Better reasons can be found for objecting to some other modes of association on the part of children of the two sexes. The most important of these are common dancing lessons and children's balls. These are not so recent a development as is often assumed. More than a century ago, Pockels,[137] the distinguished psychologist and educationalist, objected strongly to dancing parties for children, which commonly lasted, he tells us, from five o'clock in the afternoon till midnight, and sometimes even on into the small hours of the morning. Beyond question, the association of children in dances can by no means be regarded as more innocuous than coeducation, all the more in view of the fact that the children at such dances are often fairly old—towards the end of the second period of childhood, or in the early years of the period of youth. For my own part, the danger of children's balls appears to me to affect, not so much the sphere of sexual morality, as that of hygiene and general morality. As regards the danger to health, I have known parents who were always complaining of the way in which their children were overworked at school, and yet saw nothing wrong in these same children going to dancing lessons on two evenings every week.
In conclusion, I will report a case which proves that when children are inclined to sexual practices, they will find sufficient opportunity, even in the absence of coeducation. This was the case of a boy of eight and a girl of seven years, who stripped quite naked and got into bed together; from the fact that spots of blood were found on the bed-clothing, it appeared that very definite sexual malpractice had taken place. The girl's sexual history was followed up for three years after this. She showed herself much inclined to make sexual advances towards adults, pressing herself up against them in a way which innocent persons interpreted as manifesting the caressive inclinations of the child.
Having given this illustrative case, I must not omit to state that similar incidents may, of course, occur from time to time in connexion with the coeducation of children. But we must avoid the error of attributing to external chance-influences, such as coeducation, occurrences which are dependent upon the very nature of human beings; for such things happen whatever method of education be adopted. Naturally, the difference between the sexes must not be ignored; but in children the existence of sexual differentiation must not be incessantly and anxiously emphasised. Brothers and sisters, when they have reached a certain age, should certainly not be placed naked together in a bath. But this is to be avoided, not for fear lest thereby sexual excitement might result in the children, but because to do so would be in opposition to the customs of our time, and it is precisely by such contrasts with generally accepted customs, that the attention of children is aroused. Further, we may approve of the fact that in consequence of the movement for child-protection (Kinderschutz), the misuse of children in various ways—in the theatre, for example—has undergone a notable diminution. But in this matter also, the decisive factor is not exclusively the interest of sexual morality, but rather the rights of the children themselves. The same consideration applies, in part, to an earlier movement. In France, in the year 1848, the appearance of children on the stage was legally prohibited, one reason alleged for this enactment being the moral dangers resulting from the mixing of the sexes in such conditions, but reference was also made more particularly to the need for the better protection of the physical and mental powers of the children.[138]
I come now to the description of certain other mental influences necessary for the child. A very important point is that we should use our utmost endeavours to divert the child from the sexual impulse. The more the awakening of this impulse threatens to force itself upon the child's attention, the more necessary is it to bring into play the measured activity of other faculties and interests. We think here as much of methods of æsthetic culture, reading, and the theatre, as of bodily sports and games. At the same time, it must be our aim to cultivate the general strength of the will, since this is needed alike for the control of the sexual impulse, and for the overcoming of other temptations and passions. The general moral education of the child, the formation of its character, and the encouragement of a pursuit of ideal aims, are all also of the greatest possible importance in relation to sexual education. Nothing is better adapted to ensure personal happiness and a high moral standard, than the inculcation of idealism, which must on no account be confused with aloofness from the everyday affairs of the world.
