Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

Teaching of Sex Hygiene

It is perhaps in the proper teaching of sex hygiene in the schools, to working men and women, to college and other groups of young men and women, and to foreigners, that women expect to accomplish most for the elevation of moral standards and for the elimination of venereal diseases.

In Minnesota the single standard of morals has been widely supported by the club women and sex hygiene has been urged for the schools.

The Women’s Municipal League of Boston took the high position that “realizing the physical misery which is resulting from ignorance in regard to matters of sex, and the spiritual degradation following the wrong conception of the high purpose of the sex function, to which must be added the loss of efficiency in human ability, the Committee on Social Hygiene of the League has set itself the task of awakening the community to the dangers of a further continuance of this policy of silence and of arousing the public conscience to do its duty; providing sex education both for parents and for those whose parents cannot or will not furnish it for them.” The League was, of course, very careful to choose the members of this committee from those women whom it believed to be qualified to lead in this work. From a recent report we learn:

Because the time left us this season is so limited, we are making our work experimental rather than exhaustive, with the idea of using the results as a guide to the nature of the work to be undertaken next year. We have, therefore, aimed to present the subject through lecturers, to the following groups, selected as types: to a group of mothers desirous of teaching their children in sex matters, and eager to know how to go about it; to a group of teachers, who are continually meeting sex problems among their pupils; to a group of girls already in industry; to a group of boys organized in a club; to a mixed group of men and women representing the present state of public opinion, whose support is most necessary; and to representatives from a committee from neighboring towns who wish to take advantage of our machinery to start similar work at home.

The committee confronted its first difficulty in securing a lecturer, for the work is new and there are few trained speakers available. Dr. Frances M. Greene of Cambridge, the president of the society which initiated this work in California, who has made an intensive study of the question in Europe, was engaged to give a course of five lectures in the League rooms.... Announcements were sent out to 725 people, most of whom were mothers of young children; 77 persons attended the first lecture, and this number has increased with each succeeding meeting. A charge of $1.00 was made for the course. The receipts for the lectures were over $170.00, a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of the lecturer, postage and stationery. The serious interest shown by those in attendance has deepened the conviction of the committee, that the public wishes enlightenment in regard to instructing the young in these fundamental matters, and that the present generation of parents having been brought up in ignorance wishes to give its children a better point of view than it ever had itself.

The committee has arranged to have Miss Laura B. Garrett[^[16]] of New York City speak on “Some Methods of Teaching Sex Hygiene” at Huntington Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.... In addition to League members 500 teachers are to be invited to attend this lecture.

On April 14th the plans of the Committee on Social Hygiene were presented, at 41 Brimmer Street, through the courtesy of Miss Ware, to a group of one hundred or more, including representative persons from Boston, Brookline, Worcester, Lawrence, Lowell, Springfield and Providence. Dr. Frances M. Greene, Dr. Abner Post, Dr. William P. Lucas and Dr. Hugh Cabot made short addresses. Mrs. William Lowell Putnam presided.

With the results before us of the work carried on this spring, the committee will form its plans for next year. The present purpose is to hold in October a mass meeting, with speakers representing various shades of opinion and various methods of handling the subject. Best methods of approach to the smaller groups of girls from department stores and factories, boys’ clubs, mothers’ clubs, parents’ associations, etc., will be further considered and the type of speaker best adapted to be most successful with each individual group will be sought out and sent to these various portions of the community as may be desired.

The Committee on Social Hygiene is fully cognizant of the delicate nature of the task before it, and of the necessity of moving slowly, taking each step in accordance with a well-considered plan, rather than of attempting to cover too much ground at the risk of making mistakes. Nevertheless, it is fully convinced that the time has come for speaking frankly in regard to sex matters and dealing honestly with a problem which concerns every one of us. In coöperation with the Public Health Education Committee of the American Medical Association, we have arranged four lectures on different aspects of sex education, to be given at the League. The speakers will be: Dr. Edith Spaulding, of Sherburne Reformatory; Dr. Rachel Yarros, of Chicago; Dr. Edith Hale Swift, of Boston; Dr. Kate Campbell Mead, of Middletown, Connecticut.

All over the country we hear of meetings of women to discuss in a sane and dispassionate way the problem of education in sex hygiene. For example, two methods of teaching sex hygiene, the biological and the physiological, and their adaptation to the needs of different groups, were the subject of three conferences held last spring (1914) by the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, New York. Dr. Mary Sutton Macy presented the physiological and Nellie M. Smith the biological aspect. The third talk on the adaptability of these two methods to different social groups was given by Harriet McDaniel.

“The Matter and Methods of Sex Education Other Than Instruction in Schools” was discussed at a later meeting. The main speakers were Dr. Eugene LaF. Swain, Nellie W. Smith, Laura B. Garrett and Mabel M. Irwin. The discussion was started by Dr. Ira S. Wile, Dr. Rosalie S. Morton, Dr. Mary Sutton Macy and Harriet E. McDaniel.

Dr. Rosalie Morton, of New York, speaking at the Sixth Triennial Convention of the Council of Jewish Women, on this subject, said:

In the proper understanding of this subject of sex hygiene it is quite impossible for either men or women to go very far alone. I am sure that through the ages there have been men who have had this subject very close to their hearts. They have felt that it was basic, that it was most important; but they felt that it was not a proper matter to discuss with women and so they have blundered on, not getting very far in any solution of it. The subject has also been near the heart of every woman. She hopes that her husband will be a good man; she hopes that her son will be clean; she sees all the wreckage and the heartaches in life that come from ignorance of sex hygiene or lack of attention to it. So women have talked together as to how the standard of morality might be raised, how they might teach their sons and daughters, but they have felt that it was not a topic to discuss with men, so they have blundered on. They have been too sentimental, they have been too ignorant of the limitations in the world of practical affairs; they have lacked well-balanced judgment as to how it was best to teach, how it was best to help. It is absolutely necessary that earnest men and women should modify and guide each other in reaching a solution of the problem.

