It is the essential nature of truth or falsehood to express itself in practical action. This tendency is overlooked by the majority of human beings engaged in the eager pursuits of daily life, in business, in household duties, in amusements, and the logical results of false theories are, in practical life, often modified by the happy instincts which blindly turn aside the inevitable tendencies of logical error; but the truth or falsehood always remains as a great permanent force at work from age to age. In considering the means of attaining to a truer practice of morality, therefore, the spread of truth is a first indispensable necessity and condition of future improvement. The great truth to be recognised is the fact that male as well as female purity is a necessary foundation of progressive human society. This important subject must no longer be ignored. The time has come for its acceptance by all experienced men and women. The necessity of upholding one moral standard as the aim to be striven for, must become a fundamental article of religious faith. Above all, Parents must realize the tremendous responsibility which rests upon them to provide for the healthy growth of the principles of sex in their children.
It will be seen, the more closely this subject is investigated, that the thought and action of women as well as men, is indispensable to social regeneration. On women of all classes rests a full measure of responsibility for the present evil condition of sexual relations. No class can throw off this responsibility. Women are equally responsible with men for the deep corruptions of society. This is pre-eminently a parents’ question, affecting the vital interests of the family and the future of children in every relation of life; woman, from her central position in the family as wife and mother, must know how to use her immense influence wisely. To be wise, knowledge of truth is essential, and the adult woman, the centre of home influence, must acquire correct knowledge on every subject that concerns family life. The nature and requirements of men and women is a subject on which a woman needs correct knowledge, not only as a guide to the education of the young child, but as a guide in the various duties of life. A woman is mother always, not only of the infant, but of the growing and grown man. A mother who has been able to secure the friendship of her son as well as her daughter, can exercise a beneficial influence from youth onwards which will be recognised with ceaseless gratitude in later life.[38] The higher influence which women are intended to infuse into sex makes the subject a holy one to the wise mother. She can approach it in moments of sacred confidence with her children with a delicacy and tender earnestness that wounds no natural reserve, but excites a grateful reverence in the youth’s mind. The first falsehood, therefore, that must disappear is the belief that the higher classes of women—the cultivated, the refined, the virtuous—have nothing to do with sexual vice; that they must remain ignorant of facts, and see nothing but what it is pleasant to see. It is on this class of women, perhaps, more than on any other one class of society that its future welfare depends.[39] They are capable of broad views of truth, of insight, of ceaseless devotion to the highest welfare of the race, to God, when once they have learned to know what truth is; when they have realized the actual facts of every-day life and observed the effects of prevalent customs upon women as well as upon men. The task of regenerating society by securing the healthy growth of the faculty of sex in their children being, therefore, laid upon both parents, the indispensable co-operation of the mother in this work is seen more clearly, as the causes of sexual precocity and the triumph of the material nature over love are studied more deeply.
The fact being established that the human being is not designed by Providence to be the slave of passion, what are the causes which produce that disease of licentiousness—as truly disease as drunkenness or opium-eating—which we find to be more completely organized and more audaciously justifying itself than at any previous time, the dangerous peculiarity of the present age being that customs and habits, formerly blindly followed, are now defended or legalized?
We shall find, on considering the influence at work on the human being from childhood upward (laying aside for the moment the question of heredity), obvious sources of corruption that help us to the solution of this difficult problem. ‘The temptations of life’ to which our youth succumb are no fixed things essential to human nature. They vary in every age and country. They are changeable facts, removable evils, perversions of natural tastes. The human race can grow out of license into order, out of prostitution into marriage, out of lust into love, as certainly as typhoid fever can be exterminated by pure water and pure air. It is from childhood that the strong man is moulded gradually into the hero—or the criminal. If the superior standard of morality which is still to be found amongst us, be compared with the customs widely diffused in many other countries, it will be seen how variable the standard of morality is, and how dependent it is on social circumstance—i.e., on removable conditions.[40] These corrupting circumstances of life surround the individual at every stage of growth from youth onwards. They are found in early habits and influences; in mischievous school companions and studies; in vile literature, books, advertisements, pictures; in indecent theatre, ballet, public amusements; in opportunity and temptation; in drink and dissipated companions; in perverted social sentiment, false medical advice, delayed or unhappy marriage—these are the snares which meet the human being, and which may gradually pervert the nature. Now, there is not one of these facts that is an essential part of human nature. There is not one that cannot be changed to good. Each one of the evils above named is an evil to be attacked and vanquished, and the wise method of doing this, is a distinct command and work of practical religion.
The following points bearing on the moral education of childhood and youth must be considered by all parents who are convinced of the saving value of sexual morality—viz., observation of the child during infancy, acquirement of the child’s confidence, selection of young companions, care in the choice of a school and of studies which will not injure the mind, the formation of tastes, outdoor exercise, companionship of brothers and sisters, the choice of physician, social intercourse, and amusements. These various points require careful consideration.
