FOOTNOTES:

[40] A classified bibliography is provided at the end of this volume.

CHAPTER IX

teaching phases: for boys

By Harry H. Moore

The adolescent boy is the hope of our race. He is the man in the making. Whether he is to be a constructive force, a nonentity, or a destructive force depends largely on influences during this period. In adolescence the processes of destruction are quick and sudden. Statistics of reformatories and prisons show that either crime itself or the moral breakdown which leads to crime begins in boyhood. A study of the lives of great constructive characters shows that their success was largely determined by influences during this period. Certainly, there is no more important task for our nation than the training of our boys.

Adolescence begins at puberty, the transition period during which the sex functions come into full prominence. Its beginning is marked by great physical changes. There are also mental and psychic changes. This fuller development of sex means for the youth new power, new emotion, new capacities for enjoyment of life. At this time the will should emerge as an asset of character. The boy now desires more knowledge of the new world in which he finds himself. He wants to see it by day and by night. He wants to be physically active, or entertained. He belongs to some sort of gang and is loyal to it. His is an age of hero worship.

If the knowledge and the entertainment he finds is wholesome, if the gang is a good one, if the hero is a noble character, if, with emotion and new powers, there is also a strong will, all goes well. But if these influences are not helpful and the will is weak, the result may be quickly disastrous.[41]

Inquiry into the lives of any considerable number of adolescent boys leads one to believe that there exists what almost might be called a conspiracy of silence, misinformation, and bad influence against most boys of this age. Parents for the most part either evade or answer untruthfully the questions of their six-, seven-, and eight-year-old boys regarding birth and reproduction. From this time on, nearly all boys receive many false and low ideas regarding sex, marriage, and the relationship between men and women.

After the stork story, there come incorrect versions of reproduction from boy companions. Then come notes at school, picture cards, comic weeklies, quack advertisements, and unwholesome vaudeville acts. These destructive influences come, for the most part, entirely unsolicited, in response to a normal desire for knowledge and clean entertainment. Boys seldom go to their first shows to see what is vulgar or sensual. They go for clean fun, gymnastics, magicians, and other legitimate amusements. The unwholesome features are thrust upon them.

As a result of these influences on the impressionable mind of the growing boy, he comes to regard sex as low and vile instead of sacred. He acquires a vulgar vocabulary which he necessarily uses in his thinking and sometimes in his conversation. The silence and evasive answers of adults withhold healthful knowledge and increase curiosity. Curiosity often leads to investigation, which often results disastrously.

The specific evil results are of three kinds: (1) masturbation; (2) needless mental suffering due largely to ignorance; (3) illicit intercourse.

Masturbation is prevalent among boys. Two hundred and thirty-two replies were received to a question asked college students regarding their severest temptations of school days. Of these, one hundred and thirty-two said that masturbation had been one of their severest temptations and one hundred and thirty-one said they had yielded to it.[42] Similar inquiries have brought similar results. The sum total of vitality lost to humanity by this practice is great.

There is much needless mental suffering among boys and young men due to ignorance and false ideas advanced by quacks. Groundless fear, brooding anxiety, and despair sometimes start before adolescence and often last into the twenties. Physical peculiarities of no consequence sometimes cause boys to fear that they are abnormal. Unaware of the fact that spontaneous nocturnal emissions are to be expected, many suffer mental anguish. According to one writer, a single New York dealer had 3,000,000 "confidential" letters, "written to advertising medical companies and doctors, mostly by youth with their heart's blood."[43] Large sums of money are obtained by quacks everywhere for treating normal conditions. Many men have applied to the Advisory Department of the Oregon State Board of Health after years of worry. Although those who apply are no longer boys, most of their troubles began in boyhood. A large proportion of the suffering could have been avoided by simple instruction in sexual hygiene.

Social vice often occurs in adolescent boyhood, both as a direct result of unmastered passion and as an indirect result of individual vice. In some cases, the habits a boy forms in his early 'teens make him a subject of venereal disease in later life. A doctor writes, "I am aware that it is popularly supposed that self-abuse and sexual intercourse are antagonistic—by many, the one is regarded as a necessary alternative of the other. So far from being a protective, the former is a most powerful provocative of the latter. According to my own observation, it is not the strongly sexed, the most virile young men, who are most given to licentiousness, but those whose organs have been rendered weak and irritable from this unnatural exercise—in whom the habit of sensual indulgence has been set up, and in whom self-control has not been developed by exercise."[44] This combination of silence, misinformation, and bad influence causes a damnable attitude of mind on the part of the boy toward women, love, marriage, and the home.[45]

The experience of a Chicago business man with his sixteen-year-old son is told in a recent popular magazine. Whether an actual occurrence or not, it is typical of conditions in most any city.