No home can be successful in its teaching of this subject unless the father and mother agree on the teaching; if the father thinks it is not a subject for his wife to consider or to talk about, or if the mother imagines that she alone shall tell her child, those children will grow up with a feeling that there is discord at the root of the family feeling on a most vital subject. Whether the father or mother shall tell the child is very immaterial. The opportunity may come to one, it may come to the other; both should be ready to meet it when it does come.

This last twenty-five years is the first time in the history of the world that any definite effort has been made to teach sex hygiene; and if each one of us will do our duty as we see it—and we must see it clearly now—and pass on our convictions (because no one has a right to receive anything for themselves or their particular group, and hold it, but each person has a tremendous responsibility to pass on to others their influence, their knowledge), we shall awaken a world-wide conscience regarding this thing. The reason that we can do so little is because one child is taught and another child is not taught. Education must be carried on in a widespread way before it can really accomplish what we hope for. That is the reason that a conference such as this means such progress in the history of the world, because you people will go back to your various communities and carry with you that courage of conviction which comes from the comradeship which you had here. Each one of us is afraid to broach this subject until we have had as the soldiers say, “a shoulder next to us to help us up the hill.”

Dr. Morton’s words went home, and a permanent committee on sex hygiene was established at the convention. The sentiments expressed at the formation of the committee may fittingly form the conclusion to this chapter.

The advance of preventive medicine and the far better understanding of the conditions of health and bodily vigor which obtain today, have put the whole subject of masculine chastity in a new light.

It is now clearly understood that the consequence to offspring of lack of chastity in the father are just as grave as those of lack of chastity in the mother; and that the happiness and security of family life are quite as apt to be destroyed by want of purity and honor in the father as in the mother. It is an established fact that there never was either physical or moral reason for maintaining two standards as regards chastity, one for men and the other for women.

The children of today are destined to be the units of a society whose point of view is to make it unique in the world’s history. It will be characterized by a single standard of morality for both sexes. The child must be so trained and educated that it will later be possible and natural for him to live up to the high standard which the women of his age shall demand of him.

The ideals of society must be so changed that young men may not be weakened and corrupted by the passive acceptance of false standards of morals. One of the most important factors for the attainment of this end is the same education of boys and girls in the matters of sex, from which all secrecy, except that which is necessary from true modesty and refinement, shall have disappeared.

We as parents must recognize and help establish the truth of the law that the same virtue is needed in both sexes for the happy development of that family life on which the security of the race and the progress of civilization depend.

CHAPTER IV
RECREATION

The old maxim, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” has been amplified in the past twenty-five years in many ways. All work and no play may make Jack a sick boy or a delinquent. If Jack plays not at all, neither can he work. What is true of Jack is true of all the members of Jack’s family and of all his relatives and neighbors. What is true of Jack is equally true of Jill. In order therefore to prevent dullness, illness, crime and delinquency, recreation has been provided in cities in homeopathic doses, at least, for Jack and Jill and their relatives and neighbors.

The interest in, and advocacy of, municipal recreational facilities for the people of the urban districts grew out of the knowledge that, unless wholesome recreation is provided, unwholesome recreation will be sought and found. There is no alternative.

Interesting figures have been compiled by Mrs. Max Thalheimer, Assistant Probation Officer of Syracuse, N. Y., which show that in one section of the city, where a public playground has been established, juvenile delinquency has decreased about 30 per cent. in two years. The neighborhood of the Frazer School Playground was selected for the study. The records show that during the year immediately preceding the establishment of the playground there were 127 cases from that neighborhood in the Juvenile Court, as compared with a total of but 180 cases for the two years which have since elapsed. The more time a child spends in well-directed play, the less time does he have to get into mischief.[^[17]]

It has also been made clear that municipal prevention of arrests, illness, unemployment, inefficiency, is cheaper than municipal care of delinquents and criminals, of the sick, of those illy equipped to earn a livelihood, and of the vicious whose supervision entails such administrative expense and anxiety. Even motives of economy therefore may lead to this form of municipal enterprise.

Because the keynote to all modern social activity is prevention and because prevention is cheaper than cure always, recreation today is of public concern. That the public’s interest and belief in municipal recreation has been guided into faith in its educational advantages is due in no small degree to the patient work of women in behalf of amusement facilities. In their recreational work, women have also sought to make recreation serve the purposes of family unity, community spirit, and an increase in the real joy of living.

The mother’s appreciation of child psychology began in the days when she excused baby pranks often misunderstood by others with the statement that “he is just playing.” Realizing the persistence of that play instinct all through childish development, and never eliminated in fact, women have sought to direct play so that it may not react to the injury of the player. That is the explanation of all the intimate guarding of children from the moment they learn to walk and then on until the child leaves the protection of home.

Public recreation is but the effort to provide better and safer places for babies to play in, for growing boys and girls to combine the work they later desire with play or to make work their play, as they do instinctively themselves when conditions are suitable, and for adults to come together for that conviviality or stimulation through association which leaves no sting in additional family expenditures or ill health or misery. From all over the country we hear of women initiating and carrying through movements to provide play facilities for young and old.