Second Lecture—How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of puberty.
Third Lecture—Adolescence: The Physiology and Anatomy of the Sex Organs and Methods of Sex Instruction.
Fourth Lecture—Hygiene: Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.
These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night address by the pastor of the church.
The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a Christian Physician.
Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field—boys and girls—should be discussed.
The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers or publicity. Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of the boy and girl that is in question. Keep away from muck-raking, be constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.
The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we desire social health among our boys and girls. The land is full of the plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools. The street reeks with the smut and filth of wrong sex knowledge, and our boys and girls are getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral. The Sunday school can help our common, public health by helping the parent. It should major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.
Sex Instruction for Boys
Great care should be exercised in the giving of sex instruction to boys of any age. In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a right to approach the boy on the subject. Even a father should make it his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before he becomes his boy's teacher. In the second place, books or pamphlets on the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the sex functions. Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too sentimental. There are a great many books on the market which had been better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned. The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form, and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would have with his son about his studies or work. The gush of sentiment plays havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the precipice, just to look over. First, there should be the spoken word concerning the function of the sex organs; and then, if the need is urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way. The less a boy thinks about these things the better. The instruction should be for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not for the purpose of giving him expert advice.