I do not desire to convey the idea that our boy was a wicked boy. He was not. He was just the average type of what we call the "upper middle-class" boy. He was merely tuned to the low moral tone of the city. Vice to him was not a monster of hideous mien. He had seen it from childhood.... I knew that a greater part of his ideas on patriotism, on women, on the sanctity of marriage were but reflections of views he had heard expressed, often tritely and cleverly, and cynicism born of hearing such things flaunted over the footlights or dished out as "clever" in the newspapers.

In the father's earnest efforts to understand the remedy for the situation, he is reminded of his own experience when he began life in the city. He continues:—

The boy's words awakened memories. I recalled the sense of shocked and shamed decency I felt when first I came to the city, a boy almost, and fresh from the country; how I tossed in my bed trying to see as right things that every one in the city appeared to accept as a matter of course, but that, from earliest boyhood I had been taught to regard as wicked. I could not for many months become accustomed to seeing immodestly dressed women on or off the stage, or to hearing half-veiled indecency flaunted from the stage, blazoned in the newspapers, or used even in ordinary conversation. I could not get used to ... scenes and actions directly forbidden as unforgivable at home.[46]

We are horrified by certain vices, the public now and then cries out against specific manifestations of lust, and sometimes it is with difficulty that mobs are restrained from violence But about much of our immorality there is an attractiveness that has made it acceptable and even wins for it applause. The influence is there, and it is insidiously and perniciously working itself into the minds of our boys Many commercialized amusements now exploit the sex impulse. It is impossible to measure the effects of such exploitation.

There are brighter pictures. Those who have intimate relation with hundreds of boys learn to admire the American boy for his earnest desire to be clean and strong and for his attitude toward the sacred things of life. If we give the boy positive help, we may expect him to grow into noble manhood. We would not remove him from all the evil in the world, but we may expect a minimum of harm as a result of contact with evil. We may not expect to keep him away from all foul talk; but we may make foul talk disgust rather than attract him. The American boy is normally clean. If we will do our part, he will respond.

William Holabird represents a type which may well be taken as an example in sex education.

While chiefly known to the public as a golfer, Holabird was catcher on the school baseball team, half-back on the eleven, held the gold medal for the inter-class track meet, and, in fact, excelled in all athletic sports. As a scholar he always ranked high. He was devotion itself to his parents, his brothers and sisters, respectful to his elders, a leader among his associates, and beloved by all who knew him; tall in stature and muscled like a Greek god, with clear-cut, delicate, refined, and manly features.... With a rare combination of strength and gentleness accompanied by a bearing and life well illustrating "He was one of nature's noblemen."... A splendid athlete, with a life without a spot or stain, he was a natural leader and a model for all the fellows in the school. The younger boys followed and imitated him.... He hated everything false or unclean or vulgar. To us all, men and boys alike, it was an inspiration to know him.[47]

Our standards for boys and men have been too low. Charles Wagner says, in writing of youth and love:—

Chastity has a host of enemies.... These enemies are quick to throw at your head, as an unanswerable argument, "He who tries to play the angel, plays the fool."

But he continues:—

Many play the fool who have never tried to play the angel. They have not fallen into the mud because they tried to fly too high, but because they began too low down.... A society which permits license in youth, and counsels it, degrades love.... Sin against love at its base,—in youth,—and the life of the whole nation is torn, and suffers immeasurably.... The rule of conduct here is chastity Every infraction is a sin. Though this law may seem difficult and severe, it is the only safe one. Morality without it is but rubbish.[48]

A start has been made. During the last decade, we have declared that we must no longer have two standards of purity, one for the man and another for the woman. We recognize a difference between the nature of the man and the nature of the woman; but as our goal and as our standard for practical life, we have abandoned "the double standard." This is a great advance, for our young people as a whole measure up fairly well to standards which society as a whole sets for them. It is entirely within reason to expect a large majority of our boys to reach full maturity and marriage with an absolutely clean record, as far as personal and social purity are concerned. In fact, we should be constantly working toward a time when the personally impure boy and the socially impure young man will be eliminated. Both the men and the women of our nation must demand this.

There are many ways by which we may guide and help the adolescent. Only the abnormal boy is not active and curious. If we do not provide wholesome activity, boys are likely to find activity which is destructive in its influence. Therefore, we must do far more than mitigate bad influences. We must plan proper regimen. We must supply a steady succession of constructive activities as well as definite instruction to satisfy curiosity. No other course will do.

In the matter of regimen, wholesome food, sufficient sleep, proper clothing, bathing, fresh air, and physical exercise are of great importance. The life and energy and passion of the adolescent boy must not be checked, but diverted into wholesome and constructive channels.

