Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
There is no evidence that in England the Minister of Education
has yet taken any steps to insure the delivery of lectures on
sexual hygiene to the pupils who are about to leave school. In
Prussia, however, the Ministry of Education has taken an active
interest in this matter, and such lectures are beginning to be
commonly delivered, though attendance at them is not usually
obligatory. Some years ago (in 1900), when it was proposed to
deliver a series of lectures on sexual hygiene to the advanced
pupils in Berlin schools, under the auspices of a society for the
improvement of morals, the municipal authorities withdrew their
permission to use the classrooms, on the ground that "such
lectures would be extremely dangerous to the moral sense of an
audience of the young." The same objection has been made by
municipal officials in France. In Germany, at all events,
however, opinion is rapidly growing more enlightened. In England
little or no progress has yet been made, but in America steps are
being taken in this direction, as by the Chicago Society for
Social Hygiene. It must, indeed, be said that those who oppose
the sexual enlightenment of youth in large cities are directly
allying themselves, whether or not they know it, with the
influences that make for vice and immorality.
Such lectures are also given to girls on leaving school, not only
girls of the well-to-do, but also those of the poor class, who
need them fully as much, and in some respects more. Thus Dr. A.
Heidenhain has published a lecture (_Sexuelle Belehrung der aus
den Volksschule entlassenen Mädchen_, 1907), accompanied by
anatomical tables, which he has delivered to girls about to leave
school, and which is intended to be put into their hands at this
time. Salvat, in a Lyons thesis (_La Dépopulation de la France_,
1903), insists that the hygiene of pregnancy and the care of
infants should form part of the subject of such lectures. These
subjects might well be left, however, to a somewhat later period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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