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diff --git a/13722-h/13722-h.htm b/13722-h/13722-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5695b6e --- /dev/null +++ b/13722-h/13722-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2993 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Youth and Sex, by Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 40%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13722 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Youth and Sex, by Mary Scharlieb and F. +Arthur Sibly</h1> +<hr class="full" /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h1>YOUTH AND SEX +<a name='page1'></a> +<a name='page2'></a> +<a name='page3'></a> +<a name='page4'></a> +</h1> + +<h2>DANGERS AND SAFEGUARDS FOR GIRLS AND BOYS</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S.,</h2> +<h4>AND</h4> +<h2>F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.</h2> + +<h6> +<img src="images/pic01.jpg" height="150" width="150" alt="Frontispiece" /> +</h6> + +<h5>1919</h5> + +<p><br /><a name='page5'></a><a name='page6'></a><br /><b>CONTENTS.</b></p> + + +<ul> +<li><b>PART I.: GIRLS.</b><br /> +BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S. + <ul> + <li><a href='#page7'>INTRODUCTION</a></li> + <li><a href='#page9'>I.</a> CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS</li> + <li><a href='#page22'>II.</a> OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS</li> + <li><a href='#page32'>III.</a> CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS</li> + <li><a href='#page41'>IV.</a> MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING</li> + <li><a href='#page50'>V.</a> THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li><br /><b>PART II.: BOYS.</b><br /> +BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D. + <ul> + <li><a href='#page56'>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION</a></li> + <li><a href='#page59'>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</a></li> + <li><a href='#page62'>I.</a> PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE</li> + <li><a href='#page76'>II.</a> PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE OPINIONS OF CANON LYTTELTON, DR. DUKES AND OTHERS</li> + <li><a href='#page83'>III.</a> CAUSES OF THE PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS</li> + <li><a href='#page90'>IV.</a> RESULTS OF YOUTHFUL IMPURITY</li> + <li><a href='#page103'>V.</a> SEX KNOWLEDGE IS COMPATIBLE WITH PERFECT REFINEMENT AND INNOCENCE</li> + <li><a href='#page110'>VI.</a> CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PURITY TEACHING IS BEST GIVEN: REMEDIAL AND CURATIVE MEASURES</li> + <li><a href='#page125'>NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS</a></li> + </ul> +</li> +</ul> + +<hr style='width: 70%;' /> +<h2><a name='page7'></a>PART I.: GIRLS.</h2> + +<h3>BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S.</h3> + +<h4>INTRODUCTION.</h4> + +<p>Probably the most important years in anyone's life are those eight or +ten preceding the twenty-first birthday. During these years +<i>Heredity</i>, one of the two great developmental factors, bears its +crop, and the seeds sown before birth and during childhood come to +maturity. During these years also the other great developmental force +known as <i>Environment</i> has full play, the still plastic nature is +moulded by circumstances, and the influence of these two forces is +seen in the manner of individual that results.</p> + +<p>This time is generally alluded to under two heads: (1) Puberty, (2) +Adolescence.</p> + +<p>By Puberty we understand the period when the reproductive organs are +developed, the boy or girl ceasing to be the neutral child and +acquiring the distinctive characteristics of man or woman. The <a name='page8'></a>actual +season of puberty varies in different individuals from the eleventh to +the sixteenth year, and although the changes during this time are not +sudden, they are comparatively rapid.</p> + +<p>By Adolescence we understand the time during which the individual is +approximating to the adult type, puberty having been already +accomplished. Adolescence corresponds to the latter half of the +developmental period, and may be prolonged even up to twenty-five +years.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page9'></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS.</h4> + +<p><b>1. Changes in the Bodily Framework.</b>—During this period the girl's +skeleton not only grows remarkably in size, but is also the subject of +well-marked alterations and development. Among the most evident +changes are those which occur in the shape and inclination of the +pelvis. During the years of childhood the female pelvis has a general +resemblance to that of the male, but with the advent of puberty the +vertical portion of the hip bones becomes expanded and altered in +shape, it becomes more curved, and its inner surface looks less +directly forward and more towards its fellow bone of the other side. +The brim of the pelvis, which in the child is more or less +heart-shaped, becomes a wide oval, and consequently the pelvic girdle +gains considerably in width. The heads of the thigh bones not only +actually, in consequence of growth, but also relatively, in +consequence of change of shape in the pelvis, become more widely +separated from each other than they are in childhood, and hence the +gait and the manner of running alters greatly in the adult <a name='page10'></a>woman. At +the same time the angle made by the junction of the spinal column with +the back of the pelvis, known as the sacro-vertebral angle, becomes +better marked, and this also contributes to the development of the +characteristic female type. No doubt the female type of pelvis can be +recognised in childhood, and even before birth, but the differences of +male and female pelves before puberty are so slight that it requires +the eye of an expert to distinguish them. The very remarkable +differences that are found between the adult male and the adult female +pelvis begin to appear with puberty and develop rapidly, so that no +one could mistake the pelvis of a properly developed girl of sixteen +or eighteen years of age for that of a boy. These differences are due +in part to the action of the muscles and ligaments on the growing +bones, in part to the weight of the body from above and the reaction +of the ground from beneath, but they are also largely due to the +growth and development of the internal organs peculiar to the woman. +All these organs exist in the normal infant at birth, but they are +relatively insignificant, and it is not until the great developmental +changes peculiar to puberty occur that they begin to exercise their +influence on the shape of the bones. This is proved by the fact that +in those rare cases in which the internal organs of generation are +absent, or fail to develop, there is a corresponding failure in the +pelvis to alter into the normal adult shape. The muscles of the +growing girl partake in the rapid growth and development <a name='page11'></a>of her bony +framework. Sometimes the muscles outgrow the bones, causing a peculiar +lankiness and slackness of figure, and in other girls the growth of +the bones appears to be too rapid for the muscles, to which fact a +certain class of "growing pain" has been attributed.</p> + +<p>Another part of the body that develops rapidly during these momentous +years is the bust. The breasts become large, and not only add to the +beauty of the girl's person, but also manifestly prepare by increase +of their glandular elements for the maternal function of suckling +infants.</p> + +<p>Of less importance so far as structure is concerned, but of great +importance to female loveliness and attractiveness, are the changes +that occur in the clearing and brightening of the complexion, the +luxuriant growth, glossiness, and improved colour of the hair, and the +beauty of the eyes, which during the years which succeed puberty +acquire a new and singularly attractive expression.</p> + +<p>The young girl's hands and feet do not grow in proportion with her +legs and arms, and appear to be more beautifully shaped when +contrasted with the more fully developed limb.</p> + +<p>With regard to the internal organs, the most important are those of +the pelvis. The uterus, or womb, destined to form a safe nest for the +protection of the child until it is sufficiently developed to maintain +an independent existence, increases greatly in all its dimensions and +undergoes certain changes in shape; and the ovaries, which are +intended to <a name='page12'></a>furnish the ovules, or eggs (the female contribution +towards future human beings), also develop both in size and in +structure.</p> + +<p>Owing to rapid growth and to the want of stability of the young girl's +tissues, the years immediately succeeding puberty are not only those +of rapid physiological change, but they are those during which +irreparable damage may be done unless those who have the care of young +girls understand what these dangers are, how they are produced, and +how they may be averted.</p> + +<p>With regard to the bony skeleton, lateral curvature of the spine is, +in mild manifestation, very frequent, and is too common even in the +higher degrees. The chief causes of this deformity are:</p> + +<p>(1) The natural softness and want of stability in the rapidly growing +bones and muscles;</p> + +<p>(2) The rapid development of the bust, which throws a constantly +increasing burden on these weakened muscles and bones; and</p> + +<p>(3) The general lassitude noticeable amongst girls at this time which +makes them yield to the temptation to stand on one leg, to cross one +leg over the other, and to write or read leaning on one elbow and +bending over the table, whereas they ought to be sitting upright. +Unless constant vigilance is exerted, deformity is pretty sure to +occur—a deformity which always has a bad influence over the girl's +health and strength, and which, in those cases where it is complicated +by the pathological softness of bones found in cases of rickets, may +cause serious alteration in <a name='page13'></a>shape and interfere with the functions of +the pelvis in later life.</p> + +<p><b>2. Changes in the Mental Nature.</b>—These are at least as remarkable +as the changes in the bodily framework. There is a slight diminution +in the power of memorising, but the faculties of attention, of +reasoning, and of imagination, develop rapidly. Probably the power of +appreciation of the beautiful appears about this time, a faculty which +is usually dormant during childhood. More especially is this true with +regard to the beauty of landscape; the child seldom enjoys a landscape +as such, although isolated beauties, such as that of flowers, may +sometimes be appreciated.</p> + +<p>As might be anticipated, all things are changing with the child during +these momentous years: its outlook on life, its appreciation of other +people and of itself, alter greatly and continuously. The wonderfully +rapid growth and alterations in structure of the generative organs +have their counterpart in the mental and moral spheres; there are new +sensations which are scarcely recognised and are certainly not +understood by the subject: vague feelings of unrest, ill-comprehended +desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the place of the +unconscious egoism of childhood.</p> + +<p>The processes of Nature as witnessed in the season of spring have +their counterpart in the changes that occur during the early years of +adolescence. The earth warmed by the more direct rays of the sun and +softened by recurring showers is transformed in <a name='page14'></a>a few weeks from its +bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. This +yearly miracle fails to impress us as it should do because we have +witnessed it every year of our lives, and so, too, the great +transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its appeal to +our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence. +If it were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings +and aspirations in adolescent years, or if it were possible for us +with enlightened sympathy to gain access to the enchanted garden of +youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls around +us. As it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their +ambitions, hopes, and joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb +the depths of their fears, their disappointments, and their doubts. +The transition between radiant joy and confident hope in the future to +a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and +psychical are rapid. It is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and +to the child the changes in its body, the changes in its soul and +spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of +abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from +the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders, +much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The +instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their +functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and +moral natures and in the variability of their phenomena. Adolescents +<a name='page15'></a>indeed "never continue in one stay;" left to themselves they will +begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish, nothing.</p> + +<p>Youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes. +The schoolfellow or teacher who is adored to-day may become the object +of indifference or even of dislike to-morrow. Ideas as to the calling +or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and opinions upon +religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. It is little wonder +that there is a special type of adolescent insanity differing entirely +from that of later years, one in which, owing to the want of full +development of mental faculties, there are no systematised delusions, +but a rapid change from depression and melancholy to exaltation +bordering on mania. Those parents and guardians who know something of +the peculiar physical and mental conditions of adolescence will be +best prepared both to treat the troubles wisely, and by sympathy to +help the young people under their care to help themselves.</p> + +<p>One of the phenomena of adolescence is the dawn of the sexual +instinct. This frequently develops without the child knowing or +understanding what it means. More especially is this true of young +girls whose home life has been completely sheltered, and who have not +had the advantage, or disadvantage, of that experience of life which +comes early to those who live in crowded tenements or amongst the +outspoken people of the countryside. The children of the poorer +classes have, in a way, too little to <a name='page16'></a>learn: they are brought up from +babyhood in the midst of all domestic concerns, and the love affairs +of their elders are intimately known to them, therefore quite early in +adolescence "ilka lassie has her laddie," and although the attraction +be short-lived and the affection very superficial, yet it is +sufficient to give an added interest to life, and generally leads to +an increased care in dress and an increased desire to make the most of +whatever good looks the girl may possess. The girl in richer homes is +probably much more bewildered by her unwonted sensations and by the +attraction she begins to feel towards the society of the opposite sex.</p> + +<p>Probably in these days, when there is more intermingling of the sexes, +the girl's outlook is franker, and, so far as this is concerned, +healthier, than it was forty or fifty years ago. It is very amusing to +elders to hear a boy scarcely in his teens talking of "his best girl," +or to see the little lass wearing the colour or ornament that her +chosen lad admires. It is true that the "best girl" varies from week +to week if not from day to day, but this special regard for a member +of the opposite sex announces the dawn of a simple sentiment that +will, a few years later, blossom out into the real passion which may +fix a life's destiny.</p> + +<p>The mental and moral changes that occur during the early years of +adolescence call for help and sympathy of an even higher order than do +the changes in physical structure and function. Some of these changes, +such as shyness and reticence, may be the <a name='page17'></a>cause of considerable +suffering to the girl and a perplexity to her elders, but on the whole +they are comparatively easy of comprehension, and are more likely to +elicit sympathy and kindness than blame. It is far otherwise with such +changes as unseemly laughter, rough manners, and a nameless difference +in the girl's manner when in the presence of the other sex. A girl who +is usually quiet, modest, and sensible in her behaviour may suddenly +become boisterous and self-asserting, there is a great deal of +giggling, and altogether a disagreeable transformation which too +frequently involves the girl in trouble with her mother or other +guardian, and is very frequently harshly judged by the child herself. +In proportion as self-discipline has been taught and self-control +acquired, these outward manifestations are less marked, but in the +case of the great majority of girls there are, at any rate, impulses +having their origin in the yet immature and misunderstood sex impulse +which cause the young woman herself annoyance and worry although she +is as far from understanding their origin as her elders may be. The +remedies for these troubles are various. First in order of time and in +importance comes a habit of self-control and self-discipline that +ought to be coeval with conscious life. Fathers and mothers are +themselves to blame if their girl lapses from good behaviour when they +have not inculcated ideals of obedience, duty, and self-discipline +from babyhood. It seems such a little thing to let the child have its +run of the cake-basket and the sweet-box; it is in <a name='page18'></a>the eyes of many +parents so unimportant whether the little one goes to bed at the +appointed time or ten minutes later; they argue that it can make no +difference to her welfare in life or to her eternal destiny whether +her obedience is prompt and cheerful or grudging and imperfect. One +might as well argue that the proper planting of a seed, its regular +watering, and the influences of sun and wind make no difference to the +life of a tree. We have to bear carefully in mind that those who sow +an act reap a habit, who sow a habit reap a character, who sow a +character reap a destiny both in this world and in that which is +eternal. It is mere selfishness, unconscious, no doubt, but none the +less fatal, when parents to suit their own convenience omit to +inculcate obedience, self-restraint, habits of order and unselfishness +in their children. Youth is the time when the soul is apt to be shaken +by sorrow's power and when stormy passions rage. The tiny rill +starting from the mountainside can be readily deflected east or west, +but the majestic river hastening to the sea is beyond all such +arbitrary directions. So it is with the human being: the character and +habit are directed easily in infancy, with difficulty during +childhood, but they are well-nigh impossible of direction by the time +adolescence is established. Those fathers and mothers who desire to +have happiness and peace in connection with their adolescent boys and +girls must take the trouble to direct them aright during the plastic +years of infancy and childhood. All natural instincts implanted in us +by Him <a name='page19'></a>who knew what was in the heart of man are in themselves right +and good, but the exercise of these instincts may be entirely wrong in +time or in degree. The sexual instinct, the affinity of boy to girl, +the love of adult man and woman, are right and holy when exercised +aright, and it is the result of "spoiling" when these good and noble +instincts are wrongly exercised. All who love their country, all who +love their fellow men, and all who desire that the kingdom of God +should come, must surely do everything that is in their power to +awaken the fathers and mothers of the land to a sense of their heavy +responsibility and of their high privilege. In this we are entirely +separated from and higher than the rest of the animal creation, in +that on us lies the duty not only of calling into life a new +generation of human beings, but also the still higher duty, the still +greater privilege and the wider responsibility of bringing up those +children to be themselves the worthy parents of the future, the +supporters of their country's dignity, and joyful citizens of the +household of God.</p> + +<p>Another characteristic of adolescence is to be found in +gregariousness, or what has been sometimes called the <i>gang spirit</i>. +Boys, and to almost as great a degree girls, form themselves into +companies or gangs, which frequently possess a high degree of +organisation. They elaborate special languages, they have their own +form of shorthand, their passwords, their rites and ceremonies. The +gang has its elected leader, its officers, its members; and although +it is liable to sudden disruption and seldom <a name='page20'></a>outlasts a few terms of +school-life, each succeeding club or company is for the time being of +paramount importance in the estimation of its members. The gang spirit +may at times cause trouble and lead to anxiety, but if rightly +directed it may be turned to good account. It is the germ of the +future capacity to organise men and women into corporate life—the +very method by which much public and national work is readily +accomplished, but which is impossible to accomplish by individual +effort.</p> + +<p><b>3. Changes in the Religion of the Adolescent.