Excessive mental labor, a sedentary life, pernicious reading, idleness, can transform into a tormenting and persistent desire that which, without it would have been easily mastered. On the other hand, a healthful regimen, energetic habits, amusements and physical fatigue are diversions so useful that, thanks to them, the most critical years pass by unnoticed.[49]

A daily cold shower, followed by a vigorous rubdown, is beneficial if the boy reacts favorably to it. The bath, acts as a sedative.

The value of gymnasium work, track and field athletics, swimming, and "hiking" is constantly demonstrated in the lives of American boys.

Athletics are to be recommended as possessing a positive prophylactic value against the indulgence of sensual propensities. Physical exercise serves as an outlet for the superabundant energy which might otherwise be directed toward the sexual sphere. In the period of "storm and stress" which characterizes pubescence and which often leads to nervous perturbation and excitement ... there is no better divertitive from sexual thoughts than active athletic exercises pushed to the point of physical fatigue, as a relief to nerve tension.[50]

In addition, physical exercise tends to develop an ambition to excel, to become physically strong and robust. With such an ambition, boys realize, intuitively to a certain extent, that to succeed they must refrain from vice. Physical exercise has a fourfold moral value: it substitutes wholesome activity for vice; it serves as an outlet for excess of nervous energy; it develops the will; it develops ambition to be virile. All wholesome recreation is an enemy of impurity. Jane Addams says that recreation is stronger than vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice.[51] Recreation which involves physical activity is the most helpful to the adolescent boy.

The boy's companions are important. Emerson says, "You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him."[52] Books which contain high ideals of manhood and also of womanhood are obviously helpful, as are also dramas of this character. And finally those general principles of moral and religious education must be used, without which we can have no strong foundation for clean living.

If we have failed to give proper instruction previous to adolescence, we now have a golden opportunity (and in thousands of cases, our last opportunity) to save the adolescent to a life of purity. As a rule, he has ideas of sex life which are, at least, unwholesome. Curiosity is at a high pitch, and passion is likely to be strong. Nevertheless, the ambitions and ideals of a boy at adolescence are high. He will fight to be clean if he understands that clean living means the acquisition of strength. He would rather have virility than anything else in the world.

As to method, let us deal with the boy as a creature with reason. The best plan is to place before boys a standard of virile manhood, and then to show how such a standard may be met by clean living. Real characters who have achieved high standards of vigor should be shown as heroes worthy of imitation. Lincoln is known by most adolescent boys to have been a man of great physical strength. He was "a man without vices, even in his youth, but full even in ripe age of the sap of virility."[53] The effect of clean living upon nations may also be spoken of. Charles Kingsley writes of the Teuton:[54]—

It was not the mere muscle of the Teuton which enabled him to crush the decrepit and debauched slave nations.... It had given him more, that purity of his: it had given him, as it may give you, gentlemen, a calm and steady brain, and a free and loyal heart; the energy which comes from self-restraint; and the spirit which shrinks from neither God nor man, and feels it light to die for wife and child, for people and for Queen.

Because thousands of our boys are now growing into manhood who will never receive the advantages of such a plan as we hope will be worked out during the next decade,—boys who are now at the danger point,—an emergency exists that must be met in the best way possible. For these boys, we are now forced to give single talks or short series of talks. Just what facts should be mentioned in a talk to any particular group of boys is a matter which must always be governed by the age, development, and environment of the boys concerned.

The first task for a teacher or a speaker giving a single lesson or a series of lessons is to set up a high standard of manhood. The lessons may concern the development and the conservation of virility. The teacher may explain that virility means not only muscular strength but endurance, energy, will power, and courage; and that in addition to these, a true man has chivalry,—he is concerned for the welfare of others, especially for the safety of women and children. He must possess more than physical prowess; he must possess human virtues or he is no better than a brute. The need for the conservation of virility in the race as well as in the individual should be explained. Boys should see that the conservation of virility in men is of far more importance than the conservation of our water-power or our mines,—that we owe a duty not only to ourselves, but to the nation and to the next generation.

A statement somewhat like the following can then be made: "It is our duty to pass on to the next generation at least a little more vitality than we inherited from the past generation. It is, therefore, important that we understand the main facts of reproduction, so that now we may live right and make no mistakes which may cause us to reproduce inferior children when we mature." The speaker may then describe the wonderful and beautiful process of reproduction in plants, and explain that human reproduction is a similar process.

Under the subject of the development of virility, much time should be spent upon a discussion of various ways by which virility can be developed. The relative values of various kinds of physical exercise, proper eating, the value of fresh air and of sufficient rest should be emphasized. It may then be said that in addition to these things an important source of virility is the absorption of the secretions of various glands by the blood.

The speaker may make a statement similar to this: "When our bodies were designed, we were given reproductive organs for two different and distinct purposes. We have referred to the second and final purpose of reproduction. You already knew more or less about that. The earlier function of the reproductive organs is not understood by most boys. It is this: the rebuilding of boys into men. The first purpose and, in some respects, the most important purpose of the reproductive organs is to rebuild a boy into a man. It would be absolutely impossible for us to become men were it not for these organs. I will explain this by three illustrations."