The earliest duty of the parent is to watch over the infant child. Few parents are aware how very early evil habits may be formed, nor how injurious the influence of the nurse often is to the child.[41] The mother’s eye, full of tenderness and respect, must always watch over her children. Self-respect cannot be too early inculcated. The keynote of moral education is respect for the human body. The mother should caution the child plainly not to touch or meddle with himself more than is necessary; that his body is a wonderful and sacred thing, intended for important and noble ends; that it must not be played or trifled with, or in any way injured. Every thoughtless breach of delicacy should be checked with a gentle gravity which will not repel or abash, but impress the child.
This watchfulness over the young child, by day and night, is the first duty to be universally inculcated. Two things are necessary in order to fulfil it—viz., a clear knowledge of the evils to which the child may be exposed, and tact to interpret the faintest indication of danger and to guard from it without allowing the child to be aware of the danger. Evils should never be presented to the young child’s mind. Habits must be formed from earliest infancy, but reasons for those habits should only be given much later. It is the parent’s intelligence which must act for the child during very early life. This unavoidable necessity is, at the same time, a cause of frequent failure in education, for the reason that parents, through ignorance or egotism, fail to see that they must study the nature of the child. The strong adult too often fails in insight, and imposes its own methods and conclusions upon a nature not susceptible of those methods and often not adapted to those conclusions. This is really spiritual tyranny, and destroys the providential relation which should exist between child and adult. The parent should become the first and truest friend of the child. This possibility and duty is a great parents’ privilege, too often unknown, and yet it affects the whole future of the child. It is through the love and confidence that exist between them that durable influence is exerted. If the child naturally confides its little joys and sorrows to the ever-ready and intelligent sympathy of the mother, if it grows up in the habit of turning to this warm and helpful influence, the youth will come as naturally with his experiences and plans to the parent as did the little child; the evils of life, which must be gradually known, will then be encountered with the aid of experience. The form of the relation between parent and child changes, not its essence. The essence of the relationship is trust: the fact that the parent’s presence will always be welcomed by the child; that in work or in play, in infancy or youth, the parent shall be the first natural friend. It is only then that wise, permanent influence can be exerted. It is not dogmatism, nor rigid laws, nor formal instruction, that is needed, but the formative power of loving insight and sympathy. It is only when this providential relation exists that the parent can understand the life of the child and exercise influence without harshness. With every step in life the child’s horizon enlarges, and opportunities of good or temptations to evil increase. The experiences of school-life, the companions selected, the studies pursued, and the books read, introduce the child into the wide world of practical life in miniature. All the circumstances of school-life are of serious importance—an importance not sufficiently realized in their bearing upon character, and in the responsibility which rests with parents themselves, to mould those circumstances. The child’s entrance upon school-life is his first plunge into the great world beyond the family circle, his first serious contact with new thoughts, customs, and standards—with a new code of morality; not the formal morality of his professors, but the confused practical morality of his school companions. Here he may meet with every kind of evil, of which he had previously no conception, carried on in a crude, practical form by those whom he naturally looks up to—his elder companions, who are perhaps rich and clever, and whom he regards as ‘men.’ How is the child strengthened to meet this grand new life, as it seems to him, which entrances him with its novelty, its variety, and its vigour, and which very often produces a feeling of kindly contempt for the narrow home life?
Full confidence between parent and child is necessary in order that all the child is learning may be known. This school world, unlike the larger world, is directly under the possibility of parental control. What parents, as a body, require, the teacher will endeavour to provide. The material arrangements and regulations, as well as the moral tone of any school to which a child is sent, must be considered. It being remembered that the great vices of self-abuse and fornication are the curse of our schools and colleges, all the direct and indirect means must be sought for by which these vices can be as rigidly excluded from our educational establishments as the vice of thieving. School and college sentiment should be trained to regard them as equally dishonourable and unmanly. They must be overcome chiefly by moral means in connection with hygienic arrangements. The views of the principal on the subject of sexual training, the character of assistant-teachers, the water-closet and sleeping arrangements, the amount of outdoor exercise secured, should all be studied by the conscientious parent.
Some direct hygienic instruction and warning, suited to the age of the child, should be given. It is a false and cruel delicacy which ignores the great danger of schools, and sends an innocent child utterly unprepared into a school society where corruption exists. ‘I believe,’ writes an experienced teacher of lads, ‘that ninety-nine hundredths of the immorality that prevails amongst young men originates primarily in ignorance and perverted curiosity.’ He therefore lays down the following practical rules for the hygienic instruction which he deems indispensable: First, that the physiology of sex should be carefully subordinated to general physiology and hygiene, and that it should always be treated comparatively. Secondly, that all instruction and examination should be oral and in class, no text-books being given to the pupils, the utmost simplicity and plainness of speech being employed, and only outline diagrams used as pictorial illustrations.[42]
The rational view of education—viz., the formation of character and the establishment of well-balanced health, as fundamental objects to which other things should be added—require such a revision of our school system as will secure correct physical habits, and, above all, mental purity. This sound basis of education must be insured in all places where children congregate together. Careful arrangements to promote these ends are equally necessary in boys’ and girls’ schools. They promote alike true manliness and true womanliness.