</b>—The religion of the +adolescent is apt to be marked by fervour and earnest conviction, the +phenomenon of "conversion" almost constantly occurring during +adolescence. The girl looks upon eternal truths from a completely new +standpoint, or at any rate with eyes that have been purged and +illuminated by the throes of conversion. From a period of great +anxiety and doubt she emerges to a time of intense love and devotion, +to an eager desire to prove herself worthy, and to offer a sacrifice +of the best powers she possesses. Unfortunately for peace of mind, the +happy epoch succeeding conversion not unfrequently ends in a dismal +time of intellectual doubt and spiritual darkness. Just as the +embryonic love of the youthful adolescent leads to a time when the +opposite sex is rather an object of dislike than of attraction, so the +fervour of early conversion is apt to lead to a time of desolation; +but just as the incomplete sex love of early adolescence finds its +antitype and fine flower in the later fully developed love of +honourable <a name='page21'></a>man and woman, so does the too rapturous and uncalculating +religious devotion of these early years revive after the period of +doubt, transfigured and glorified into the religious conviction and +devotion which makes the strength, the joy, and the guiding principle +of adult life.</p> + +<p>Much depends on the circumstances and people surrounding the +adolescent. Her unbounded capacity for hero-worship leads in many +instances to a conscious or unconscious copying of parent, guardian, +or teacher; and although the ideals of the young are apt to far +outpace those of the adult whose days of illusion are over, yet they +are probably formed on the same type. One sees this illustrated by +generations in the same family holding much the same religious or +political opinions and showing the same aptitude for certain +professions, games, and pursuits. Much there is in heredity, but +probably there is still more in environment.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page22'></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS.</h4> + +<p>These may be briefly summed up by saying that we have to provide +adolescent girls with all things that are necessary for their souls +and their bodies, but any such bald and wholesale enunciation of our +duty helps but little in clearing one's ideas and in pointing out the +actual manner in which we are to perform it.</p> + +<p>First, with regard to the bodies of adolescent girls; Their primary +needs, just like the primary needs of all living beings, are food, +warmth, shelter, exercise and rest, with special care in sickness.</p> + +<p>Food.—In spite of the great advance of knowledge in the present day, +it is doubtful whether much practical advance has been made in the +dietetics of children and adolescents, and it is to be feared that our +great schools are especially deficient in this most important respect. +Even when the age of childhood is past, young people require a much +larger amount of milk than is usually included in their diet sheet. It +would be well for them to begin the day with porridge and milk or some +such cereal preparation. Coffee or cocoa made with milk should +cer<a name='page23'></a>tainly have the preference over tea for breakfast, and in addition +to the porridge or other such dish, fish, egg, or bacon, with plenty +of bread and butter, should form the morning repast. The midday meal +should consist of fresh meat, fish, or poultry, with an abundance of +green vegetables and a liberal helping of sweet pudding. The articles +of diet which are most deficient in our lists are milk, butter, and +sugar. There is an old prejudice against sugar which is quite +unfounded so far as the healthy individual is concerned. Cane sugar +has recently been proved to be a most valuable muscle food, and when +taken in the proper way for sweetening beverages, fruit, and puddings, +it is entirely good. The afternoon meal should consist chiefly of +bread and butter and milk or cocoa, with a fair proportion of simple, +well-made cake, and in the case where animal food has been taken both +at breakfast and dinner, the evening meal might well be bread and +butter, bread and milk, or milk pudding with stewed or fresh fruit. +But it is different in the case of those adolescents whose midday meal +is necessarily slight, and who ought to have a thoroughly good dinner +or supper early in the evening;</p> + +<p>One would have thought it unnecessary to mention alcohol in speaking +of the dietary of young people were it not that, strange to say, beer +is still given at some of our public schools. It is extraordinary that +wise and intelligent people should still give beer to young boys and +girls at the very time when what they want is strength and not +stimulus, food for the <a name='page24'></a>growing frame and nothing to stimulate the +already exuberant passions.</p> + +<p>An invariable rule with regard to the food of children should be that +their meals should be regular, that they should consist of good, +varied, nourishing food taken at regular hours, and that nothing +should be eaten between meals. The practice of eating biscuits, fruit, +and sweets between meals during childhood and adolescence not only +spoils the digestion and impairs the nutrition at the time, but it is +apt to lay the foundation of a constant craving for something which is +only too likely to take the form of alcoholic craving in later years. +It is impossible for the stomach to perform its duty satisfactorily if +it is never allowed rest, and the introduction of stray morsels of +food at irregular times prevents this, and introduces confusion into +the digestive work, because there will be in the stomach at the same +time food in various stages of digestion.</p> + +<p><b>Warmth.</b>—Warmth is one of the influences essential to health and to +sound development, and although artificial warmth is more urgently +required by little children and by old people than it is by young +adults, still, if their bodies are to come to their utmost possible +perfection, they require suitable conditions of temperature. This is +provided in the winter partly by artificial heating of houses and +partly by the wearing of suitable clothing. Ideal clothing is loose of +texture and woven of wool, although a fairly good substitute can be +obtained <a name='page25'></a>in materials that are made from cotton treated specially.</p> + +<p>This is not the time or place in which to insist on the very grave +dangers that accompany the use of ordinary flannelette, but a caution +must be addressed in passing to those who provide clothing for others. +In providing clothes it is necessary to remember the two reasons for +their existence: (1) to cover the body, and (2) as far as possible to +protect a large area of its surface against undue damp and cold.</p> + +<p>Adolescents, as a rule, begin early to take a great interest in their +clothes. From the time that the appreciation of the opposite sex +commences, the child who has hitherto been indifferent or even +slovenly in the matter of clothing takes a very living interest in it; +indeed the adornment of person and the minute care devoted to details +of the toilet by young people of both sexes remind one irresistibly of +the preening of the feathers, the strutting and other antics of birds +before their mates.</p> + +<p>Girls especially are apt to forget the primary object of clothing, and +to think of it too much as a means of adornment. This leads to +excesses and follies such as tight waists, high-heeled shoes, to the +ungainly crinoline or to indecent scantiness of skirts. Direct +interference in these matters is badly tolerated, but much may be +accomplished both by example and by cultivating a refined and artistic +taste in sumptuary matters.</p> + +<p><b>Sleep.</b>—Amongst the most important of the factors that conduce to +well-being both of body and mind <a name='page26'></a>must be reckoned an adequate amount +of sleep. This has been made the subject of careful inquiry by Dr. +Dukes of Rugby and Miss Alice Ravenhill. Both these trained and +careful observers agree that the majority of young people get far too +little rest and sleep. We have to remember that although fully-grown +adults will take rest when they can get it in the daytime, young +people are too active, and sometimes too restless, to give any repose +to brain or muscle except during sleep. In the early years of +adolescence ten hours sleep is none too much; even an adult in full +work ought to have eight hours, and still more is necessary for the +rapidly-growing, continually-developing, and never-resting adolescent. +It is unfortunately a fact that even in the boarding schools of the +well-to-do the provision of sleep is too limited, and for the children +of the poor, whose homes are far from comfortable and who are +accustomed to doing pretty nearly as their elders do, the night seldom +begins before eleven or even twelve o'clock. It is one of the saddest +sights of London to see small children dancing on the pavement in +front of the public-houses up to a very late hour, while groups of +loafing boys and hoydenish girls stand about at the street corners +half the night. There is little wonder that the morning finds them +heavy and unrefreshed, and that schoolwork suffers severely from want +of the alert and vigorous attention that might be secured by a proper +night's sleep.</p> + +<p>Great harm is done by allowing children to take work home with them +from school; if possible, the <a name='page27'></a>day's work should finish with school +hours, and the scanty leisure should be spent in healthy exercise or +in sleep.</p> + +<p><b>Overcrowding.</b>—In considering the question of adequate sleep it +would be well to think of the conditions of healthy sleep.</p> + +<p>For sleep to be refreshing and health-giving, the sleeper ought to +have a comfortable bed and an abundant supply of fresh air. +Unfortunately the great majority of our people both in town and +country do not enjoy these advantages. In both town and country there +is a great deficiency of suitable dwellings at rents that can be paid +with the usual rate of wages. In consequence families are crowded into +one, two, or three rooms, and even in the case of people far above the +status of day labourers and artisans it is the exception and not the +rule for each individual to have a separate bed. The question of +ventilation is certainly better understood than it was a few years +ago, but still leaves much to be desired, and there is still an urgent +necessity for preaching the gospel of the open window.</p> + +<p><b>Exercise.</b>—In considering the question of the exercise of +adolescents, one's thoughts immediately turn to athletics, games, and +dancing. As a nation the English have always been fond of athletics, +and have attributed to the influence of such team games as cricket and +football not only their success in various competitions but also their +success in the sterner warfare of life. This success has been obtained +on the tented field and in the work of exploring, moun<a name='page28'></a>taineering, and +other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but +also on strength of character and powers of endurance.</p> + +<p>Team games appear to be the especial property of adolescents, for +young children are more or less individualistic and solitary in many +of their games, but boys and girls alike prefer team games from the +pre-adolescent age up to adult life. It is certain that no form of +exercise is superior to these games: they call into play every muscle +of the body, they make great demands on accuracy of eye and +coordination, they also stimulate and develop habits of command, +obedience, loyalty, and <i>esprit de corps</i>. In the great public schools +of England, and in the private schools which look up to them as their +models, team games are played, as one might say, in a religious +spirit. The boy or girl who attempts to take an unfair advantage, or +who habitually plays for his or her own hand, is quickly made to feel +a pariah and an outcast. Among the greatest blessings that are +conveyed to the children of the poorer classes is the instruction not +only in the technique of team games but also in the inoculation of the +spirit in which they ought to be played. It is absolutely necessary +that the highest ideals connected with games should be handed down, +for thus the children who perhaps do not always have the highest +ideals before them in real life may learn through this mimic warfare +how the battle of life must be fought and what are the characters of +mind and body that deserve and ensure success. It has been well said +that <a name='page29'></a>those who make the songs of a nation help largely to make its +character, and equally surely those who teach and control the games of +the adolescents are making or marring a national destiny.</p> + +<p>Among the means of physical and moral advancement may be claimed +gymnastics. And here, alas, this nation can by no means claim to be +<i>facile princeps</i>. Not only have we been relatively slow in adopting +properly systematised exercises, but even to the present day the +majority of elementary schools are without properly fitted gymnasia +and duly qualified teachers. The small and relatively poor +Scandinavian nations have admirably fitted gymnasia in connection with +their <i>Folkschule</i>, which correspond to our elementary schools. The +exercises are based on those systematised by Ling; each series is +varied, and is therefore the more interesting, and each lesson +commences with simple, easily performed movements, leading on to those +that are more elaborate and fatiguing, and finally passing through a +descending series to the condition of repose.</p> + +<p>The gymnasia where such exercises are taught in England are relatively +few and far between, and it is lamentable to find that many excellent +and well-appointed schools for children, whose parents pay large sums +of money for their education, have no properly equipped gymnasia nor +adequately trained teachers. When the question is put, "How often do +you have gymnastics at your school?" the answer is frequently, "We +have none," or, "Half an hour once a week." Exercises such as Ling's +not only <a name='page30'></a>exercise every muscle in the body in a scientific and +well-regulated fashion, but being performed by a number of pupils at +once in obedience to words of command, discipline, co-operation, +obedience to teachers, and loyalty to comrades, are taught at the same +time. The deepest interest attaches to many of the more complex +exercises, while some of them make large demands on the courage and +endurance of the young people.</p> + +<p>In Scandinavia the State provides knickerbockers, tunics, and +gymnasium shoes for those children whose parents are too poor to +provide them; and again, in Scandinavia there is very frequently the +provision of bathrooms in which the pupils can have a shower bath and +rub-down after the exercises. These bathrooms in connection with the +gymnasia need not necessarily be costly; indeed many of them in +Stockholm and Denmark merely consist of troughs in the cement floor, +on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a +shower bath over their heads and bodies. The feet get well washed in +the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts +as an admirable tonic.</p> + +<p>Another exercise which ought to be specially dear to a nation of +islanders is swimming, and this, again, is a relatively cheap luxury +too much neglected amongst us. Certainly there are public baths, but +there are not enough to permit of all the elementary school children +bathing even once a week, and still less have they the opportunity of +learning to swim. There is much to be done yet before we can be justly +<a name='page31'></a>proud of our national system of education. We must not lose sight of +the ideal with which we started—viz. that we should endeavour to do +the best that is possible for our young people in body, soul, and +spirit. The three parts of our nature are intertwined, and a duty +performed to one part has an effect on the whole.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page32'></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS.</h4> + +<p>If measured by the death-rate the period of adolescence should cause +us little anxiety, but a careful examination into the state of health +of children of school age shows us that it is a time in which +disorders of health abound, and that although these disorders are not +necessarily, nor even generally, fatal, they are frequent, they spoil +the child's health, and inevitably bear fruit in the shape of an +injurious effect on health in after life.</p> + +<p>That the health of adolescents should be unstable is what we ought to +expect from the general instability of the organism due to the +rapidity of growth and the remarkable developmental changes that are +crowded into these few years. Rapidity of growth and increase of +weight are very generally recognised, although their effects upon +health are apt to be overlooked. On the other hand, the still more +remarkable development that occurs in adolescence is very generally +ignored.</p> + +<p>As a general rule the infectious fevers, the so-called childish +diseases—such as measles, chicken-pox, and whooping-cough—are less +common in adolescence <a name='page33'></a>than they are in childhood, while the special +diseases of internal organs due to their overwork, or to their natural +tendency to degeneration, is yet far in the future. The chief troubles +of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid +development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting +itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some +measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and of their +advisers.</p> + +<p>This is not the place for a general treatise on the diseases of +adolescents, but a few of the commonest and most obvious troubles +should be noted.</p> + +<p><b>The Teeth.</b>—It is quite surprising to learn what a very large +percentage of young soldiers are refused enlistment in the army on +account of decayed or defective teeth, and anyone who has examined the +young women candidates for the Civil Service and for Missionary +Societies must have recognised that their teeth are in no way better +than those of the young men. In addition to several vacancies in the +dental series, it is by no means unusual to find that a candidate has +three or even five teeth severely decayed. The extraordinary thing is +that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail +to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their +medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that +is not only disagreeable but dangerous. A considerable proportion of +people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of +the gums and around the roots<a name='page34'></a> of the teeth. This pyorrhoea +alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the +patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous +micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise +to septic disease in various organs. It is quite probable that some +cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some +cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal +form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful +swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and +general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. In +addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen +glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. One +would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all +this havoc would lead to a grand rush to the dentist, but so far from +being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their +patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous +decayed tooth.</p> + +<p><b>The Throat.</b>—Some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy, +are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child's life +has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure +medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole +the public conscience is awake to this duty. Far otherwise is it with +chronic diseases of the tonsils: they may be riddled with small cysts, +they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation +dependent on a septic condition, but no <a name='page35'></a>notice is taken except when +chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates +the chronic into a temporary acute trouble. And yet it is perhaps not +going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or +invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned +to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to +the system.</p> + +<p>Another condition of the throat which causes much ill-health is well +known to the public under the name of adenoids. Unfortunately, +however, many people have an erroneous idea that children will "grow +out of adenoids." Even if this were true it is extremely unwise to +wait for so desirable an event. Adenoids may continue to grow, and +during the years that they are present they work great mischief. Owing +to the blocking of the air-passages the mouth is kept constantly open, +greatly to the detriment of the throat and lungs. Owing to the +interference with the circulation at the back of the nose and throat, +a considerable amount both of apparent and real stupidity is produced, +the brain works less well than it ought, and the child's appearance is +ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. The +tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a +considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not +easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then +swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. The +removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary, +and usually in<a name='page36'></a>volves little distress or danger. The change in the +child's health and appearance that can thus be secured is truly +wonderful, especially if it be taught, as it should be, to keep its +mouth shut and to breathe through the nose. In the course of a few +months the complexion will have cleared, the expression will have +regained its natural intelligence, digestion will be well performed, +and the child's whole condition will be that of alert vigour instead +of one of listless and sullen indifference.