The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work

by Allan Hoben

As yet there is little consensus of opinion as to the best way of keeping him pure. Parents, educators, and religious leaders, however, are showing increased concern over this difficult problem, and there is good ground to believe that prudery and indifference must gradually give place to frank and intelligent consideration of this vital and difficult subject.

It must be granted, however, that it is as impossible as it is undesirable to keep the boy ignorant. His own natural curiosity, together with his school and street experience, are fatal to such a Fool's Paradise. Moreover, the general attitude of suppression and secrecy rather stimulates curiosity, and often amounts to the plain implication that everything that has to do with the perpetuation of our species is of necessity evil and shameful. This "conspiracy of silence" makes against true virtue. Religious instruction, based upon the confession of the repentant David, "Behold, I was begotten in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me," has helped to perpetuate a sinister attitude toward this whole question--an attitude not without some foundation in the moral history of man.

It has also been convenient and consistent, in support of the doctrine of man's depravity, to exploit this dark view so as to make him a fit subject for redemption. Somehow, the traditional "Fall" and procreation have been so associated in religious thinking that it has been practically impossible for the religious mind to entertain any favorable consideration of the physical conditions of human genesis. Very naturally that which is under the ban, being the seat of human sin, the bond that binds each generation to fallen Adamic nature, must take its place as surreptitious and evil--and never positively within the sanctioned and ordained agencies of God.

Does such an attitude contribute to man's highest good and to the strength and scope of religious control? Is it better to alienate and outlaw so important a phase of human existence or to bring it into intelligent accord with the divine will? Is it not conceivable that in this field, as in every other that is normal to human life, there will be a gain to humanity, and to the value of religion as a helper of mankind, by a frank attempt to bring the whole life to the dignifying conception of a reasonable service to one's Maker?

Granting that such an attempt is desirable, we come face to face with the necessity of imparting such information as will make the boy's way of duty plain, and will elevate the subject to a place of purity and religious worth. In this process of instruction, which is nothing less than a sacred responsibility, the most common fault of the parent, physician, teacher, and pastor is that of delay. By the time a boy is eight years of age, he should have been informed as to his residence within and his birth from his mother, and this in such a way as wonderfully to deepen his love for her, and to beget in him a respect for all women to the end of his life.

It is well that the mother should first inform him in that spirit of utmost confidence which shall preclude his indiscriminate talk with other people upon this subject. He should know, too, that further information will be given as he needs it, and that he can trust his parents to be frank and true with him in this as in everything else. By all means let the mother tell the story and not some unfortunately vicious or polluted companion. There are three reasons at least for informing him thus early in life. One is that sufficient curiosity has usually developed by this time, another is that the first information should come from a pure source, and a third is that this instruction should anticipate sex consciousness and the indecent language and suggestions of school and street.

In the same spirit will the father impart to the boy a little later the fact of the original residence within himself of the seed from which the boy grew. By the father's reverent treatment of the subject in the hour of a boy's confidence, and in response to his just curiosity, he may hallow forever the boy's conception of the marriage relation and emphasize the vast amount of tenderness and regard that is due every mother. For the boy to feel sure that he has been told the truth by his father, and to realize that his father regards these facts in an honorable and clean way, will rob a thousand indecent stories of their damage.

It belongs to the father to redeem the boy's idea of human procreation from obscenity, and, under right conditions, to have this process regarded by his boy as the most wonderful responsibility that falls to man. Sometime before the boy has reached thirteen, the father will have explained to him the facts and temptations of the pubescent period. The crime of allowing boys in middle and later adolescence to worry themselves sick over normal nocturnal emissions, and often to fall into the hands of the quack, or of the advocate of illicit intercourse, lies at the door of the negligent father.

The enervating results of self-abuse, the loss of manliness and self-respect, and the possible damage to future offspring will have weight in safeguarding the boy who has already been fortified by a high and just conception of the procreative power which is to be his. Moreover, in the severe battle that is waged for self-control, the boy should be given every aid of proper hygiene in clothing, sleeping conditions, baths, exercise, diet, and social intercourse. Plenty of exercise but not thorough exhaustion, good athletic ideals, a spare diet at night, good hours, and freedom from evil suggestion, entertainments, or reading; his time and attention healthfully occupied--these precautions, in addition to enlightenment as above indicated, will, if there are no conditions calling for minor surgery, go a long way toward preserving the boy's integrity under the temptations incident to sex life. It is to be feared that many boys have been wronged by the failure of parents and physicians to have some slight operation--either circumcision or its equivalent--performed in the early days of infancy.

Books on the subject are not best for the boy. They tend to make him morbid and often stimulate the evil which they seek to cure. Nor is it wise, prior to the age of fifteen, to open up the loathsome side of the subject, concerning the diseases that are the outcome of the social evil. After that age, talks by a reputable physician, pointing out the terrible results to oneself, his wife, and his descendants, may be fitting and helpful. The minister should make frequent use of the physician in having him address on different occasions the fathers and the mothers of the boys. To hold such meetings in the church building is an altogether worthy use of the institution.