap.)

[46] "What my Boy Knows," _American Magazine_, New York, April, 1913.

[47] Robert E. Speer, _Young Men Who Overcame_, p. 21. (Fleming H. Revell Co., Chicago.)

[48] Charles Wagner, _Youth_, pp. 248-50.

[49] Charles Wagner, _Youth_, p. 246.

[50] _The Boy Problem_, Educational Pamphlet no. 4, p. 26, of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 105 West 40th Street, New York.

[51] Jane Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets_, p. 20. The Macmillan Company, New York.

[52] Emerson, _Education_, p. 38. Riverside Monograph Series.

[53] Henry Bryan Binns, _Abraham Lincoln_, p. 356.

[54] Charles Kingsley, _The Roman and the Teuton_, p. 46.

[55] Winfield S. Hall, M.D., _From Youth into Manhood_, p. 32. a.s.sociation Press, New York.

[56] Hall, _Reproduction and s.e.xual Hygiene._

[57] From an investigation conducted by Dr. Winfield S. Hall.

[58] "A Social Emergency," First Annual Report of the Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon, and the Bulletin of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society, vol. I, no. I.

CHAPTER X

TEACHING PHASES: FOR GIRLS

_By Bertha Stuart_

The normality of the reaction to s.e.x knowledge depends upon the physical and mental training of the child. Our thoughts concerning girls run in fixed grooves. We believe that, in babyhood, instinct leads them to prefer dolls to their brothers' guns and a little later renders them less active physically and more gentle and tractable mentally. Because of this supposed difference in instincts and because of a well-defined picture in our own minds of the final product we wish to evolve, we build a structure externally fair, but lacking the foundation to enable it to resist the stress of time and circ.u.mstance. Because of our traditionally different ways of dealing with girls and boys, we have produced girls who are not healthy little animals, but women in miniature with nervous systems too unstable to cope successfully with the strain of our modern complex life.

The stability of the nervous system is dependent upon the proper development of the fundamental centers. Incomplete development of the lower parts means incomplete development in the higher. These fundamental centers are stimulated to growth and development especially by the activity of the large muscle ma.s.ses. Not only is the development of the brain and nervous system dependent upon muscular activity, but the growth and activity of the vital organs as well,--the heart, lungs, and digestive system,--and the normality of s.e.x life.

All this we acknowledge in the case of the boy. Even with him, we fail to live up to our convictions, as is shown by the long hours of inactivity in school and the lack of suitable activities during recess periods. But on the whole we encourage the boy to run and climb and jump and take distinct pride in these accomplishments.

The same accomplishments in our girls occasion alarm; we have an ideal of gentle womanhood. Even though unrestrained up to the time she attends school, the girl then enters upon the long career of physical repression which characterizes her training. Parents, teachers, neighbors, and schoolmates often seem to conspire to curb all the natural impulses upon which her health and rounded development depend.

Aside from the reproductive organs, the physical mechanism of the girl is much like that of the boy. There is no peculiarity in the structure of the reproductive organs to prohibit vigorous activity. The development and health of these organs and their ligamentous supports are dependent primarily upon the quality and free circulation of the blood, both of which are preeminently the result of fresh air and exercise. If the muscular system in general is well developed, there is no reason why the muscular and ligamentous structure of the reproductive organs should not be equally well developed. To insure their proper development, exercise is essential.

A questionnaire answered by girls at the University of Oregon shows that, with few exceptions, plays and games were not indulged in throughout the high-school period and systematic playing ceased for the majority in the seventh and eighth grades. This custom prevails throughout the country.

Just at the time when a girl needs abundant and free open-air play to develop the muscles, train endurance of the heart, and increase the capacity of the lungs, she omits it altogether. This is one of the chief factors in the anaemias and poor circulation common in that period. The derangement in the blood results in digestive disturbances and loss of appet.i.te, followed by headache and la.s.situde which further disincline the girl for activity. Add to this the nervous strain incident to endeavors to carry on a successful social career, the nerve tension resulting from the unhygienic clothing a.s.sumed at this time, the lack of the steadying influence of home responsibilities, and we have ample cause for the nervous, high-strung girl who is becoming so common that we are in danger of regarding her as the normal girl.

So greatly has the school curriculum encroached upon the home that the girl has no longer time to share its responsibilities, nor is there longer time for the family reading-circle, or music, or games for the maintenance of the unity and fellowship of the home. This condition cannot but react unfavorably upon the nervous system. If the brain is not rested and the emotions satisfied by the relationships in the home, a feverish unrest, a nervous irritability, a futile search supplant the calmness of spirit, stableness of reactions and depth of contentment which must be long continued to become a habit of mind.

Our school systems of to-day are designed for a girl as strong physically as a boy; in fact stronger than most of our city boys. Our girls should possess as much vitality as our boys; but until we change our methods of dealing with girls, we must treat them as they exist and not as the normal individuals we hope some day to evolve. Most girls have disorders,--"nervousness," headache, backache, constipation, colds, fatigue, or pain at the menstrual period. So common are these disturbances that we consult a physician only in extreme cases, and rarely seek the cause of the condition or attempt more than temporary relief. A pain which under ordinary circ.u.mstances would receive medical attention is viewed with resignation when coincident with the menses. As a consequence of this neglect, many girls suffer unnecessary drains upon their vitality.

We find all degrees of menstrual pain. It may be so mild as to be little more than discomfort, or so intense that unconsciousness results. The pain may be sharp and knife-like, or it may be a dull ache. It may be localized, low down in one or both sides, distributed over the whole abdomen or concentrated in the back. With this pain, there may be headache, or a headache may be the only symptom. Frequently there is gastro-intestinal disturbance--nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, or constipation. In anaemic cases fainting is common.

Local or operative treatment is not as a rule necessary, for the majority of cases yield to a strict regime of hygienic living. The regime should include regulation of sleeping, of eating, of hours of work and relaxation, of dressing and of exercise. The exercise should be prescribed and directed by a person trained in medical gymnastics.