</p> + +<p><b>Errors of Digestion.</b>—From the consideration of certain states of +the nose, mouth, and throat, it is easy to turn to what is so often +their consequence. Many forms of indigestion are due to the septic +materials swallowed. It would not, however, be fair to say that all +indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to +errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty +and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. The +foods that are best for young people—such as bread, milk, butter, +sugar, and eggs—are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to +their cost; and again, in the case of many girls whose parents are +able and willing to provide them with a thoroughly satisfactory +diet-sheet, dyspepsia is caused by their refusal to take what is good +for them, and by their preference for unsuitable and indigestible +viands.</p> + +<p>A further cause of indigestion must be sought in the haste with which +food is too often eaten. The failure to rise at the appointed time +leads to a hasty break<a name='page37'></a>fast, and this must eventually cause +indigestion. The food imperfectly masticated and not sufficiently +mixed with saliva enters the stomach ill-prepared, and the hasty rush +to morning school or morning work effectually prevents the stomach +from dealing satisfactorily with the mass so hastily thrust into it.</p> + +<p>There is an old saying that "Those whom the gods will destroy they +first make mad," and in many instances young people who fall victims +to the demon of dyspepsia owe their sorrows, if not to madness, at any +rate to ignorance and want of consideration. The defective teeth, +septic tonsils, discharging adenoids, poverty of their parents and +their own laziness, all conspire to cause digestive troubles which +bear a fruitful crop of further evils, for thus are caused such +illnesses as anæmia and gastric ulcer.</p> + +<p><b>Constipation</b> claims a few words to itself. And here again we ought +to consider certain septic processes. The refuse of the food should +travel along the bowels at a certain rate, but if owing to +sluggishness of their movements or to defects in the quality and +amount of their secretion, the refuse is too long retained the masses +become unduly dry, and, constantly shrinking in volume, are no longer +capable of being urged along the tube at the proper rate. In +consequence of this the natural micro-organisms of the intestine cease +to be innocent and become troublesome; they lead in the long run to a +peculiar form of blood-poisoning, and to so many diseased conditions +that it is impossible to deal with them at the present moment. <a name='page38'></a>The +existence of constipation is too often a signal for the administration +of many doses of medicine. The wiser, the less harmful, and the more +effectual method of dealing with it would be to endeavour to secure +the natural action of the bowels by a change in the diet, which should +contain more vegetable and less animal constituents. The patient +should also be instructed to drink plenty of water, either hot or +cold, a large glassful on going to bed and one on first awaking, and +also if necessary an hour before each meal. Steady exercise is also of +very great service, and instead of starting so late as to have no time +for walking to school or work, a certain portion of the daily journey +should be done on foot. Further, in all cases where it is possible, +team games, gymnastics, and dancing should be called in to supplement +the walk.</p> + +<p><b>Headache.</b>—Headache may be due to so many different causes that it +would be impossible in this little book to adequately consider them, +but it would not be fair to omit to mention that in many cases the +headache of young people is due to their want of spectacles. The idea +that spectacles are only required by people advanced in life is by +this time much shaken, but even now not only many parents object to +their children enjoying this most necessary assistance to imperfect +vision, but also employers may be found so foolish and selfish as to +refuse to employ those persons who need to wear glasses. The folly as +well as selfishness of this objection is demonstrated by the far +better work done by a person <a name='page39'></a>whose vision has been corrected, and the +absolute danger incurred by all who have to deal with machinery if +vision is imperfect. Among other causes for headache are the defects +of mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels already described, because in +all of them there is a supply of septic material to the blood which +naturally causes headache and other serious symptoms.</p> + +<p><b>Abnormalities of Menstruation.</b>—The normal period should occur at +regular intervals about once a month. Its duration and amount vary +within wide limits, but in each girl it should remain true to her +individual type, and it ought not to be accompanied by pain or +distress. As a rule the period starts quite normally, and it is not +until the girl's health has been spoiled by over-exertion of body or +mind, by unwise exertion during the period, or by continued exposure +to damp or cold, that it becomes painful and abnormal in time or in +amount.</p> + +<p>One of the earliest signs of approaching illness—such as consumption, +anæmia, and mental disorder—is to be found in the more or less sudden +cessation of the period. This should always be taken as a +danger-signal, and as indicating the need of special medical advice.</p> + +<p>Another point that should enter into intimate talk with girls is to +make them understand the co-relation of their own functions to the +great destiny that is in store. A girl is apt to be both shocked and +humiliated when she first hears of menstruation and its phenomena. +Should this function commence before <a name='page40'></a>she is told about it, she will +necessarily look upon it with disgust and perhaps with fear. It is +indeed a most alarming incident in the case of a girl who knows +nothing about it, but if, before the advent of menstruation, it be +explained to her that it is a sign of changes within her body that +will gradually, after the lapse of some years, fit her also to take +her place amongst the mothers of the land, her shame and fear will be +converted into modest gladness, and she will readily understand why +she is under certain restrictions, and has at times to give up work or +pleasure in order that her development may be without pain, healthy, +and complete.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page41'></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING.</h4> + +<p>The years of adolescence, during which rapid growth and development +inevitably cause so much stress and frequently give rise to danger, +are the very years in which the weight of school education necessarily +falls most heavily. The children of the poor leave school at fourteen +years of age, just the time when the children of the wealthier classes +are beginning to understand the necessity of education and to work +with a clearer realisation of the value and aim of lessons. The whole +system of education has altered of late years, and school work is now +conducted far more intelligently and with a greater appreciation of +the needs and capacities of the pupils than it was some fifty years +ago. Work is made more interesting, the relation of different studies +to each other is more adequately put in evidence, and the influence +that school studies have on success in after life is more fully +realised by all concerned. The system of training is, however, far +from perfect. In the case of girls, more particularly, great care has +to be exercised not to attempt to teach too much, and to give careful +consideration to the physiological <a name='page42'></a>peculiarities of the pupils. It is +impossible for girls who are undergoing such rapid physiological and +psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous +work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of +her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that +it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack +times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl +indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than +usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter +subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical +exertion. It is not a good time for exercises, for games, for dancing, +and for gardening, nor are they the days on which mathematics should +be pressed, but they are days in which much supervision is needed, and +when time should not be permitted to hang heavily on hand.</p> + +<p>Just as there are days in which consideration should be shown, so too +there are longer periods of time in which it is unwise for a girl to +be pressed to prepare for or to undergo a strenuous examination. The +brain of the girl appears to be as good as that of the boy, while her +application, industry, and emulation are far in advance of his, but +she has these physiological peculiarities, and if they are disregarded +there will not only be an occasional disastrous failure in bodily or +mental health, but girls as a class will fail to do the best work of +which they are capable, and will fail to reap the fullest advantage +from an education which is costly in money, time, and strength. <a name='page43'></a>It +follows that the curriculum for girls presents greater difficulties +than the curriculum for boys, and that those ladies who are +responsible for the organisation of a school for girls need to be +women of great resource, great patience, and endowed with much +sympathetic insight. The adolescent girl will generally do little to +help her teachers in this matter. She is incapable of recognising her +own limitations, she is full of emulation, and is desirous of +attaining and keeping a good position not only in her school but also +in the University or in any other public body for whose examination +she may present herself. The young girl most emphatically needs to be +saved from herself, and she has to learn the lessons of obedience and +of cheerful acquiescence in restrictions that certainly appear to her +simply vexatious.</p> + +<p>One of the difficulties in private schools arises from the necessity +of providing occupation for every hour of the waking day, while +avoiding the danger of overwork with its accompanying exhaustion. In +the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games, +dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a +welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and +equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is +trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one +hand and undue mental pressure on the other.</p> + +<p>Boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who +leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the +same causes. <a name='page44'></a>One of the difficulties in their case is that they leave +school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of +study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been +thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few +years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty +knowledge. Free education has been given to the children of the poor +for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in +the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the +wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to +read in an imperfect and blundering manner.</p> + +<p>Here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being +the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in +school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after +life. It would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in +addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to +enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple +household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the +cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing +as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. In addition, +and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be +taught gymnastics, part singing and mother-craft. No doubt in +individual schools much of this modification of the curriculum has +been accomplished, but more remains to be done before we can be +satisfied that we have done the <a name='page45'></a>best in our power to fit the children +of the country for their life's work.</p> + +<p>Another of the great problems connected with the children in +elementary schools, a problem which, indeed, arises out of their +leaving at fourteen, is that of the Continuation School or Evening +School, and the system which is known as "half-timing." It is well +known that although young people from fourteen to sixteen years of age +are well able to profit by continued instruction, they are, with very +few exceptions, not at all well adapted for commencing their life's +work as industrials. The general incoherency and restlessness peculiar +to that age frequently lead to a change of employment every few +months, while their general irresponsibility and want of self-control +lead to frequent disputes with foremen and other officials in +factories and shops, in consequence of which the unfortunate child is +constantly out of work. In proportion to the joy and pride caused by +the realised capacity to earn money and by the sense of independence +that employment brings, is the unhappiness, and in many cases the +misery, due to unemployment, and to repeated failures to obtain and to +keep an independent position. The boy or girl out of work has an +uneasy feeling that he or she has not earned the just and expected +share towards household expenses. The feeling of dependence and +well-nigh of disgrace causes a rapid deterioration in health and +spirits, and it is only too likely that in many instances where +unemployment is continuous or frequently repeated, <a name='page46'></a>the unemployed +will quickly become the unemployable.</p> + +<p>So far as the young people themselves are concerned, it would be +nearly always an unmixed benefit that they should pass at fourteen +into a Technical School or Continuation School, as the case may be. +Among the great difficulties to the solution of this problem is the +fact that in many working-class households the few weekly shillings +brought into the family store by the elder children are of very real +importance, and although the raising of the age of possible employment +and independence would enable the next generation to work better and +to earn higher and more continuous wages, it is difficult for the +parents to acquiesce in the present deprivation involved, even though +it represents so much clear gain in the not distant future.</p> + +<p>At the present time there are Evening Schools, but this system does +not work well. All busy people are well aware that after a hard day's +work neither brain nor body is in the best possible condition for two +or three hours of serious mental effort. The child who has spent the +day in factory or shop has really pretty nearly used up all his or her +available mental energy, and after the evening meal is naturally +heavy, stupid, irritable, and altogether in a bad condition for +further effort. The evenings ought to be reserved for recreation, for +the gymnasium, the singing class, the swimming bath, and even for the +concert and the theatre.</p> + +<p>The system of "half-timing" during ordinary <a name='page47'></a>school life does not work +well, and it would be a great pity should a similar system be +introduced in the hope of furthering the education of boys and girls +who are just entering industrial life. There is reason to hope that a +great improvement in education will be secured by Mr. Hayes Fisher's +bill.</p> + +<p>Another subject to which the attention of patriots and philanthropists +ought to be turned is the sort of employment open to children at +school-leaving age. The greatest care should be taken to diminish the +number of those who endeavour to achieve quasi-independence in those +occupations which are well known as "blind alleys." In England it is +rare that girls should seek these employments, but in Scotland there +is far too large a number of girl messengers. In this particular, the +case of the girl is superior to that of the boy. The "tweeny" develops +into housemaid or cook; the young girls employed in superior shops to +wait on the elder shopwomen hope to develop into their successors, and +the girls who nurse babies on the doorsteps are, after all, acquiring +knowledge and dexterity that may fit them for domestic service or for +the management of their own families a few years later.</p> + +<p>The girls of the richer classes have not the same difficulties as +their poorer sisters. They generally remain at school until a much +later age, and subsequently have the joy and stimulus of college life, +of foreign travel, of social engagements, or of philanthropic +enterprise. Still, a residue remains even of girls of this class whose +own inclinations, or whose <a name='page48'></a>family circumstances, lead to an aimless, +purposeless existence, productive of much injury to both body and +mind, and only too likely to end in hopeless ennui and nervous +troubles. It should be thoroughly understood by parents and guardians +that no matter what the girl's circumstances may be, she ought always +to have an abundance of employment. The ideas of obligation and of +duty should not be discarded when school and college life cease. The +well-to-do girl should be encouraged to take up some definite +employment which would fill her life and provide her with interests +and duties. Any other arrangement tends to make the time between +leaving school or college and a possible marriage not only a wasted +time but also a seed-time during which a crop is sown of bad habits, +laziness of body, and slackness of mind, that subsequently bear bitter +fruit. It is quite time for us to recognise that unemployment and +absence of duties is as great a disadvantage to the rich as it is to +the poor; the sort of employment must necessarily differ, but the +spirit in which it is to be done is the same.</p> + +<p>One point that one would wish to emphasise with regard to all +adolescents is that although occupation for the whole day is most +desirable, hard work should occupy but a certain proportion of the +waking hours. For any adolescent, or indeed for any of us to attempt +to work hard for twelve or fourteen hours out of the twenty-four is to +store up trouble. It is not possible to lay down any hard and fast +rule as to the length of hours of work, because the other factors in +the prob<a name='page49'></a>lem vary so greatly. One person may be exhausted by four +hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by +eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand +that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment, +and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as +mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as +portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must +necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in +feeding a machine, in nursing a baby, or in gardening operations.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page50'></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION.</h4> + +<p>The great problem before those who have the responsibility for the +training of the young is that of preparing them to take their place in +the world as fathers, mothers, and citizens, and among the fundamental +duties connected with this responsibility must come the placing before +the eyes of the young people high ideals, attractive examples, and the +securing to them the means of adequate preparation. As a nation it +seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of Israel in +the days of Eli: "the word of the Lord was precious (or scarce) in +those days; there was no open vision." We seem to have come to a time +of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a +widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is +little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching +and of training is but too little realised. In the endeavour to know a +little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and +exhaustive knowledge of anything. It would appear as if the remedy for +this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before +the years of adolescence, even <a name='page51'></a>while the child is yet in its cradle. +The old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be +once more household words and living entities before the race can +enter on a period of regeneration. We want a poet with the logic of +Browning, the sweetness of Tennyson, and the force of Rudyard Kipling, +to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and +love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of +which the England of bygone years had the promise.