The Social Emergency: Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals
Science
The Social Emergency: Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals
Sex instruction
It should be explained that although both animals and human beings are
endowed with the sex instinct, only human beings have the gift of control.
That the sex instinct is a great blessing, and not a curse, should be made
clear. It may be stated that various blessings are sometimes converted
into sources of destruction when not controlled. A spirited horse is a
source of great enjoyment, but if not controlled may maim us for life.
Fire is a great blessing and a great joy to us when we are camping by a
lake or in the mountains; but, beyond our control, it may cause forest
fires. Temper, the capacity for anger, is highly desirable; but it must be
controlled or murder may result. We must control the sex instinct, or it
may control us and sink us lower than the brutes. On the other hand, if we
control this instinct, we gain virility, a keener appreciation of the
beauties of life, and life itself becomes richer and fuller.
In conclusion, the appeal should be for clean living for the sake of
physical strength and vigor, not for one's own sake, but for the sake of
country and future wife and children.
The standard toward which we are working in sex education involves the
dissemination throughout the school curriculum of such information as we
now give in a single talk. In addition to such nature-study work and
simple biology and physiology and hygiene as should be included in the
lower grades, there should be instruction in biology and in personal
hygiene required for all upper-grammar and all high-school students, as
soon as well qualified teachers are available. In personal hygiene a
proper amount of sex hygiene should be incorporated; and with the
treatment of other diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis should be given
adequate attention; the idea of the whole plan being to place all these
matters in their proper setting, without undue emphasis on matters of sex.
Either (first) as a part of one of these courses or (second) as a part of
some other general course, or (third) as a separate course, the following
subjects should be considered:--
1. What is virility?
(a) Virility and the next generation.
(b) Virility and our nation.
(c) Types of virility.
2. Muscle, exercise, and virility.
(a) How, when, and where to exercise.
(b) "Second wind."
(c) Rest.
(d) Will power.
3. Food, good blood, and virility.
(a) What to eat.
(b) Tobacco.
(c) Clogged-up machines.
(d) Blood and other body fluids.
4. Fresh air, bathing, and virility.
(a) Sleeping-porches, camping.
(b) How to bathe.
(c) Change of clothes.
5. Virility and disease.
(a) Disease generally an unnecessary evil.
(b) Relative seriousness of tuberculosis, typhoid, syphilis, gonorrhea,
diphtheria, colds, headaches, adenoids, enlarged tonsils.
(c) Body and mind.
6. Virility and certain glands.
(a) Importance of the thyroid gland and the testicles.
(b) Difference between stallion and gelding.
(c) Seminal vesicles.
(d) Quack doctors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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