Eugenics; Sexual ethics; Women -- Social and moral questions
[186] See Frau Maria Lischnewska's excellent pamphlet, _Geschlechtliche
Belehrung der Kinder_, first published in _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4
and 5. This is perhaps the ablest statement of the argument in favour of
giving the chief place in sexual hygiene to the teacher. Frau
Lischnewska recognizes three factors in the movement for freeing the
sexual activities from degradation: (1) medical, (2) economic, and (3)
rational. But it is the last--in the broadest sense as a comprehensive
process of enlightenment--which she regards as the chief. "The views and
sentiments of people must be changed," she says. "The civilized man must
learn to gaze at this piece of Nature with pure eyes; reverence towards
it must early sink into his soul. In the absence of this fundamental
renovation, medical and social measures will merely produce refined
animals."
[187] "We parents of to-day," as Henriette Fuerth truly says ("Erotik und
Elternpflicht," _Am Lebensquell_, p. 11), "have not yet attained that
beautiful naturalness out of which in these matters simplicity and
freedom grow. And however willing we may be to learn afresh, most of us
have so far lost our inward freedom from prejudice--the standpoint of
the pure to whom all things are pure--that we cannot acquire it again.
We parents of to-day have been altogether wrongly brought up. The
inoculated feeling of shame still remains even after we have recognized
that shame in this connection is false."
[188] The method of imparting a knowledge of sexual hygiene (especially in
relation to venereal diseases) at the outset of adult life has most
actively been carried out in Germany and the United States. In Germany
lectures by doctors to students and others on these matters are
frequently given. In the United States information and advice are spread
abroad chiefly by the aid of societies. The American Society of Sanitary
and Moral Prophylaxis, with which the name of Dr. Morrow is specially
connected, was organized in 1905. The Chicago Society of Social Hygiene
was established in 1906. Since then many other similar societies have
sprung up under medical auspices in various American cities and states.
[189] Many flagrant cases in point are set forth from the legal point of
view by Theodore Schroeder, _"Obscene" Literature and Constitutional
Law_, New York, 1911, chap. IV.
[190] Chamfort, _OEuvres Choisies_, ed. by Lescure, Vol. I, p. 33.
IX
IMMORALITY AND THE LAW
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