</p> + +<p>Speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that +the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good +wife and a good mother. It is not necessary to say this in direct +words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided, +as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower +and perfection of her being. This is the hope and ideal that should +sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of +life. All learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should +take their place as a preparation to this end. Each generation that +comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded +it. It is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that +which is to come. We ought to recognise that all educational aims and +methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were +properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service +and help in their training. The deep primal instinct of fatherhood and +motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly +and <a name='page52'></a>successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of +their own bodies, their own minds, and their own souls. It is, +however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even +unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its +fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily +ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is +considered indiscreet and even indelicate. How are children to develop +a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their +wonderful destiny? If they do not recognise that at least in one +respect God has confided to them in some measure His own creative +function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure +their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function? +There is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when +and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august +destiny. We are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is +not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be +sanctified and blessed. It is, however, certain that the conspiracy of +silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil. +If a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the +eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always +pernicious and sometimes disastrous. If, on the other hand, such +knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her +purity of mind must be smirched and injured.</p> + +<p>Even among those who hold that children ought to <a name='page53'></a>be instructed, there +is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. Some +say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of +marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less +shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural +and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. These +last would argue—why put the facts of reproduction on a different +footing from those of digestion and respiration? As facts in the +physical life they hold a precisely similar position. Upon the due +performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole +organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of +respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the +individual, it is essential to the life of the nation.</p> + +<p>The facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a +perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them—the +cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more +the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types +of motherhood. Instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the +origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser to +answer the child's question by a direct statement of fact, that God +has given the power to His creatures to perpetuate themselves, that +the gift of Life is one of His good gifts bestowed in mercy on all His +creatures. The mother's share in this gift and duty can be observed +by, and simply explained to, the child from its earliest years; it +comes then with no shock, <a name='page54'></a>no sense of shame, but as a type of joy and +gladness, an image of that holiest of all relations, the Eternal +Mother and the Heavenly Child.</p> + +<p>Somewhat later in life, probably immediately before puberty in boys +and shortly after puberty in girls, the father's share in this mystery +may naturally come up for explanation. The physiological facts +connected with this are not so constantly in evidence before children, +and therefore do not press for explanation in the same way as do those +of motherhood, but the time comes soon in the schoolboy's life when +the special care of his own body has to be urged on him, and this +knowledge ought to come protected by the sanction that unless he is +faithful to his trust he cannot look to the reward of a happy home +life with wife and children. In the case of the girl the question as +to fatherhood is more likely to arise out of the reading of the Bible +or other literature, or by her realisation that at any rate in the +case of human parenthood there is evidently the intermediation of a +father. The details of this knowledge need not necessarily be pressed +on the adolescent girl, but it is a positive cruelty to allow the +young woman to marry without knowing the facts on which her happiness +depends.</p> + +<p>Another way in which the mystery of parenthood can be simply and +comfortably taught is through the study of vegetable physiology. The +fertilisation of the ovules by pollen which falls directly from the +anthers on to the stigma can be used as a representation of similar +facts in animal physiology. It is <a name='page55'></a>very desirable, however, that this +study of the vegetable should succeed and not precede that of the +domestic animals in the teaching of boys and girls.</p> + +<p>Viewed from this standpoint there is surely no difficulty to the +parent in imparting to the child this necessary knowledge. We have to +remember that children have to know the mysteries of life. They cannot +live in the world without seeing the great drama constantly displayed +to them in family life and in the lives of domesticated animals. They +cannot read the literature of Greece and Rome, nay, they cannot study +the Book of Books, without these facts being constantly brought to +mind. A child's thirst for the interpretation of this knowledge is +imperative and unsatiable—not from prurience nor from +evil-mindedness, but in obedience to a law of our nature, the child +demands this knowledge—and will get it. It is for fathers and mothers +to say whether these sublime and beautiful mysteries shall be lovingly +and reverently unveiled by themselves or whether the child's mind +shall be poisoned and all beauty and reverence destroyed by depraved +school-fellows and vulgar companions.</p> + +<p>In the hope of securing the purity, reverence and piety of our +children, in the hope that they may grow up worthy of their high +destiny, let us do what we may to keep their honour unsmirched, to +preserve their innocence, and to lead them on from the unconscious +goodness of childhood to the clear-eyed, fully conscious dignity of +maturity, that our sons may grow up as young plants, and our daughters +as the polished corners of the temple.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 70%;' /> +<h2><a name='page56'></a>PART II.: BOYS.</h2> + +<h3>BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.</h3> + +<h4>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h4> + +<p>My contribution to this little book was originally intended for the +eyes of parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. Since 1913, when the +book was first published, it has been my privilege to receive from +these so many letters of warm appreciation that it seems needless to +retain the apologetic preface which I then wrote. The object which I +had in view at that time was the hastening of a supremely important +reform. I have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my words have +carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless +boys.</p> + +<p>One result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. It did not +occur to me, as I wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young +men. It was not written at all for this purpose. In some respects its +influence over them has, however, been increased by this obvious fact. +In this book boys have, as it were, overheard a confidential +conversation about themselves carried on by adults anxious for their +welfare, and some at least are evidently <a name='page57'></a>more impressed by this +conversation than by a direct appeal—in which they are liable to +suspect exaggeration.</p> + +<p>I have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. These +confirm in <i>every</i> way the conclusions set forth in this book, and +prove that the need for guidance in sex matters is acute and +universal. The relief and assistance which many boys have experienced +from correspondence with me, and the interest which I find in their +letters have caused me—spite of the extreme preoccupation of a +strenuous life—to issue a special invitation to those who may feel +inclined to write to me.</p> + +<p>Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex +instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are +curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually +strongly denounce. While I have my own views as to the best method to +adopt, I am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in +suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method +is infinitely superior to no method at all.</p> + +<p>Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some +favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public +teaching. Some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would +prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a +matter-of-fact science subject. Some wish the parent to give the +teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially +<a name='page58'></a>trained for this purpose. Good results have been obtained by every +one of these methods.</p> + +<p>During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my +hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in +these pages, and I am confident that of boys who have been wisely +guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated +with those who are generally and openly corrupt. I must, however, +emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends +ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his +devotion to the Right.</p> + +<p><span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>These three alone lead life to sovereign power."</span></p> + +<p>Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most +difficult of all virtues.</p> + +<p>F. ARTHUR SIBLY.<br /> +<br /> +WYCLIFFE, STONEHOUSE, GLOS.<br /> +<i>September 1918.</i></p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page59'></a>INTRODUCTORY NOTE.</h3> + +<p>The term puberty will so often be used in the following chapters that +a brief account of the phenomena of puberty may appropriately be given +at the outset of this work. Puberty is a name given to the age at +which a boy becomes capable of being a father. In temperate climates +this age is reached at about fifteen years, though some boys attain it +at twelve and some not until seventeen. The one obvious and invariable +sign of puberty is a change of pitch in the voice, which assumes its +bass character after an embarrassing period of squeaky alternations +between the high and low tones.</p> + +<p>The age is a critical one, as several important changes take place in +body and in mind. The reproductive organs undergo considerable +development and become sensitive to any stimulus, physical or mental. +The seminal fluid, which in normal cases has hitherto been secreted +little, if at all, is now elaborated by the testicles, and contains +spermatazoa—minute organisms which are essential to reproduction. +Under the stimulus of sexual thoughts this fluid is secreted in such +quantity as to give rise to involuntary discharge during sleep. These +nocturnal <a name='page60'></a>emissions are so often found among boys and young men that +some physiologists consider them to be quite normal. My experience +leads me to doubt this conclusion.</p> + +<p>Another physical change associated with puberty is the growth of hair +on the pubes and on the face: in this latter situation the growth is +slow.</p> + +<p>With the capacity for fatherhood comes a very strong awakening of the +sexual instinct, which manifests itself in passion and in lust—the +unconscious and the conscious sex hunger. The passion shows itself in +a ludicrously indiscriminate and exaggerated susceptibility to female +attractions—a susceptibility the sexual character of which is usually +quite unrecognised. Among boys who have sex knowledge there is also a +tendency to dwell on sexual thoughts when the mind is not otherwise +occupied. Passion and lust do not at once develop their full strength; +but, coming at a time when self-control is very weak, and coming with +all the attraction of novelty, they often dominate the mind even in +normal cases, and may become tyrannous when the reproductive system +has been prematurely stimulated.</p> + +<p>A heightened self-consciousness and an antagonism to authority so +often follow the attainment of puberty that they are usually +considered to be its results. My own experience with boys satisfies me +that this conclusion is not correct. Self-consciousness, when it +occurs in boyhood, is usually the result of an unclean inner life. +Puberty merely increases the self-consciousness by intensifying its +cause. When <a name='page61'></a>the mind is clean there is no marked change in this +respect at puberty. The antagonism to authority so often observed +after puberty is the product of unsatisfactory external influences. +With puberty the desire to stand well with others, and in particular +the desire to seem manly, increases. If a debased public opinion +demands of a boy the cheap manliness of profanity, tobacco, and +irreverence, the demand creates a plentiful supply, while it also +suppresses as priggish or "pi" any avowed or suspected devotion to +higher ideals. A healthy public opinion, working in harmony with a +boy's nobler instincts, calls forth in him an earnest devotion to high +ideals, and causes him to exercise, on the development of his powers +and in a crusade against wrong, the new energies which a wholesome +puberty places at his disposal.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page62'></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE.</h4> + +<p>Of the perils which beset the growing boy all are recognised, and, in +a measure, guarded against except the most inevitable and most fatal +peril of all. In all that concerns the use and abuse of the +reproductive organs the great majority of boys have hitherto been left +without adult guidance, and have imbibed their ideas from the coarser +of their companions and from casual references to the subject in the +Bible and other books. Under these conditions very few boys escape two +of the worst dangers into which it is possible for a lad to fall—the +artificial stimulation of the reproductive organs and the acquisition +of degraded ideas on the subject of sex. That many lives are thus +prematurely shortened, that many constitutions are permanently +enfeebled, that very many lads who might otherwise have striven +successfully against the sexual temptations of adult life +succumb—almost without a struggle—to them, can be doubted by no one +who is familiar with the inner life of boys and men.</p> + +<p>Of these two evils, self-abuse, though productive of <a name='page63'></a>manifold and +disastrous results, is distinctly the less. Many boys outgrow the +physical injuries which, in ignorance, they inflict upon themselves in +youth; but very few are able wholly to cleanse themselves from the +foul desires associated in their minds with sex. These desires make +young men impotent in the face of temptation. Under their evil +dominance, even men of kind disposition will, by seduction, inflict on +an innocent girl agony, misery, degradation, and premature death. They +will indulge In the most degrading of all vices with prostitutes on +the street. They will defile the atmosphere of social life with filthy +talk and ribald jest. Even a clean and ennobling passion can do little +to redeem them. The pure stream of human love is made turbid with +lust. After a temporary uplifting in marriage the soul is again +dragged down, marriage vows are broken and the blessings of home life +are turned into wormwood and gall.</p> + +<p>That a system so destructive of physical and of spiritual health +should have lasted almost intact until now will, I believe, shortly +become a matter for general amazement; for while evidence of the +widespread character of youthful perversion is a product of quite +recent years, the assumptions on which this system has been based are +unreasonable and incapable of proof.</p> + +<p>Since conclusive evidence of the prevalence of impurity among boys is +available, I will not at present invite the reader to examine the +assumptions which lead most people to a contrary belief. When I do +<a name='page64'></a>so, I shall hope to demonstrate that we might reasonably expect to +find things precisely as they are. In the first and second chapters we +shall see to what conclusions teachers who have actual experience in +the matter have been led.</p> + +<p>There are several teachers whose authority in most matters stands so +very much above my own that it might seem presumptuous to begin by +laying my own experiences before the reader; but I venture to take +this course because no other teacher, as far as I know, has published +quite such definite evidence as I have done; and I think that the more +general statements of such eminent men as Canon Lyttelton, Mr. A.C. +Benson, and Dr. Clement Dukes will appeal to the reader more +powerfully when he has some idea of the manner in which conclusions on +this subject may be reached. I have some reason, also, for the belief +that the paper I read in 1908 at the London University before the +International Congress on Moral Education has been considered of great +significance by very competent judges. By a special decision of the +Executive of the Congress it—alone of all sectional papers—was +printed <i>in extenso</i> in the official report. Later on, it came under +the notice of Sir R. Baden-Powell, at whose request it was republished +in the <i>Headquarters Gazette</i>—the official organ of the Boy Scout +movement.</p> + +<p>It certainly did require some courage at the time to put my results +before the public, for I was not then aware that men of great eminence +in the educational world had already made equally sweeping, if <a name='page65'></a>less +definite, statements. Emboldened by this fact and by the commendations +above referred to, I venture to quote the greater part of this short +paper.</p> + +<p>"The opinions I am about to put forward are based almost entirely on +my own twenty years' experience as a housemaster. My house contains +forty-eight boys, who vary in age from ten to nineteen and come from +comfortable middle-class homes.</p> + +<p>"Private interviews with individual boys in my study have been the +chief vehicle of my teaching and the chief source of my information. +My objects in these interviews have been to warn boys against the +evils of private impurity, to supply them with a certain amount of +knowledge on sexual subjects in order to prevent a prurient curiosity, +and to induce them to confide to me the history of their own knowledge +and difficulties. In my early days I interviewed those only who +appeared to me to be obviously suffering from the effects of impurity, +and, of late years, the extreme pressure of my work has forced me very +reluctantly to recur to this plan.</p> + +<p>"For several years, however, I was accustomed to interview every boy +under my care during his first term with me. Very rarely have I failed +in these interviews so to secure a boy's confidence as to learn the +salient facts of the history of his inner life. Sunday afternoon +addresses to the Sixth Form on the sexual dangers of late youth and +early manhood have resulted at times in elder boys themselves seeking +an interview with me. Such spontaneous con<a name='page66'></a>fidences have naturally +been fuller, and therefore more instructive, than the confidences I +have invited.</p> + +<p>"Many people are inclined to look upon the instruction of boys in +relation to adolescence as needless and harmful; needless because few +boys, they imagine, awake to the consciousness and problems of sex +until manhood; harmful because the pristine innocence of the mind is, +they think, destroyed, and evils are suggested of which a boy might +otherwise remain unconscious. To one who knows what boys really are +such ideas are nothing less than ludicrous.</p> + +<p>"Boys come to our school from many different classes of preparatory +and secondary schools. Almost every such school seems to possess a few +boys who delight to initiate younger boys into sexual knowledge, and +usually into knowledge of solitary vice. The very few boys who have +come to me quite ignorant of these matters have come either straight +from home at ten or eleven, or from a school in which a few young boys +are educated with girls. Of boys who have come under my care as late +as twelve I have known but two who even professed total ignorance on +sexual subjects, and in one of these cases I am quite sure that no +such ignorance existed.</p> + +<p>"In a large majority of cases solitary vice has been learned and +practised before a boy has got into his teens. The lack of insight +parents display in relation to these questions is quite phenomenal. +The <a name='page67'></a>few who mention the subject to me are always quite satisfied of +the complete 'innocence' of their boys. Some of the most precocious +and unclean boys I have known have been thus confidently commended to +me. Boys are wholly unsuspicious of the extent to which their inner +life lies open to the practised eye, and they feel secure that nothing +can betray their secrets if they themselves do not.