By many persons, an especial stress is laid upon the value of religious education, for the purpose of directing in proper paths the sexual life of the child, and of giving help in the mastery of its temptations. But notwithstanding the fact that I value most highly a genuinely religious education, I feel that for the purposes just mentioned we cannot place much reliance upon that which in our schools of to-day passes by the name of religious education. I have been personally acquainted with too many persons brought up on "strictly religious" lines, adherents of the most diverse creeds, but chiefly Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, whose religious education has been of remarkably little use to them in this respect. Among children, I have known some who masturbated immoderately, and yet their progress in their religious studies was extraordinary. I have known of serious epidemics of masturbation, in some cases of mutual masturbation, in boarding-schools in which the day's work was always begun with prayers and hymns. Quite recently, another case has been reported to me, of a so-called exemplary school, where the educational methods had a strong religious trend, and yet seduction to mutual masturbation played a great part. In spite of these experiences, I do not dispute the fact that even in association with the modern methods of religious instruction—but not always in consequence of these—many have been withheld from masturbatory and other sexual acts. These cases fall into three groups. The first group consists of cases in which the sexual impulse is very weak, so that very little is requisite to prevent the occurrence of sexual practices. To the second group belong the cases of those who are kept in check by the fear of God's anger, which will be visited, they are taught in their lessons on religion, upon all unrighteous acts. The third group is comprised of those rare natures who are really profoundly inspired by religious ethical sentiments, and in whom even the ordinary unpractical methods of religious instruction have not been able to inhibit the development of genuinely religious feelings. These three groups may readily be recognised among adults as well as among children. But when I compare the number of the children and young persons making up these three groups with the number of those to whom religious instruction has been quite useless, I feel justified in a certain scepticism. I do not pretend to assert that those who have received religious instruction have become more immoral than the others; but I am certainly entitled to contest the assertion that religious instruction induces a loftier sexual morality. Indeed, a further limitation is needed here, and one to the discredit of religious instruction. A portion, even, of those persons comprising the exceptional cases just enumerated, have not thereby attained to spiritual peace. Tormented, and at times almost mastered, by the sexual impulse, they struggle unceasingly under the influence of terror lest they should commit a deadly sin by yielding to this impulse. The mental condition[139] of such persons—I speak chiefly of young men—is in some cases such that a doctor may well doubt if he be not justified in advising them to indulge in illegitimate sexual intercourse. I have myself never given such advice in these cases, nor do I intend to give it in similar cases in the future. I refrain from doing so on ethical grounds, which I have discussed in great detail in connexion with the sexual question in my work on Medical Ethics.[140] The physician has no right to advise his patient to the performance of an act which is regarded by the latter as a deadly sin. But all the more because I have felt unable to give such advice, do I feel it my duty to insist here upon the seamy side of the education by which this state of mind is induced.
My view that what is commonly called religious education does not as a rule help the subject to master the sexual impulse, has been forced upon me by the numerous confessions entrusted to me by persons who have received such an education. Very recently, I was shown a diary in which a young man, obviously very religious and pious, to whom God was the source of all hope, and who thanked God for His grace on every page, refers again and again to the fact that he has found himself unable to overcome the lower forms of sensuality. He writes: "In resisting this powerful sensual impulse, religion was of some help, but unfortunately not very much. When I was only twelve years of age, the impulse towards the lower forms of sensuality made its appearance, and speedily attained great intensity. Again and again I believed myself to be strong enough to withstand it, only to pass from a weak and inefficient resistance, to a profound fall." And later he writes: "But the lower sensuality persisted, however much and however often I resisted it. My imagination continually produced the horrible pictures. And though in desperate rage I clenched my teeth to drive them away, they always left traces in my soul, and from time to time I fell. How I have struggled, how I have fought! How often with tears have I sought God's protection and help, praising God with holy zeal and faith. In my room I knelt, praying for grace and strength. I write this, not for self-glorification, but to show you, dear reader, how terrible, how gigantic is the struggle for virtue."
Notwithstanding all that I have written, I do not for a moment dispute the fact that a religious education may effect admirable results, both in respect of sexual matters, and of others. Indeed, I am firmly convinced of this. But the religious education competent to do this does not consist merely of learning Bible texts by heart; nor is its chief aim the inculcation of precepts which are to-day impossible of fulfilment—as the child sees at every turn in the conduct of the members of its own environment. I refer to the religious education which has an internal reality, and arises spontaneously out of the demands of morality. I do not mean the sort of education which regards it as almost a disgrace that we come naked into the world; not the religious education which regards man as soiled by the fact that he is born from his mother's womb; nor that which considers every sexual act as essentially sinful, and asceticism as man's salvation. It is not religious education of such a kind that will have any good effect in the matter of sexual education; but that religious education only which is in complete accord with our ideas of morality, and which is based, not so much upon the historical and material contents of the Bible, as upon the internal and everlasting truths of religion.
