Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
1. CHASTITY is the purest and brightest jewel in human character. Dr.
Pierce in his widely known _Medical Adviser_ says: For the full and
perfect development of mankind, both mental and physical, chastity is
necessary. The health demands abstinence from unlawful intercourse.
Therefore children should be instructed to avoid all impure works of
fiction, which tend to inflame the mind and excite the passions. Only
in total abstinence from illicit pleasures is there safety, morals,
and health, while integrity, peace and happiness are the conscious
rewards of virtue. Impurity travels downward with intemperance,
obscenity and corrupting diseases, to degradation and death. A
dissolute, licentious, free-and-easy life is filled with the dregs of
human suffering, iniquity and despair. The penalties which follow a
violation of the law of chastity are found to be severe and swiftly
retributive.
2. THE UNION of the sexes in holy Matrimony is a law of nature,
finding sanction in both morals and legislation. Even some of the
lower animals unite in this union for life and instinctively observe
the law of conjugal fidelity with a consistency which might put to
blush other animals more highly endowed. It seems important to discuss
this subject and understand our social evils, as well as the intense
passional desires of the sexes, which must be controlled, or they lead
to ruin.
3. SEXUAL PROPENSITIES are possessed by all, and these must be held in
abeyance, until they are needed for legitimate purposes. Hence parents
ought to understand the value to their children of mental and physical
labor, to elevate and strengthen the intellectual and moral faculties,
to develop the muscular system and direct the energies of the
blood into healthful channels. Vigorous employment of mind and body
engrosses the vital energies and diverts them from undue excitement of
the sexual desires.
_Give your young people plenty of outdoor amusement; less of
dancing and more of croquet and lawn tennis. Stimulate the methods
of pure thoughts in innocent amusement, and your sons and daughters
will mature to manhood and womanhood pure and chaste in character._
4. IGNORANCE DOES NOT MEAN INNOCENCE.--It is a current idea,
especially among our good common people, that the child should be
kept in ignorance regarding the mystery of his own body and how he was
created or came into the world. This is a great mistake. Parents must
know that the sources of social impurity are great, and the child is a
hundred times more liable to have his young mind poisoned if
entirely ignorant of the functions of his nature than if judiciously
enlightened on these important truths by the parent. The parent must
give him weapons of defense against the putrid corruption he is sure
to meet outside the parental roof. The child cannot get through the A,
B, C period of school without it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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