</p> + +<p>"In no department of our life are George Eliot's words truer than in +this department: 'Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves +from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those +who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the +deep human soul within us—full of unspoken evil and unacted good.' We +cannot prevent a boy's obtaining information on sexual questions. Our +choice lies between leaving him to pick it up from unclean and vulgar +minds, which will make it guilty and impure, and giving it ourselves +in such a way as to invest it from the first with a sacred character.</p> + +<p>"Another idea which my experience proves to be an entire delusion is +the idea that a boy's natural refinement is a sufficient protection +against defilement. Some of the most refined boys I have had the +pleasure of caring for have been pronounced victims of solitary sin. +That it is a sin at all, that it has, indeed, any significance, either +ethical or spiritual, has not so much as occurred to most of them. On +what great moral question dare we leave the young to find their own +way absolutely without guidance? <a name='page68'></a>In this most difficult and dangerous +of all questions we leave the young soul, stirred by novel and blind +impulses, to grope in the darkness. Is it any wonder if it fails to +see things in their true relations?</p> + +<p>"Again, it is sometimes thought that the consequences of secret sin +are so patent as to deter a boy from the sin itself. So far is this +from being the case that I have never yet found a single boy (even +among those who have, through it, made almost complete wrecks +physically and mentally) who has of himself connected these +consequences with the sin itself. I have, on the other hand, known +many sad cases in which, through the weakening of will power, which +this habit causes, boys of high ideals have fallen again and again +after their eyes have been fully opened. This sin is rarely a +conscious moral transgression. The boy is a victim to be sympathised +with and helped, not an offender to be reproved and punished."</p> + +<p>I desire to call the attention of the reader to two points in the +foregoing extract. I was particular in giving my credentials to state +the character and limitations of my experience. Everywhere in life one +finds confident and sweeping generalisations made by men who have +little or no experience to appeal to. This is specially the case in +the educational world, and perhaps most of all in discussions on this +very subject. Some men, at least, are willing to instruct the public +with nothing better to guide them than the light of Nature. It would +greatly assist the quest of truth if everyone who ventures to <a name='page69'></a>address +the public on this question would first present his credentials.</p> + +<p>There is danger lest the reader should discount the significance of +the statements I make in the foregoing paper by falling into the error +of supposing that the facts stated apply, after all, to one school +only. This is not by any means so. The facts have been collected <i>at</i> +one school; but those which refer to the prevalence of sex knowledge +and of masturbation have reference solely to the condition of boys +when they first entered, and are significant of the conditions which +obtain at some scores of schools and in many homes. I venture here to +quote and to warmly endorse Canon Lyttelton's opinion: "It is, +however, so easy to be misunderstood in this matter that I must insert +a caution against an inference which may be drawn from these words, +viz. that school life is the <i>origin</i> of immorality among boys. The +real origin is to be found in the common predisposition to vicious +conceptions, which is the result of neglect. Nature provides in almost +every case an active curiosity on this subject; and that curiosity +must be somehow allayed; and if it were not allayed at school, false +and depraved ideas would be picked up at home.... So readily does an +ignorant mind at an early age take in teaching about these subjects +that there are no conceivable conditions of modern social life not +fraught with grave peril to a young boy, if once he has been allowed +to face them quite unprepared, either by instruction or by warning. +And this manifestly applies to life at home, or in a day-<a name='page70'></a>school, or +in a boarding-school to an almost equal degree."<sup>[A]</sup></p> + +<div class='note'><p>[A] <i>Training of the Young in Relation to Sex</i>, p. 1 <i>et +seq</i>.</p></div> + +<p>One of the facts which I always tried to elicit from boys was the +source of their information, or rather the character of that source, +for I was naturally anxious not to ask a boy to incriminate any +individual known to me. In many cases, information came first to the +boy at <i>home</i> from a brother, or cousin, or casual acquaintance, or +domestic servant. In one of the worst cases I have known the +information was given to a boy by another boy—an entire stranger to +him—whom he happened to meet on a country road when cycling. Since +boys meet one another very much more at school than elsewhere and +spend three-fourths of their lives there, of course information is +more often obtained at school than at home. My own experience leads me +to think that in this respect the day-school—probably on account of +its mixed social conditions—is worse than the boarding-school.</p> + +<p>Before passing from matters of personal experience, it may interest +the reader if I give particulars of a few typical cases to illustrate +some points on which I have insisted.</p> + +<p><i>Case A.</i>—The father and mother of a boy close on thirteen came to +see me before entering the lad. They had no idea that I was specially +interested in purity-teaching; but they were anxious to ascertain what +precautions we took against the corruption of small boys. They struck +me as very good parents. <a name='page71'></a>I was specially pleased that they were alive +to the dangers of impurity, and that the mother could advert openly to +the matter without embarrassment. I advised them to give the boy +explicit warning; but they said that they were anxious to preserve his +innocence as long as possible. He was at present absolutely simple, +and they hoped that he would long remain so. It was a comfort to them +that I was interested in the subject, and they would leave the boy +with confidence in my care. As soon as I saw the boy, I found it +difficult to believe in his innocence; and I soon discovered that he +was thoroughly corrupt. Not merely did he begin almost at once to +corrupt other boys, but he actually gave them his views on brothels! +In a private interview with me he admitted all this, and told me that +he was corrupted at ten years of age, when he was sent, after +convalescence from scarlet fever, to a country village for three +months. There he seems to have associated with a group of street boys, +who gave him such information as they had, and initiated him into +self-abuse. Since then he had been greedily seeking further +information and passing it on.</p> + +<p><i>Case B.</i>—A delicate, gentle boy of eleven, an only son, was sent to +me by an intellectual father, who had been his constant companion. The +lad was very amiable and well-intentioned. A year later he gave me +particulars of his corruption by a cousin, who was three years older +than he. Since that time—particularly of late—he had practised +masturbation. He had not the least idea that it was hurtful or even +<a name='page72'></a>unrefined, and thought that it was peculiar to himself and his +cousin. He knew from his cousin the chief facts of maternity and +paternity, but had not spoken to other boys about them. He was +intensely anxious to cleanse himself entirely, and promised to let me +know of any lapse, should it occur. In the following vacation he +developed pneumonia. For some days his life hung in the balance, and +then flickered out. His father wrote me a letter of noble resignation. +Terribly as he felt his loss, he was greatly consoled, he said, by the +knowledge that his boy had died while his mind was innocent and before +he could know even what temptation was. It is needless to add that I +never hinted the real facts to the father; and—without altering any +material detail—I am disguising the case lest it should possibly be +recognised by him. I have often wondered whether, when the lad's life +hung in the balance, it might not have been saved if Death's scale had +not been weighted by the child's lowered vitality.</p> + +<p><i>Case C.</i>—A boy of fourteen came to me. He was a miserable specimen +in every way—pale, lethargic, stupid almost beyond belief. He had no +mother; and the father, though a man of leisure, evidently found it +difficult to make the lad much of a companion. I felt certain from the +first that the boy was an exceptionally bad victim of self-abuse; And +this I told his father, advising him to investigate the matter. He was +horrified at my diagnosis, and committed the great indiscretion of +taxing the boy with self-abuse as though it were a conscious and +<a name='page73'></a>grave fault. The father wrote during the vacation saying that he +found I was entirely mistaken: not, content with the lad's assurance, +he had watched him with the utmost care. As soon as the boy returned +to school I interviewed him. He admitted readily that he had long +masturbated himself daily—sometimes oftener. He had first—as far as +he could remember, at about six—had his private parts excited by his +nurse, who apparently did this to put an irritable child into a good +temper! My warning had little effect upon him, as he had become a +hopeless victim. He was too delicate a boy for us to desire to keep; +and after a brief stay at school, during which we nursed him through a +critical illness, he left to finish his education under private +tuition at home.</p> + +<p><i>Case D.</i>—This boy came to me at thirteen. He was always a +conscientious and amiable boy, but was nervous and dull. By fifteen +his dullness had increased, and he complained of brain-strain and +poorness of memory. Finally he began to develop St. Vitus's dance. I +sent him to our school doctor, who returned him with a note saying +that his condition was serious—that he must stop all work, &c. &c. I +was in my study when the lad came back, and I at once told him what +was the matter. He frankly admitted frequent self-abuse, which he had +learned from an elder brother. He had not the least suspicion that the +habit was injurious; but was very apprehensive about his future until +I reassured him. He wanted me to write at once and warn a younger +<a name='page74'></a>brother who had fallen into the habit. By great effort he got himself +rapidly under control. His nervous twitchings disappeared, his +vitality improved, the brain-fag gradually ceased; and when he left, +eighteen months later, he was fairly normal. His improvement continued +afterwards, and he is now a successful man of business and a married +man.</p> + +<p><i>Case E.</i>—This boy entered at twelve. He was very weak physically and +highly nervous—owing, his people thought, to severe bullying at a +previous school. He was an able boy, of literary and artistic tastes, +and almost painfully conscientious. He was very shy; always thought +that he was despised by other boys; and was a duffer at games, which +he avoided to the utmost. With my present experience I should have +known him to be a victim of self-abuse. Then, I did not suspect him; +and it was not until he was leaving at eighteen for the University +that we talked the matter over, on his initiative. Then I found that +he had been bullied into impurity at eleven, and was now a helpless +victim. After two years at the University he wrote me that, though the +temptation now came less frequently, he seemed absolutely powerless +when it did come; that he despised himself so much that the impulse to +suicide often haunted him; but that the cowardice which had kept him +from games at school would probably prevent his taking his life. With +the assistance of an intense and devoted religious life he gradually +began to gain self-mastery. It is some years now since he has +mentioned the subject to me.</p> + +<p><a name='page75'></a>These are merely specimen cases. Cases A, B, and C illustrate my +assertions that parents are wonderfully blind; Cases B and E, that +quite exceptional refinement in a boy gives no protection from +temptation to impurity; Case D, that a boy, even in an extreme case, +does not know that the habit is injurious. In respect of their +severity, C, D, and E are not normal but extreme cases. The reader +must not imagine that boys ordinarily suffer as much as these did.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page76'></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE OPINIONS OF CANON LYTTELTON, +DR. DUKES, AND OTHERS.</h4> + +<p>I propose now to make clear to the reader the fact that the +conclusions I have reached as to the existence of sexual knowledge +among boys, and as to the prevalence of self-abuse, are entirely borne +out by the opinion of the most distinguished teachers and medical men.</p> + +<p>Canon Lyttelton writes with an authority which no one will question. +Educated at Eton, he was for two years an assistant master at +Wellington College; then, for fifteen years, headmaster of Haileybury +College, and has now been headmaster of Eton for over six years. He +has intimate knowledge of boys, derived, as regards the question of +purity, from confidential talks with them. The quotations which follow +are from his work <i>Training of the Young in Laws of Sex</i>. Canon +Lyttelton does not think it needful to make statements as to the +prevalence of impurity among boys. He rather assumes that this +prevalence is obvious and, under present conditions, inevitable. I +have already quoted one passage which <a name='page77'></a>involves this assumption, and +now invite the reader to consider two others. "In the school life of +boys, in spite of very great improvements, it is <i>impossible</i> that +sexual subjects should be wholly avoided in common talk.... Though, in +preparatory schools of little boys under fourteen, the increasing +vigilance of masters, and constant supervision, combined with constant +employment, reduce the evil of prurient talk to a minimum, yet these +subjects <i>will</i> crop up.... It should be remembered that the boys who +are talkative about such subjects are just those whose ideas are most +distorted and vicious. In the public school, owing not only to freer +talk and more mixed company but to the boy's own wider range of +vision, sexual questions, and also those connected with the structure +of the body, come to the fore and begin to occupy more or less of the +thoughts of all but a peculiarly constituted minority of the whole +number.</p> + +<p>"Men, as I have shown, have been severely dealt with by Nature in this +respect: she has forced them, at a time of life when their minds are +ill compacted, their ideas chaotic, and their wills untrained, to face +an ordeal which demands above all things reverence based on knowledge +and resolution sustained by high affections. An <i>enormously large +proportion</i> flounder blindly into the mire before they know what it +is, not necessarily, but very often into the defilement of evil habit, +but, still more often, into the tainted air of diseased opinion, and +after a few years <i>some of them</i> emerge saved, but so as by fire."<sup>[B]</sup></p> + +<div class='note'><p>[B] Pages 4 <i>et seq.</i>: the italics are mine.<a name='page78'></a></p></div> + +<p>The following are quotations from the <i>Upton Letters</i>, written by Mr. +A.C. Benson. Mr. Benson is one of the most distinguished of modern +teachers: he has had long experience of public-school life both as a +boy and as a master: he has that insight into the heart of boyhood +which can come only to one who has affectionate sympathy with boys and +has been the recipient of their confidences. It will be abundantly +evident from the passages which follow that in Mr. Benson's opinion no +boy is likely to preserve his "innocence" in passing through a public +school.</p> + +<p>"The subject is so unpleasant that many masters dare not speak of it +at all, and excuse themselves by saying that they don't want to put +ideas into boys' heads. I cannot conscientiously believe that a man +who has been through a big public school himself can honestly be +afraid of that." "The standard of purity is low: a vicious boy does +not find his vicious tendencies by any means a bar to social success." +This, of course, assumes that the vicious tendencies are a matter of +notoriety. A similar implication is involved in the following: "I do +not mean to say that there are not many boys who are both pure-minded +and honest; but they treat such virtues as a secret preference of +their own, and do not consider that it is in the least necessary to +interfere with the practice of others or even to disapprove of it." He +further gives it as his opinion that "The deadly and insidious +temptation of impurity has, as far as one can learn, increased," and +tells us "An <a name='page79'></a>innocent-minded boy whose natural inclination to purity +gave way before perpetual temptation and even compulsion might be +thought to have erred, but would have scanty, if any, expression of +either sympathy or pity from other boys; while if he breathed the +least hint of his miserable position to a master and the fact came +out, he would be universally scouted.... One hears of simply +heart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of what +he endures." It would thus appear that in some of the premier schools +of the world impurity is a matter of notoriety, sometimes of +compulsion; and that, to a boy's own strong inclination to +concealment, is superadded, by the public opinion of the school, an +imperious command that this concealment shall, even in heart-rending +cases, be maintained.</p> + +<p>No one, I think, will maintain that private schools <i>as a class</i> are +in the least degree lees corrupt than public schools; while there are, +I am sure, at least a few schools in which public opinion condemns +<i>open</i> impurity, and will not tolerate impure talk. And while I am +confident that it is possible, not merely to attain this condition in +a school, but also to reduce private impurity to a negligible +quantity, impurity—in one form or another—is, in general, so widely +spread in boys' schools of every type, that it is difficult to +understand how anyone familiar with school life can doubt its +prevalence.</p> + +<p>Let us now consider the opinion of Dr. Clement Dukes, the medical +officer of Rugby School and the <a name='page80'></a>greatest English authority on school +hygiene. In the preface to the fourth edition of his well-known work +<i>Health at School</i>, Dr. Dukes writes: "I have studied children in all +their phases and stages for many years—two years at the Hospital for +Sick Children in 61 Ormond Street, London, followed by thirty-three +years at Rugby School—a professional history which has provided me +with an almost unique experience in all that relates to the Health and +Disease of Childhood and Youth, and has compelled constant and steady +thought upon every aspect of this problem." In an earlier work, <i>The +Preservation of Health</i>, Dr. Dukes gives his estimate of the +prevalence of masturbation, and quotes the opinion of other +authorities whose credentials he has verified; In this work, on page +150, he writes of masturbation: "I believe that the reason why it is +so widespread an evil—amounting, I gather, although from the nature +of the case no complete evidence can ever be accurately obtained, to +somewhere <i>about 90 to 95 per cent. of all boys at boarding-schools</i>—is +because the boy leaves his home in the first instance without one word +of warning from his parents ... and thus falls into evil ways from his +innocence and ignorance alone.... This immorality is estimated by some +at 80 per cent., by others at 90 per cent. Another says that not 10 +per cent. are innocent. Another that it has always begun at from eight +to twelve years of age. Others that it is always worst amongst the +elder boys. Others that 'it is universal.'" Professor Stanley Hall, +<a name='page81'></a>in his great work on <i>Adolescence</i>, after a similar and exhaustive +review of the numerous works on this subject in different languages, +concludes: "The whole literature on the subject attests that whenever +careful researches have been undertaken the results are appalling as +to prevalence." And yet there are people who deprecate purity-teaching +for boys because they feel that a boy's natural modesty is quite a +sufficient protection, and that there is danger of destroying a boy's +innocence by putting ideas into his head! To hear such people talk, +and to listen to the way in which they speak of self-abuse as though +it implied monstrous moral perversion, one would think that the +condition of morals when they were young was wholly different. The +great novelist Thackeray gives little countenance to this opinion when +he writes in <i>Pendennis</i>: "And, by the way, ye tender mothers and +sober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of +life is as orally learned at a great public school. Why if you could +hear those boys of fourteen who blush before mothers and sneak off in +silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each +other—it would be the woman's turn to blush then. Before he was +twelve years old little Pen had heard talk enough to make him quite +awfully wise upon certain points—and so, madam, has your pretty +rosy-cheeked son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing +holidays. I don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has +left him which he had from 'Heaven, which is our home,' but that the +shades of <a name='page82'></a>the prison-house are closing fast over him, and that we are +helping as much as possible to corrupt him."