These three illustrations are generally very effective: an explanation of the influence of the thyroid gland upon development; a comparison of two horses, one of which was castrated when a colt; and the effect of castration upon boys in Oriental countries.

The speaker may then say that the testicles do two things: first, manufacture the male germ cells, spermatozoa, which are the most highly potentialized and highly energized portions of matter in all living nature; and, second, secrete a substance that is absorbed by the blood, giving tone to the muscle, power to the brain and strength to the nerves. It should be made clear that this is one of the great sources of virility. From the illustrations referred to, a boy is likely to draw conclusions regarding the vital importance of the functions of the testicles and regarding any possible misuse of them. It may be well at this point to use a cross-section drawing showing the scrotum, the testicle, the seminal vesicle, and the bladder.[55] Some teachers will consider it desirable to add that some boys, who do not understand the high purposes of these organs, misuse them; that when such boys realize their mistake, if they stop absolutely and at once, nature comes to the rescue and restores virility.

The talks should be essentially constructive. To warn boys against horrible effects of masturbation and to tell them things not to do is a poor method. It is far better to explain that by keeping clean a boy may acquire virility. The boy can draw conclusions.

In referring to the normality of seminal emissions, it should be explained that the fluid excreted by a nocturnal seminal emission comes from the seminal vesicles up in the body. This will show that the loss of fluid involved in a nocturnal emission is different from the loss caused by masturbation.[56] In this connection, boys should be warned against quack doctors; also against their advertisements which are often worded to scare the ignorant.

The venereal diseases should be referred to in talks to adolescent boys. In this connection, the four sex lies may be vigorously contradicted. These are (1) that gonorrhea is no worse than a bad cold; (2) that sexual intercourse is necessary for the preservation of health; (3) that emissions are dangerous and lead to debility, lost manhood, and insanity; and (4) that one standard of morality is right for men and another for women.

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:—

In our attitude toward the boy, we must show him that we respect him, that we have faith and confidence in him, and expect great things of him. We should meet him on the level of a boy's everyday interests in sport, use simple language, and no unnecessary technical terms. Some workers with boys unwisely force confessions of guilt. We should respect the boy's right of privacy.

When we deal with boys in the mass, the grouping is difficult. Boys who have reached the period of puberty should be in a separate group from pre-pubescents, and boys who are well advanced in adolescence—those who have been pubescent for two or three years—should be taught in still a third group. This applies to single talks as well as to courses of instruction.

As far as we know the best basis of division between the pubescent and pre-pubescent boy (when physical examinations are not possible) is the change of voice. Only one who understands these matters well and knows the boys should do the grouping. Even such a man should not adopt an arbitrary basis of grouping but must take one boy at a time and place him in the group for which he seems best fitted.

We should endeavor to include the father in our plans of sex instruction and be careful not to break down such confidence as exists between father and son. We shall find that only a small proportion of fathers give their sons any instruction in sexual matters, and that it is difficult to stir them to action. In one investigation, it was found that one hundred boys out of one hundred and twenty-one had received no sex instruction from their fathers.[57]

When confidence between father and son does exist, we should help the father rather than relieve him of his task. It is difficult to discover fathers who have confidential relations with their boys unless each family is dealt with separately. The Oregon Social Hygiene Society has conducted father and son meetings, and has required the father either to accompany the boy or sign a card signifying his willingness to have his son attend. Few fathers have attended, sometimes none at all. On one occasion there were thirty-five boys and not one father.[58] Requiring permission may be regarded as an assumption that the talk is questionable; and, furthermore, the requiring of special permission is likely to create an undesirable attitude on the part of the boy. Plans for father and son meetings which will be free from these objections will possibly be developed by other schools or social hygiene societies. Our aim is so to educate one generation of boys that when they become fathers they will inform their son regarding these sacred relationships and functions of life.

The boy is normally clean and wholesome. His first question regarding the origin of life is a good question. When denied wholesome information, the further investigation which often follows is indicative of desirable qualities of character. Later, though disturbed by false ideas which have been forced upon him, he still wishes to be clean and strong. He desires to master low passions. He would rather have muscular strength and endurance and energy and will power and courage and chivalry than any amount of money. He shudders at the thought of causing suffering to an innocent woman or child. He would sacrifice his life for the girl whom he regards as the personification of loveliness and purity. If we will but deal with him fairly and honestly, he will see in birth an ever-recurring miracle; he will regard his body as a sacred temple; he will see in sex power a source of richer and fuller life; he will respect women; he will regard marriage as the most sacred relationship in life. Thus noble manhood, a nation's greatest asset, will in large measure be achieved.