The sexual dangers of the Bible have often been pointed out. But this work would be incomplete, if I omitted making a fresh reference to the matter. In the Bible, sexual processes are repeatedly mentioned. In the mind of the child a conflict inevitably arises when, on the one hand, he finds that everything of a sexual nature is diligently concealed from him, and, on the other, in the Holy Book which is put before him as the basis of his moral instruction, he finds that so much attention is paid to sexual things. It is not the actual accounts of sexual things in the Bible which constitute the danger, but the contrast between the plain speaking of the Bible in these matters, and the general affectation of secrecy outside its pages. An additional point of importance is the fact that in the Bible sexual topics are handled in a way which is by no means always delicate. I may recall the frequency with which the idea of the whore is employed for purposes of comparison; and I may refer also to the occasional use of strongly erotic language, as, for example, in the Song of Solomon. A further danger lies in the fact that the Bible contains descriptions of customs which are no longer in harmony with modern ideas; it suffices to mention the accounts of polygamy in the Old Testament. Unless the distinction between what is historical and what is truly religious is carefully explained to the child, the latter's moral ideas will very readily become confused.
In this connexion, I must also refer to the Catholic confessional, about which of late years a good deal has been written. I may recall the disquisitions on the moral teaching of Liguori. The father confessors have to read books in which are discussed the questions of casuistry with which they have to deal, in order to learn what authoritative decisions have been given regarding the concrete cases on which they are asked to pass judgment. In these books, sexual misconduct plays a leading part. This is also true of the confessional manuals written to assist the penitents in the discovery of their sins, in which sexual errors also find a place. Opinions as to the wisdom of giving such manuals to penitents are certainly very divergent. When we read the authoritative decisions, for the use of confessors, pronounced by Catholic theologians upon sexual faults, we are sometimes astonished at the practical insight displayed in these decisions; the opinions expressed must, indeed, often appear dubious to the strict moralist, and yet they are occasionally marvellously well adapted to the practical requirements of the case. In many instances, however, even this cannot be admitted; and however right from the practical point of view the decisions may sometimes be, we must not overlook the dangers of the confessional. Cases have been personally known to me in which, at the confessional, penitents have been cross-questioned in such a way about sexual details that unfavourable consequences were, in my opinion, extremely likely to ensue. This statement applies with equal force to the case of children, who have to go to confession as soon as they arrive at the "age of reason."[141] No one will dispute the assertion that the father-confessors gather much experience in the exercise of their profession, and that most of them possess sufficient tact to avoid asking improper questions. But to assert this of all of them would be to rush to the other extreme; and for the same reason that in the latter part of this chapter I shall express myself as opposed, at any rate in part, to sexual instruction in schools, do I think that to ask such questions of children as are sometimes asked in confession, may in certain circumstances lead to very undesirable results. When the child penitent describes to the confessor sexual faults (masturbation, &c.), however well intentioned the words of the confessor may be, it is impossible that they should be so individually adapted as is really necessary in such cases; and the detailed discussion of these matters which sometimes follows is open to grave objection. In what I have just said, it is far from my intention to attack one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church; but the matter is one to which it was necessary to allude, and I will merely add that the error must be avoided of taking as a basis for criticism much that is written with a party bias against the Catholic Church, and much also of the mockery of the confessional which abounds in erotic literature. For example, when Michelet[142] asserts that, in matters concerning love and the sexual life, a French girl of fifteen is as far advanced as an English girl of eighteen, and when he refers this to the effect of a Catholic education in accelerating the process of human development, it is necessary to observe that these far-reaching generalisations are not supported by any jot of proof.
In the earlier parts of this chapter, I have discussed certain questions belonging to the psychical sphere in their bearings upon sexual education. I have now to refer to two specialised methods of treatment: first of all, the one which has initiated the whole of the newer psychotherapy, namely, hypnotism; and, secondly, the psycho-analytic method. Hypnotism has been employed against all kinds of sexual processes, both in adults and in children. As far as children are concerned, it is masturbation, in especial, for the prevention of which hypnotic suggestion has been tried. When the child is old enough to be hypnotised, good results will occasionally be obtained; but in many other cases the desired end can unquestionably be attained without the induction of the hypnotic state, either by suggestion in the waking state, or else by the other methods to be described in the present chapter.