</p> + +<p>Before concluding this chapter I would caution the reader against the +error of supposing that the opinions expressed by Canon Lyttelton and +Dr. Dukes are indicative merely of the conditions they have met at +Haileybury, Eton, and Rugby. They are equally significant of the +conditions which obtain in the innumerable schools from which +Haileybury, Eton, and Rugby are recruited; and as there is no reason +why other preparatory schools should differ from these, they are +significant of the almost universal condition of boys' schools.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page83'></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>CAUSES OF THE PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS.</h4> + +<p>The evidence I have adduced in the previous chapters will convince +most of my readers that few boys retain their innocence after they are +of school age. There may, however, be a few who find it impossible to +reconcile this conclusion with their ideas of boy nature. I will +therefore now examine current conceptions on this subject and expose +their fundamental inaccuracy.</p> + +<p>There are some people who imagine that a boy's innate modesty is quite +sufficient protection against defilement. Does experience really +warrant any such conclusion? Those who know much of children will +recognise the fact that even the cardinal virtues of truthfulness and +honesty have often to be learned, and that ideas of personal +cleanliness, of self-restraint in relation to food, and of +consideration for others have usually to be implanted and fostered. +Among people of refinement these virtues are often so early learned +that there is danger lest we should consider them innate. The +susceptibility of some children to suggestions conveyed to them by the +example and <a name='page84'></a>precept of their elders is almost unlimited. Hence a +child may, at two, have given up the trick of clearing its nostrils +with the finger-nail, and may, before five, have learned most of the +manners and virtues of refined people. The majority, however, take +longer to learn these things, so that a jolly little chap of ten or +twelve is often by no means scrupulously clean in hands, nails, ears, +and teeth, is often distinctly greedy, and sometimes far from +truthful.</p> + +<p>That cleanliness and virtue are acquired and not innate is obvious +enough from the fact that children who grow up among dirty and +unprincipled people are rarely clean and virtuous. Were it possible +for the child of refined parents to grow up without example or precept +in relation to table manners and morals, except the example and advice +of vulgar people, who would expect refinement and consideration from +him? Is there anyone who has such faith in innate refinement that he +would be content to let a child of his own, grow up without a hint on +these matters, and with such example only as was supplied by +association with vulgar people? Yet this is precisely what we do in +relation to the subject of personal purity. The child has no good +example to guide him. The extent to which temptation comes to those +whom he respects, the manner in which they comport themselves when +tempted, the character of their sex relations are entirely hidden from +him. He is not only without example, he is without precept. No ideals +are set before him, no advice is given to him: the very existence of +any<a name='page85'></a>thing in which ideals and advice are needful is ignored.</p> + +<p>If in conditions like these we should expect a boy to grow up greedy, +we may be certain that he will grow up impure. At puberty there awakes +within him by far the strongest appetite that human nature can +experience—an appetite against which some of the noblest of mankind +have striven in vain. The appetite is given abnormal strength by the +artificial and stimulating conditions under which he lives. The act +which satisfies this appetite is also one of keen pleasure. He has +long been accustomed to caress his private parts, and the pleasure +with which he does this is greatly enhanced. He does not suspect that +indulgence is harmful. This pleasure, unlike that of eating, costs him +nothing, and is ever available. His powers of self-control are as yet +undeveloped. He can indulge himself without incurring the least +suspicion. He probably knows that most boys, of his age and above, +indulge themselves. The result is inevitable. He finds that sexual +thoughts are keenly pleasurable, and that they produce bodily +exaltation. He has much yet to learn on the subject of sex, and he +enjoys the quest. Wherever he turns he finds it now—in his Bible, in +animal life, in his classics, in the encyclopædia, in his companions, +and in the newspaper. Day and night the subject is ever with him. It +is inevitable. And at this juncture comes along the theorist who is +aghast at our destroying the lad's "innocence," and at our "suggesting +evils to him <a name='page86'></a>which otherwise he would never have thought of." "The +boy's innate modesty is quite a sufficient protection"!</p> + +<p>To me the wonderful thing is the earnestness with which a boy sets +about the task of cleansing his life when once he has been made to +realise the real character of the thoughts and acts with which he has +been playing. Boys, as I find them, rarely err in this matter, or in +any other, from moral perversity, but merely from ignorance and +thoughtlessness. Severe rebukes and punishments are rarely either just +or useful. The disposition which obliges the teacher to use them in +the last resort, and the rebellion against authority which is said to +follow puberty, arise almost invariably from injudicious training in +the home or at school. Boys who have received a fair home training, +and who find themselves in a healthy atmosphere at school, are almost +invariably delightful to deal with; and even those who have been less +fortunate in their early surroundings adapt themselves in most cases +to the standards which a healthy public opinion in the school demands.</p> + +<p>It may be thought that the mere reticence of adults about reproduction +and the reproductive organs would impress the child's mind with the +idea that it is unclean to play with his private parts or to talk +about their functions with his companions. This is a psychological +error. For some years past adults have avoided any allusion to the +subject of excretion, and the child assumes that <i>public</i> attention to +bodily needs and <i>public</i> reference to these needs are alike +<a name='page87'></a>indelicate. He does not, however, conclude that excretion in private +is an indelicate act, nor does any sense of delicacy oblige him to +maintain, with regard to companions of his own sex and age, the +reticence which has become habitual to him in his relations with +adults. Why should the child think it "dirty" to fondle and excite his +private parts or to talk about them with his boy friends? The +knowledge which makes us feel as we do is as yet hidden from him.</p> + +<p>The same thing is certainly true of conversation about the facts of +reproduction when those who converse are uncorrupted. Another element, +however, at once appears when these facts are divulged by a corrupt +boy, because his manner is irresistibly suggestive of uncleanness as +well as of secrecy. Similarly when self-abuse is fallen into +spontaneously by a boy who is otherwise clean, no sense of indecency +attaches itself to the act. When, however, it is taught by an unclean +boy, there is a feeling of defilement from the first. In boys under +the age of puberty this feeling may overpower the temptation; in boys +above that age it is, as a rule, totally inadequate as a safeguard.</p> + +<p>Many people imagine that a boy who is impure must betray himself, and +that if no overt acts of indecency are observed the innocence of a +boy's mind may be safely inferred. Knowledge on these subjects has, +however, been almost invariably gained under conditions of the utmost +secrecy, and the behaviour of adults has effectively fostered the idea +<a name='page88'></a>of concealment. Hence we might expect that the secret would be +jealously guarded and that any overt act of impurity would be avoided +in the presence of adults with even greater circumspection than the +public performance of an excretory act. The habit of self-abuse, +moreover, is practised usually under the double cover of darkness and +the bed-clothes. The temptation occurs far less by day than by night, +and a boy who yields to it in the day invariably chooses a closet or +other private place in which he feels secure from detection.</p> + +<p>To many people it is inconceivable that a lad can harbour impure +feelings and habits without obvious deterioration; but even if a +child's lapses into these things were associated with conscious guilt, +does our knowledge of human nature justify us in supposing that evil +in the heart is certain to betray itself in a visible degradation of +the outer life? If we believe the language of the devout, we must +admit that the most spiritual of men hide in their heart thoughts of +which they are heartily ashamed. It is not into the mouth of the +reprobate but into the mouth of her devoted members as they enter upon +their sacramental service that the Church puts the significant prayer, +"Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and +from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts in our hearts by +the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit." Inconsistency in adults is far +too well recognised to need proof. In children it is even more +obvious, and for this reason that, looked at aright, it is the faculty +of maintaining <a name='page89'></a>the general health of the soul, spite of local morbid +conditions—a faculty which is strongest in the simpler and more +adaptable mind of the child.</p> + +<p>Impurity as a disease has a long incubation period. When he contracts +the disease, its victim is often wholly unconscious of his danger; +and, both because the disease is an internal one and is slow in +development, it is a very long time before obvious symptoms appear. +Meanwhile a corruption may have set in which will ultimately ruin the +whole life.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page90'></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>RESULTS OF YOUTHFUL IMPURITY.</h4> + +<p>It is difficult to exaggerate the evils which result from the present +system under which boys grow to manhood without any adult guidance in +relation to the laws of sex.</p> + +<p>It has already been stated that the immediate physical results of +self-abuse are small evils indeed compared with the corruption of mind +which comes from perverted sex ideas. They are, however, by no means +negligible; and are, in some cases, very serious. The great prevalence +of self-abuse among boys, combined with the inevitable uncertainty as +to the degree of a boy's freedom from, or indulgence in, this vice, +makes it very difficult to institute a reliable comparison between +those who are chaste and those who are unchaste. Greater significance +attaches, I think, to a comparison in individual cases of a boy's +condition during a period of indulgence in masturbation and his +condition after its total, or almost total, relinquishment. I have no +hesitation in saying that the difference in a boy's vitality and +spiritual tone after relinquishing this <a name='page91'></a>habit is very marked. The +case <i>D</i> quoted in Chapter I. is, in this respect, typical.</p> + +<p>In my pamphlet, <i>Private Knowledge for Boys</i>, I have quoted a striking +passage from Acton on the Reproductive Organs, in which he contrasts +the continent and the incontinent boy. But in the case of men like Dr. +Acton—specialists in the diseases of the male reproductive organs—it +must be remembered that it is mostly the abnormal and extreme cases +which come under their notice: a fact which is liable to affect their +whole estimate. The book can be recommended to adults who wish to see +the whole subject of sex diseases dealt with by a specialist who +writes with a high moral purpose.</p> + +<p>My own estimate is given in the pamphlet already referred to. After +quoting Dr. Acton's opinion, I add:—</p> + +<p>"You will notice that Dr. Acton is here describing an extreme case. I +want to tell you what are the results in a case which is not extreme. +My difficulty is that these results are so various. The injury to the +nerves and brain which is caused by sexual excitement and by the loss +of semen leaves nothing in the body, mind or character uninjured. The +<i>extent</i> of the injury varies greatly with the strength of a boy's +constitution and with the frequency of his sin. The <i>character</i> of the +injury varies with the boy's own special weaknesses and tendencies. If +he is naturally shy and timid, it makes him shyer and more timid. If +he is stupid and lazy, it makes him more stupid and lazy. If he is +inclined to consump<a name='page92'></a>tion or other disease, it destroys his power of +resisting such disease. In extreme cases only does it actually change +an able boy into a stupid one, an athletic boy into a weak one, and a +happy boy into a discontented one; but in all cases it <i>weakens</i> every +power a boy possesses. Its most prominent results are these: loss of +will-power and self-reliance, shyness, nervousness and irritability, +failure of the reasoning powers and memory, laziness of body and mind, +a diseased fondness for girls, deceitfulness. Of these results, the +loss of will-power leaves the boy a prey not only to the temptations +of impurity, but to every other form of temptation: the deceitfulness +destroys his self-respect and turns his life into a sham."</p> + +<p>Of incomparably greater importance than Acton's wide but abnormal +experience and my own narrow but normal experience is the experience +of Dr. Clement Dukes, which is very wide and perfectly normal. No man +has probably been in so good a position for forming an estimate as he +has been. Dr. Dukes thus sums up his opinion: "The harm which results +is moral, intellectual, and physical. <i>Physically</i> it is a frequent +drain at a critical time of life when nature is providing for growth +and development, and is ill able to bear it; it is a powerful nervous +shock to the system ill-prepared to meet it.... It also causes +muscular and mental debility, loss of spirit and manliness, and +occasional insanity, suicide and homicide. Moreover it leads to +further uncontrollable passions in early manhood.... <a name='page93'></a>Further, this +vice enfeebles the <i>intellectual</i> powers, inducing lethargy and +obtuseness, and incapacity for hard mental work. And last, and most of +all, it is an <i>immorality</i> which stains the whole character and +undermines the life."</p> + +<p>In this passage Dr. Dukes refers to the intellectual and moral harm of +self-abuse as well as to its physical consequences. Intimately +connected as these are with one another, I am here attempting to give +them separate treatment. It is, however, impossible to treat perverted +sex-knowledge and self-abuse separately; for though in young boys they +are found independently of one another, and sometimes co-exist in +elder boys without any intimate conscious association, their results +are identical. In the following pages, therefore, I shall refer to +them jointly as impurity.</p> + +<p>The earliest evil which springs from impurity is the destruction of +the intimacy which has hitherto existed between the boy and his +parents. Closely associated with this is that duplicity of life which +results from secrets which may be shared with the coarse but must be +jealously concealed from everyone who is respected. Untold harm +follows these changes in a lad. Hitherto he has had nothing to conceal +from his mother—unless, indeed, his parents have been foolish enough +to drive him into deception by undue severity over childish mistakes, +and accidents, and moral lapses. Every matter which has occupied his +thoughts he has freely shared with those who can best lead him into +the path of moral health.</p> + +<p><a name='page94'></a>Henceforth all is changed. The lad has his own inner life which he +must completely screen from the kind eyes which have hitherto been his +spiritual lights. Concealment is soon found to be an easy thing. Acts +and words are things of which others may take cognisance; the inner +life no one can ever know. A world is opened to the lad in which the +restraints of adult opinion are not felt at all and the guidance and +inspiration of a father's or mother's love never come. How completely +this is the case in regard to impurity the reader will hardly doubt if +he remembers that all parents believe their boys to be innocent, and +that some 90 per cent. of them are hopelessly hoodwinked. But this +double life is not long confined to the subject of purity. The +concealment which serves one purpose excellently can be made to serve +another; and henceforth parents and adult friends need never know +anything but what they are told. It is a sad day for the mother when +first she realises that the old frankness has gone; it is a very, very +much sadder day for the boy. There is no fibre of his moral being but +is, or will be, injured by this divorce of home influences and by this +ever-accumulating burden of guilty memories. "His mother may not know +why this is so," writes Canon Lyttelton; "the only thing she may be +perfectly certain of is that the loss will never be quite made up as +long as life shall last."</p> + +<p>Another injury done by impurity to the growing mind of the lad is +that, in all matters relating to sex, he learns to look merely for +personal enjoyment. In <a name='page95'></a>every other department of life he is moved by +a variety of motives: by the desire to please, the desire to excel, by +devotion to duty, by the love of truth, and by many other desires. +Even in gratifying the appetite most nearly on the same plane as the +sexual appetite—namely, that of hunger—he has more or less regard +for his own well-being, more or less consideration for the wishes of +others, and a constant desire to attain the standard expected of him. +Meanwhile, as regards the sexual appetite—the racial importance of +which is great; and the regulation of which is of infinite importance +for himself, for those who may otherwise become its victims, for the +wife he may one day wed, and for the children, legitimate or +illegitimate, that he may beget—his one idea is personal enjoyment. +One deplorable result of this idea will be adverted to in the next +chapter.</p> + +<p>When boyish impurity involves a coarse way of looking at sexual +relations, as it always must when these are matters of common talk and +jest, the boy suffers a loss which prejudicially affects the whole +tone of his mind and every department of his conduct—I mean the loss +of reverence. It is those things alone which are sacred to us, those +things about which we can talk only with friends, and about which we +can jest with no one, that have inspiration in them, that can give us +power to follow our ideals and to lay a restraining hand on the brute +within us. Fortunately the self-control which manifests itself in +heroism, in good form, and in the sportsmanlike spirit is sacred to +almost all. To most, a mother's love is <a name='page96'></a>sacred. To many, all that is +implied in the word religion. To a few, sexual passion and the great +manifestations of human genius in poetry, music, painting, sculpture, +and architecture. Exactly in proportion as these things are profaned +by jest and mockery, is the light of the soul quenched and man +degraded to the level of the beast. Considering how large a part the +sex-passion plays in the lives of most men and women; considering how +it permeates the literature and art of the World and is—as the basis +of the home—the most potent factor in social life, its profanation is +a terrible loss, and the habit of mind which such profanation +engenders cannot fail to weaken the whole spirit of reverence. I must +confess that the man who jests over sex relations is to me +incomparably lower than the man who sustains clean but wholly +illegitimate sex relations; and while I am conscious of a strong +movement of friendship towards a lad who has admitted impurity in his +life but retains reverence for purity, it is hard to feel anything but +repulsion towards one who profanes the subject of sex with coarse and +ribald talk.</p> + +<p>As a result of the two evils of which I have now spoken, together with +the physical effects of masturbation, young men become powerless to +face the sexual temptations of manhood; and many, who in all other +relations of life are admirable, sink in this matter into the mire of +prostitution or the less demoralising, but far crueller, sin of +seduction.</p> + +<p>Thrown on the streets, usually through no fault of her own, often +merely from an over-trustful love, the <a name='page97'></a>prostitute sinks to the lowest +depths of degradation and despair. It is not merely that she sells to +every comer, clean or bestial, without even the excuse of appetite or +of passion, what should be yielded alone to love; but it is also that +to do this she poisons body and mind with spirit-drinking, leads a +life of demoralising indolence and self-indulgence, is cut off from +all decent associations, and sinks, under the combined influence of +these things and of fell disease, into a loathsome creature whom not +the lowest wants; sinks into destitution, misery, suicide, or the +outcast's early grave. Writing of the young man who is familiar with +London, the Headmaster of Eton says: "He cannot fail to see around him +a whole world of ruined life—a ghastly varnish of gaiety spread over +immeasurable tracts of death and corruption; a state of things so +heart-rending and so hopeless that on calm consideration of it the +brain reels, and sober-minded people who, from motives of pity, have +looked the hideous evil in the face, have asserted that nothing in +their experience has seemed to threaten them so nearly with a loss of +reason."</p> + +<p>Into the contamination of this inferno, into active support of this +cruel infamy, many and many a young man is led by the impurity of his +boyhood. Such at least is the conclusion of some who know boys best. +Thus Dr. Dukes writes:</p> + +<p>"This evil, of which I have spoken so long and so freely, is, I +believe, <i>the root of the evil of prostitution</i> and similar vices; and +if this latter evil is to be <a name='page98'></a>mitigated, it can only be, to my mind, +by making the life of the schoolboy purer.</p> + +<p>"How is it possible to put a stop to this terrible social evil? How is +it possible to <i>elevate women</i> while the demand for them for base +purposes is so great? We must go to the other end of the scale and +make men better; we must train young boys more in purity of life and +chastity BEFORE their passions become uncontrollable.</p> + +<p>"Whereas the cry of every moralist and philanthropist is, 'Let us put +a stop to this prostitution, open and clandestine.' This cannot be +effected at present, much as it is to be desired; the demand for it is +too great, even possibly greater than the supply. If we wish to +eradicate it, we must go to the fountainhead and make those who create +the demand purer, so that, the demand falling off, the supply will be +curtailed."<sup>[C]</sup></p> + +<div class='note'><p>[C] <i>The Preservation of Health</i>, p. 161.</p></div> + +<p>To this I venture to add that by teaching chastity we not merely +decrease the demand for prostitutes, but we greatly diminish the +supply. Few girls, if any, take to the streets until they have been +seduced; and the antecedents of seduction are the morbid exaggeration +of the sexual appetite, the lack of self-control, and the selfish +hedonism which youthful impurity engenders.</p> + +<p>The selfishness, and consequent blindness to cruelty, of which I +write, manifests itself quite early. A boy of chivalrous feeling, +whose blood would boil at any other form of outrage on a girl, will +read a news<a name='page99'></a>paper account of rape or indecent assault with a pleasure +so intense that indignation and disgust are quite crowded out of his +mind.</p> + +<p>If, repelled by the coarseness of the streets, the young man allows +lust or passion to lead him into seduction, he commits a crime the +consequences of which are usually cruel in the extreme; for in most +cases the seduced girl sinks of necessity into prostitution. So blind, +so callous does impurity make even the refined and generous, that many +a young man who can be a good son, a good brother, a noble friend, a +patriotic citizen, will doom a girl whose only fault is that she is +physically attractive—and possibly too affectionate and trusting—to +torturing anxiety, to illness, to the horrible suffering of undesired +travail, to disgrace, and in nineteen cases out of twenty to ostracism +and the infamy of the streets. Murder is a small thing compared with +this. Who would not rather that his daughter were killed in her +innocence than that she should be doomed to such a fate?</p> + +<p>Many young men are ignorant of the fact that sexual relations with +prostitutes frequently result in the foulest and most terrible of +diseases. Venereal diseases, as these are called, commence in the +private parts themselves, but the poison which they engender soon +attacks other parts of the body and often wrecks the general health. +It gives rise to loathsome skin disease, to degeneration of the +nervous system and paralysis, to local disease in the heart, lungs, +and digestive organs, and to such lowering of vitality as <a name='page100'></a>renders the +body an easy prey to disease generally. No one is justified in looking +upon this risk as a matter of merely private concern. Health is of +supreme importance not merely to the personal happiness and success of +the man himself, but also to the services he can render to his +friends, to his nation, and to humanity. Even if a young man is +foolish enough to risk his happiness and success for the sake of +animal enjoyment, he cannot without base selfishness and disloyalty +disregard the duties he owes to others. Further, the man who suffers +from venereal disease is certain to pass its poison on to his wife and +children—cursing thus with unspeakable misery those whom of all +others it is his duty to protect and bless.</p> + +<p>One cannot help feeling at times that the blessings of home—and of +the monogamy which makes home possible—are terribly discounted by a +condition of things which offer a young man no other alternatives to +chastity than these terrible evils. Now that year by year the rising +standard of living and the increased exactions which the State makes +on the industrious and provident cause marriage to be a luxury too +expensive for many, and delayed unduly for most, the problem of social +purity becomes ever greater and more urgent. The instruction of the +young in relation to sex provides the only solution, and is, I venture +to think, incomparably the most important social reform now needed.</p> + +<p>I am confident that a boy who receives wise training and sex guidance +from his early days will never <a name='page101'></a>find lust the foul and uncontrollable +element which it is to-day in the lives of most men; that in a few +generations our nation could be freed from the seething corruption +which poisons its life; and that, while freer scope could be given to +the ineffable joys of pure sexual love, very much could be done to +diminish the awful misery and degradation engendered by lust.</p> + +<p>If children had from their infancy an instinctive and growing desire +for alcohol, with secret and unrestrained means of gratifying it; if +by its indulgence this desire grew into an overmastering craving; if +throughout childhood they received no word of warning or guidance from +the good, but were tempted and corrupted by the evil, we should have a +nation in which most men and women were drunkards, ready to break all +laws—human and divine—which stood in the way of an imperious need; a +nation in which, among those who declined to yield to iniquity, the +craving for drink caused unceasing and life-long struggle.</p> + +<p>On the young man of to-day we lay a burden which no ordinary man was +ever yet able to bear. His boyhood and youth become, through +ignorance, the prey of lust; his passions become tyrannous; his will +is enslaved. Even if he contracts marriage, his troubles are not at an +end, for man, <i>as an animal</i>, is neither monogamous nor wholly +constant. His neglected sex-education makes him far more susceptible +to physical attractions than to those qualities which make a wife a +good companion, a good housekeeper, <a name='page102'></a>and a good mother; and but too +often, as a result, the beneficent influence of marriage is transient; +the domestic atmosphere ceases to be congenial; both husband and wife +become susceptible to other attachments, and the old struggle begins +all over again.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page103'></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>SEX KNOWLEDGE IS COMPATIBLE WITH PERFECT REFINEMENT AND INNOCENCE.</h4> + +<p>The reader who has followed me through the preceding chapters will, I +hope, feel that, whatever objections there may be to giving explicit +instruction on sex matters to the young, such instruction is immensely +to be preferred to the almost inevitable perversion which follows +ignorance. If we had to choose between a state of "innocence" and a +state of reverent knowledge, many people would doubtless incline to +the former. No such option exists. Our choice lies between leaving a +lad to pick up information from vulgar and unclean minds, and giving +it ourselves in such a manner as to invest it from the first with +sacredness and dignity.</p> + +<p>Even if the reader is still inclined to think that sex-knowledge is, +at best, an unholy secret, he will hardly doubt that it can be +divulged with less injury by an adult who is earnestly anxious for the +child's welfare than by coarse and irreverent lips.</p> + +<p>I am not content to leave the reader in this dilemma. I am confident +that the following words of Canon Lyttelton spring from the truest +spiritual insight:<a name='page104'></a> "To a lover of nature, no less than to a convinced +Christian, the subject ought to wear an aspect not only negatively +innocent, but positively beautiful. It is a recurrent miracle, and yet +the very type and embodiment of law; and it may be confidently +affirmed that, in spite of the blundering of many generations, there +is nothing in a normally-constituted child's mind which refuses to +take in the subject from this point of view, provided that the right +presentation of it is the first."</p> + +<p>Nothing more forcibly convicts the present system of the evil which +lies at its door than the current beliefs on this subject. At present, +sexual knowledge is picked up from the gutter and the cesspool; and no +purification can free it entirely in many minds from its original +uncleanness.</p> + +<p><span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"Love's a virtue for heroes!—as white as the snow on high hills,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils."</span></p> + +<p>This is the prophet's belief, and yet, putting on one side those who +actually delight in uncleanness, there appear to be many people who +look upon the marriage certificate as a licence to impurity, and upon +sexual union as a form of animal indulgence to which we are so +strongly impelled that even the most refined are tempted by it into an +act of conscious indelicacy and sin. Such people read literally the +psalmist's words: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my +mother conceive me." It is surely some such feeling as this which +makes parents shrink from referring to the subject, which underlies +<a name='page105'></a>the constant use of the word "innocence" as the aptest description of +a state of mind which precedes the acquisition of sexual knowledge.</p> + +<p>That individuals, at least, have risen to a loftier conception than +this is certain; and the only possible explanations of the prevalence +of the current idea are that sex-knowledge has almost always been +obtained from a tainted source; and that, while the coarse have not +merely whispered their views in the ear in the closet, but have, in +all ages, proclaimed them from the house-tops, the refined have hardly +whispered their ideas, much less discussed them publicly. Children +growing up with perverted views have listened to the loud assertions +of disputants on the one side, have witnessed the demoralisation which +so often attends the sexual passion, but have received no hint of what +may be said on the other side of the question.</p> + +<p>An instructed public opinion would be horrified at our sovereign's +taking shares in a slave-trading expedition as Queen Elizabeth did. We +are aghast at the days when crowds went forth to enjoy the torture at +the stake of those from whom they differed merely on some metaphysical +point. We have even begun to be restless under man's cruel domination +over the animal creation. But we have made far less advance in our +conceptions on sexual matters; and we are content here with ideas +which were current in Elizabethan days. But for this, no passion for +conservatism, no reverence for a liturgy endeared by centuries of use, +could induce us to tell every bride as she stands before God's altar +that it is one of her <a name='page106'></a>functions to provide an outlet for her +husband's passion and a safeguard against fornication. Lust is at +least as degrading in married life as it is outside it. No legal +contract, no religious ceremony, can purify, much less sanctify, what +is essentially impure.</p> + +<p>Those who desire to assist in the uplifting of humanity cannot afford +to be silent and to allow judgment to go against them by default. +Courage they will need; for a charge of indecency is sure to be +levelled against them by the indecent, and they may be misjudged even +by the pure.</p> + +<p>This is not the place in which so delicate a matter can be fully +discussed, nor does space permit; but if the movement towards sex +instruction is not to be stultified by the very ideas which evidence +the need for it, the subject cannot be wholly ignored here, and I +venture to throw out a few suggestions.</p> + +<p>Are we indeed to believe that the noblest and most spiritual of men +will compromise themselves in the eyes of the woman they love best, +and whose respect they most desire, by committing in her presence and +making her the instrument of an indelicate act? A great poet, who +remained an ardent lover and a devoted companion until his wife died +in his arms—blissfully happy that she might die so—has written:</p> + +<p><span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"Let us not always say,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>'Spite of the flesh to-day</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.'</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>As the bird wings and sings,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Let us cry, 'All good things</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.'"</span></p> + +<p><a name='page107'></a>Again: are we, who believe in a Divine government of the world, able +to imagine that God has made the perpetuation of the race dependent +upon acts of sin or of indelicacy? Did He who graced with His presence +the marriage at Cana in Galilee really countenance a ceremony which +was a prelude to sin? Did He who took the little children in His arms +and blessed them know, as He said "for of such is the kingdom of +heaven," that not one of them could have existed without indelicacy, +and that they were but living proof of their fathers' lapses and their +mothers' humiliation? Is He whom we address daily as "Our Father" +willing to be described by a name with which impurity is of necessity +connected? And has He implanted in us as the strongest of our +instincts that which cannot elevate and must debase?</p> + +<p>Again: it needs no wide experience of life, nor any very indulgent +view of it, to feel some truth at least in the words Tennyson puts +into the mouth of his ideal man:</p> + +<p><span style='margin-left: 11em;'>"Indeed I knew</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of no more subtle master under heaven</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Than is the maiden passion for a maid</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Not only to keep down <i>the base in man</i>,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>But teach high thought, and amiable words,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And courtliness, and the desire for fame,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And love of truth, and all that makes a man."</span></p> + +<p>And yet this passion is indisputably sexual passion, and the chastest +of lovers has bodily proof that the most spiritual of his kisses is +allied to the supreme embrace of love. Our body is the instrument by +<a name='page108'></a>which all our emotions are expressed. The most obvious way of +expressing affection is by bodily contact. The mother fondles her +child, kisses its lips and its limbs, and presses it to her breast. +Young children hold hands, put their arms round one another and kiss; +and, although later we become less demonstrative, we still take our +friend's arm, press his hand with ours, and lay a hand upon his +shoulder; we pat our horse or dog and stroke our cat. The lover +returns to the spontaneous and unrestrained caresses of his childhood. +These become more and more intimate until they find their consummation +in the most intimate and most sacred of all embraces. From first to +last these caresses—however deep the pleasure they bestow—are sought +by the mother or the lover, not <i>for the sake of</i> that pleasure, but +as a means of expressing emotion. He only who realises this fact and +conforms to it can enter on married life with any certainty of +happiness. The happiness of very many marriages is irretrievably +shattered at the outset through the craving for sexual excitement +which, in the absence of wise guidance, grows up in every normal boy's +heart, and by the contemplation of sexual intercourse as an act of +physical pleasure.</p> + +<p>And once again: It is the experience of those who have given +instruction in sex questions to the young that by those whose minds +have never been defiled the instruction is received with instant +reverence, as something sacred; not with shame, as something foul. I +venture once more to quote Canon Lyttelton, <a name='page109'></a>who sets forth his +experience and my own in language the beauty of which I cannot +imitate:</p> + +<p>"There is something awe-inspiring in the innocent readiness of little +children to learn the explanation of by far the greatest fact within +the horizon of their minds. The way they receive it, with native +reverence, truthfulness of understanding, and guileless delicacy, is +nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing bounty of Nature, +who endows successive generations of children with this instinctive +ear for the deep harmonies of her laws. People sometimes speak of the +indescribable beauty of children's innocence, and insist that there is +nothing which calls for more constant thanksgiving than that influence +on mankind. But I will venture to say that no one quite knows what it +is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before +them the true meaning of life and birth and the mystery of their own +being."</p> + +<p>To the arguments thus briefly indicated it is no answer to say that +sexual union is essentially physical, and that to regard it in any +other way is transcendental. Among primitive men eating and drinking +were merely animal. We have made them, in our meals, an accompaniment +to social pleasures, and in our religious life we have raised them to +a sacramental level.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page110'></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PURITY TEACHING IS BEST GIVEN: REMEDIAL AND +CURATIVE MEASURES.</h4> + +<p>We have now seen that impurity is almost universal among boys who have +been left without warning and instruction; that, under these +conditions, it is practically inevitable; that its direct results are +lowered vitality and serious injury to character, its indirect results +an appalling amount of degradation and misery; finally, that there is +nothing in sex knowledge, when rightly presented, which can in the +least defile a child's mind. All that now remains is for us to +consider by whom and under what circumstances instruction on this +subject should be given, and what assistance can be rendered to boys +who desire to lead chaste lives.</p> + +<p>Without doubt, instruction should be given to a boy by his parents in +the home. When young children ask questions with regard to +reproduction, parents should neither ignore these question nor give +the usual silly answers. If the occasion on which the question is +asked is not one in which an answer can appropriately be given, the +child should be gently warned that the question raised is one <a name='page111'></a>about +which people do not openly talk, and the promise of an answer +hereafter should be made. Then, at the first convenient hour, the +child can either be given the information he seeks or told that he +shall hear all about the matter at some future specified time, as for +example, his sixth or eighth birthday.</p> + +<p>In the absence of questions from a child, the ideal thing would be for +the child, at the age of six, seven, or eight, to learn orally from +his mother the facts of maternity and to receive warning against +playing with his private parts. Whether at this time it is best to +teach him the facts of paternity is, I think, doubtful. Canon +Lyttelton is strongly of opinion that the father's share in the +child's existence should be explained when the mother's share is +explained, and there is much weight in what he says. If the question +of paternity is reserved, it should not be on the ground that there is +anything embarrassing or indelicate about the matter, and, when the +facts are revealed, the child should clearly understand that they have +been withheld merely until his mind was sufficiently developed to +understand them. The only safe guide in such matters is experience, +and of this as yet we have unfortunately little.</p> + +<p>The question next arises: should it be the mother or the father who +gives this instruction? As regards the earlier part of the instruction +a confident reply can be made to this question. The information should +be given by the parent whose relations with the child are the more +intimate and tender, and <a name='page112'></a>whose influence over him is the greater. +This will, of course, usually be the mother. The subject of paternity +may, if reserved for future treatment, be appropriately given by the +father, provided that he and his son are on really intimate terms. If +timely warning is given to a child about playing with his private +parts, no reference need be made to self-abuse until a boy leaves home +for school, or until he is nearing the age of puberty.</p> + +<p>There are many mothers whose insight and tact will enable them to +approach these questions in the best possible way and to say exactly +the right thing. There are others—a large majority, I think—who +would be glad of guidance, and there are not a few who would certainly +leave the matter alone unless thus guided. It was mainly to assist +parents in this work that I published last year a pamphlet entitled +<i>Private Knowledge for Boys</i>.<sup>[D]</sup> This embodies just what, in my +opinion, should be said to an intelligent child, and it has, in my own +hands, proved effective for many years past. In the case of <i>young</i> +children the teaching should certainly be oral, <i>provided</i> that the +mother knows clearly what to say, has sufficient powers of expression +to say it well, and can talk without any feeling of embarrassment. +Unless these conditions co-exist I recommend the use of a pamphlet. As +I have found that children often do not know what one means by the +"private parts," I make this clear at the outset.</p> + +<div class='note'><p>[D] To be obtained post free for nine stamps from Mr. M. +Whiley, Stonehouse, Glos.<a name='page113'></a></p></div> + +<p>Some into whose hands this book may come and who have boys of twelve +and upwards to whom they have never given instruction, may possibly be +glad of advice as to the manner in which the subject can best be dealt +with in their case. For boys of this age, I am strongly of opinion +that it is better in most cases to make use of a pamphlet than to +attempt oral instruction. Probably they already have some knowledge on +the subject; possibly some sense of guilt. If so, it will be found +very difficult to treat the matter orally without embarrassment—a +thing to be avoided at all costs. I was interested to find that on +receipt of my pamphlet Professor Geddes—one of the greatest experts +on sex—placed it at once in the hands of his own boy, a fact from +which his opinion on the relative merits of oral and printed +instruction can easily be inferred.</p> + +<p>Many of my readers who have boys of fourteen and upwards to whom they +have hitherto given no instruction will, I hope, feel that they must +now do this. I venture, therefore, to give a detailed account of the +manner in which I should myself act in similar circumstances. I should +arrange to be with the lad when there was no danger of interruption, +and in such circumstances as would put him at his ease. I should tell +him that I was conscious of unwisdom in not speaking to him before +about a subject of supreme importance to him; that I took upon myself +all blame for anything he might, in ignorance, have said or done; that +through ignorance I had myself fallen and suffered, and that I should +like him now to sit <a name='page114'></a>down and read through this pamphlet slowly and +carefully. When he finished I should try by every possible means to +make him sensible of my affection for him. I should associate myself +in a few words with the sentiments of the writer, and should invite +the lad to tell me whether he had fallen into temptation, and if so to +what extent. A confidence of this kind assists a boy greatly and +establishes a delightful intimacy.</p> + +<p>There are several points with regard to purity-teaching which need to +be emphasised.</p> + +<p>Such teaching can hardly be too explicit. "Beating about the bush" is +always indicative of the absence of self-possession. The embarrassment +manifested is quickly perceived even by a young child, and is certain +to communicate itself to the recipient. It is of paramount importance +that the child should, from the first, feel that the knowledge +imparted is pure; anything which suggests that it is indelicate should +be studiously avoided. The introduction of a few science terms is +advantageous in several ways: amongst others it relieves the tension +which the spiritual aspect of the question may engender, it gives a +lad a terminology which is free from filthy contamination.</p> + +<p>It is important that the information given should be full, otherwise +the boy lives in a chronic state of curiosity, which, to his great +detriment, he is ever trying to satisfy. If the reader feels that the +information is dangerous, and aims, therefore, at imparting as little +as possible, he is not fitted to do the work at all.<a name='page115'></a></p> + +<p>No greater mistake can be made than that of taxing a boy with impurity +as though it were a conscious and egregious fault. I have already +expressed my strong opinion that, in almost every instance, the boy is +a victim to be sympathised with, not a culprit to be punished. This +opinion is shared, I believe, by everyone who has investigated the +subject. It is certainly the opinion of Canon Lyttelton and Dr. Dukes. +It is, indeed, easy to exaggerate the conscious guilt even of boys who +have initiated others into masturbation. Apart from the injustice to +the boy of an attitude of severity, it is certain to shut the boy's +heart up with a snap.</p> + +<p>If a pamphlet is used it should, without fail, be taken from a boy +when he has read it. Much harm may, I fear, result from supplying boys +with the cheap pamphlets which well-meaning but inexperienced persons +are producing.</p> + +<p>Should the time ever come when parents give timely warning and +instruction to boys, a very difficult problem will be solved for the +schoolmaster. But in the meantime what ought the schoolmaster to do? +The following plan commends itself to some eminent teachers. As soon +as a boy is about to enter the school a letter is sent to his parents +advising them to give the boy instruction, and a pamphlet is enclosed +for this purpose. This plan has the decided advantage of shifting the +responsibility on to the shoulders of those who ought to take it. The +weakness of the plan arises from the fact that most parents do not +believe in the prevalence of impurity among <a name='page116'></a>boys, and are quite +confident that their own boys need no warning. Hence they may do +nothing at all, or merely content themselves with some vague and quite +useless statement.</p> + +<p>The traditions of most boys' schools make it impossible for those +intimate and respectful relations to exist between masters and boys +without which confidential teaching of this kind may be even worse +than useless. Where masters are invariably referred to disrespectfully +if not contemptuously, where a teacher's most earnest address is a +"jaw" which the recipient is expected to betray and mock at with his +companions; where to shield profanity, indecency, and bullying from +detection is the imperative duty of every boy below the Sixth; where +failure to avert from a moral leper the kindly treatment which might +restore him to health and prevent the wholesale infection of others is +the one unpardonable sin, only one or two teachers of a generation can +hope to do much, and the risk of failure is immense. I can hardly +believe that the present race of teachers will long tolerate the +system I here advert to. Public opinion <i>can</i> be organised and +enlisted as strongly on the side of Right as it is now, but too often, +on the side of Evil. Mr. A.C. Benson is very moderate when he writes: +"To take no steps to arrive at such an organisation, and to leave it +severely alone, is a very dark responsibility."</p> + +<p>Even in such a school, some good is, I know, done by tactful public +references to the existence of masturbation and to its deplorable +consequences.<a name='page117'></a></p> + +<p>The question is not free from difficulty even when the general +atmosphere of the school is healthy and helpful. If one dared to leave +this instruction until the age of puberty, the lad would be capable of +a much deeper impression than he is at an earlier age, and the +impression would be fresh just at the time at which it is most needed. +In the case of boys who have come to me at nine or ten I have +sometimes ventured to defer my interview for four or five years, and +have found them quite uncorrupted. On the other hand, within an hour +of penning these lines I have been talking to a little boy of eleven +who commenced masturbation two years ago while he was under excellent +home influence. One such boy may, without guilt, corrupt a whole set, +for impurity is one of the most infectious as well as the most +terrible of diseases. The ideal state in a school is not reached until +periodical addresses on purity can be given to all with the certainty +that by all they will be listened to and treated reverently and +respectfully. Such addresses cannot well be made the vehicle of sex +information, but they can be so constructed as to guide those to whom +individual instruction has not yet been given, and to strengthen those +who, spite of full instruction, periodically need a helping hand.</p> + +<p>What results may we reasonably expect from adequate and timely +instruction? I have so rarely met a case in which this has been given +at home that I can only infer what these results might be from the +cases in which my own instruction has been given in time. In almost +every instance I feel sure <a name='page118'></a>that the results have been beneficial, +that the temptation to impurity has been little felt, and that a +healthy and chaste boyhood has resulted. Canon Lyttelton writes: "The +influences of school life have been found to be impotent to deprave +the tone of a boy who has been fortified by the right kind of +instruction from his parents." This I can well believe, for, if the +schoolmaster can do much, there can be no limit to a power which has +been cradled in the sanctity of home and cherished by a mother's love. +This appears to be the emphatic opinion also of Dr. Dukes. Of a boy +thus favoured, Canon Lyttelton writes: "He will feel that any rude +handling of such a theme, even of only its outer fringe, is like the +profaning of the Holy of Holies in his heart, and he will no more +suffer it than he would suffer a stranger to defile the innermost +shrine of his feelings by taking his mother's or his sister's name in +vain. All the goading curiosity which drives other boys to pry +greedily into nature's laws, in blank ignorance of their mighty +import, their unspeakable depth, and spiritual unearthly harmonies, +has been for him forestalled, enlightened, and purified."</p> + +<p>It is a sad step down from such a boy to the lad who has been given +warning after corruption has begun. Most boys feel such shame in +confessing to failure that one has to accept with reserve the +statements made by even the most truthful of those who are treading +the upward path. After making due allowance for this source of error, +my experience enables me to say confidently that, if a boy has not +<a name='page119'></a>been long or badly corrupted, a radical change of attitude may be +expected in him at once, and the habit of self-abuse will be instantly +or rapidly relinquished. Very different is the case of a lad who has +long practised masturbation, or who has practised it for some time +after the advent of puberty, or who has associated sexual imaginations +with the practice. Few such boys conquer the habit at once, however +much they desire to, and, if the above conditions co-exist, a boy's +progress is very slow, and years may pass without anything approaching +cure. If in addition to the temptations from within he has foes also +without in the form of companions who sneer at his desire for +improvement, controvert the statements made to him, and throw +temptation in his way, his chance of cure must be enormously +decreased. Of such cases I know nothing; for my experience lies solely +among boys who have, outside their own hearts, little to hinder and +very much to help. As I have dealt elsewhere with the question of aids +to chastity, I will make only a brief reference to it here.</p> + +<p>The mind is so much influenced by the body that purity is impossible +when the body is unduly indulged. No man exists who could inhale the +vapour of chloroform without an irresistible desire to sleep. Under +these conditions the strongest will would not avail even if the victim +knew that by surrender he was sacrificing everything he reverenced and +held dear. The lad past the age of puberty who has much stimulating +food, who drinks alcohol, who sleeps in a warm and luxurious bed and +occupies it for some <a name='page120'></a>time before or after sleep, is certain, even if +he takes much exercise, to be tempted irresistibly. Dr. Dukes +considers that a heavy meat meal with alcohol shortly before bedtime +is in itself sufficient to ensure a lad's fall.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, no abstinence which it not unduly rigorous, can save a boy +from impurity if he gets into the habit of exchanging glances with +girls who are socially inferior, if he reads suggestive books, looks +at stimulating pictures and sights, and falls into the hopeless folly +of entertaining sexual thoughts even momentarily. He who has not the +strength to tread out a spark is little likely to subdue a +conflagration.</p> + +<p>The best and most timely teaching will never make carelessness in +these matters justifiable, and a boy who has once been corrupted and +desires to master his lower nature has no chance of self-conquest +unless he gives them his constant and careful attention.</p> + +<p>It is very important to fill a boy's leisure with congenial +occupation. Idleness and dullness make a boy specially susceptible to +temptation. On the other hand, the fond parent who satisfies a boy's +every whim and encourages the lad to think that his own enjoyment is +the chief thing in life does his utmost to destroy the lad's chance of +purity—or, indeed, of any virtue whatever.</p> + +<p>Can anything be done for boys and young men who have become the slaves +of self-abuse to such an extent that they groan in the words of St. +Paul: "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, +that I do.... I delight in the law of God after <a name='page121'></a>the inward man, but I +see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and +bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O +wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this +death?" Can anything be done for the lad who has become so defiled by +lustful thoughts that his utmost efforts fail to carry him forward, +and even leave him to sink deeper in the mire. There are many, many +such cases, alas! for as Dr. Acton says, "The youth is a dreamer who +will open the floodgates of an ocean, and then attempt to prescribe at +will a limit to the inundation."</p> + +<p>Yes there is a remedy—I believe a specific—which can rapidly and, I +think, finally restore strength to the enfeebled will and order the +unclean spirit to come out of the man. It is hypnotic suggestion. Let +not the reader, however, think that the matter is a simple one. In all +ages any great advance in the art of healing has, by the ignorant, +been attributed to the powers of darkness. The Divine Healer Himself +did not escape from the charge of casting out devils by the prince of +the devils, and, while hypnotic suggestion has long been used for +therapeutic purposes on the Continent and is now practised in +Government institutions there, the doctor or clergyman or teacher who +uses it in England runs great risks; for in this subject, as in all +others, it is those who are entirely without experience who are most +dogmatic.</p> + +<p>In the case of the schoolmaster, its use in this connection is +practically excluded. If he applies to <a name='page122'></a>a parent for permission to use +it he probably runs his head against a blank wall of ignorance; for +hypnotism, to most people, means a dangerous power by which an +unscrupulous, strong-willed Svengali dominates an abnormally +weak-willed Trilby whose will continues to grow weaker until the +subject becomes a mere automaton; and most of us would rightly prefer +that a boy should be his own master—even if he were rushing to +headlong ruin—than that he should be the mere puppet of the most +saintly man living. The human will is sacred and inviolable, and we do +unwisely if we seek to control it or to remove those obstacles from +its way by which alone it can gain divine strength. Meanwhile the +stimulus by which the mind acquires self-mastery usually comes from +without in the form of spiritual inspiration; and to remove from a +boy's path an obstacle which blocks it and is entirely beyond his own +strength is equally desirable both in the physical and in the +spiritual realm. Those who think that without this obstacle a boy's +power of self-control is likely to receive insufficient exercise will, +of course, object to the instruction advocated in this book. If it is +unwise to remove this obstacle from a boy's path it is equally unwise +so to instruct him as to prevent the obstacle from arising. In +<i>trustworthy</i> hands hypnotic suggestion is a beneficent power which +has no dangers and no drawbacks, and to decline to use it is to accept +a very serious responsibility.</p> + +<p>For the teacher a further difficulty—not to mention that of time—is +that, without betraying a boy's <a name='page123'></a>confidence or inducing him to allow +his admissions to be passed on to his father, it is impossible to give +his parents an idea of the urgency of the case.</p> + +<p>Altogether the time for hypnotic suggestion in education is not yet, +but the day must come when its use is recognised not only in physical +cases such as nocturnal emissions and constipation, but in all cases +in which the will-power is practically in abeyance, as it is in bad +cases of impurity.</p> + +<p>For intelligent parents the difficulties are far less, and if any such +care to pursue the subject farther, I would refer them to the volume +on <i>Hypnotism</i> in the People's Books series or to one of the larger +medical works on the subject, such as <i>Hypnotism and Suggestion</i>, by +Dr. Bernard Hollander.</p> + +<p>To those who know boys well and love them much, there is something +intensely interesting and pathetic about the spiritual struggle +through which they have to pass. The path of self-indulgence seems so +obviously the path to happiness; self-denial is so hard and +self-control so difficult. "The struggle of the instinct that enjoys +and the more noble instinct that aspires" is ever there. The young +soul reaches out after good, but its grasp is weak. It needs much +enlightenment, much encouragement, much inspiration, much patient +tolerance of its faults, much hopeful sympathy with its strivings, if +it is ever to attain the good it seeks. In the past it has met, +without light or aid, unwarned and unprepared, the deadliest foe which +can assail the soul. An appetite which has in all ages debased the +weak, wrestled fiercely with <a name='page124'></a>the strong, and vanquished at times even +the noble, is let loose upon an unwarned, unarmed, defenceless child. +Oh, the utter, the utter folly of it!</p> + +<p>For life after death the writer has no longing. Immortality, if +vouchsafed, appears to him to be a gift to be accepted trustfully and +humbly, not to be yearned after with a sort of transcendental egoism. +But to him the wish to—</p> + +<p><span style='margin-left: 8em;'>"Join the choir invisible</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of those immortal dead who live again</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>In minds made better by their presence"</span></p> + +<p>grows ever stronger as the inevitable end draws nearer.</p> + +<p>To save young lives from the needless struggles and failures of my +own, to secure healthy motherhood or maiden life to some whom lust +might otherwise destroy, to add, for some at least, new sanctity to +human passion—these have been my hopes in penning the foregoing +pages. It has been my privilege and joy, in my own quiet sphere, to +preserve boys from corruption and to restore the impure to cleanness +of heart. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity these pages afford +of extending this delightful work. When the hand which writes these +lines has long been cold in death, may the message which it speeds +this day breathe peace and strength into many an eager heart.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h3><a name='page125'></a>NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS.</h3> + +<h4>TO BOYS.</h4> + +<p>I warmly invite any boy who has read these pages to write to me if he +feels inclined to do so. Since this book was first published I have +received hundreds of letters from boys who have, without any definite +invitation, understood that it would please me much to hear from them. +Many boys feel all the better for frankly confessing their +difficulties to a man who fully understands and sympathises with them. +Some desire advice about their own case. Anyone who accepts this +invitation will do wisely to give me a full and frank history of his +difficulties. His confidences will, of course, be strictly respected. +He will also, I hope, remember that I am an extremely busy man with +many and urgent claims on my time, and that I cannot always reply as +quickly and as fully as I should like to do.</p> + +<h4>TO YOUNG MEN.</h4> + +<p>Before a young man marries he should always seek advice from a +trustworthy source with regard to his conduct as a husband. No +satisfactory book is, <a name='page126'></a>or perhaps could be, published on this subject; +and even if a young man can make up his mind to consult a doctor, it +is by no means every doctor who has the needful knowledge on this +subject or the best moral outlook. It has been my privilege to help +several in this matter, and I am always happy to do this.</p> + +<h4>TO BOYS AND YOUNG MEN.</h4> + +<p>I earnestly warn you against those who, by advertisement in the +papers, offer to cure young men who are suffering from weakness of the +private parts and other ills which impurity entails. Many such +advertisers are little better than rogues, who are out to make money +by trading on the fears of their victims; their "treatment"—quite +apart from a far greater cost than at first appears—often does more +harm than good. In every case in which disease or weakness exists, or +is suspected, a reliable medical man should be at once consulted. If +this is done, a cure may generally be looked for. Do not write to me; +this is a doctor's business, not mine.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13722 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13722-h/images/pic01.jpg b/13722-h/images/pic01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..caa580d --- /dev/null +++ b/13722-h/images/pic01.jpg |
