However, it matters nothing for our present purposes what may be the explanation of conditions of sexual promiscuity here or abroad. The one great fact is that our national code of morality is a monogamic one, approved as ideal even by many of those who fail to live strictly in harmony with its dictates. Hence, all Americans who are prominently interested in sex-education believe that it should aim to make our young people more ready to accept and understand morality according to the monogamic ideal.
Those who are interested in this problem of morality as related to marriage should read Foerster's "Marriage and the Sex Problem."
Relation of sex-hygiene and ethics.
Among those who see the need of teaching sex-ethics as a part of the larger outlook of sex-education, there are two points of view: (1) those who favor the teaching of sex-ethics with the hope of preventing the hygienic problems arising from immorality, and (2) those who believe in sexual morality for its own sake or as an accepted code of conduct.
The founders of the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis placed sanitation first in the name and stated in the constitution that "the object of this Society is to limit the spread of diseases which have their origin in the Social Evil. It proposes to study every means, sanitary, moral, and administrative, which promise to be most effective for this purpose." Most of the papers that have been read at the meetings of the Society have emphasized the sanitary aim as primary, and the moral aim as a means to the hygienic end; but in the past three years there has been a decided tendency towards placing emphasis upon morality, and recently the executive committee of the Society voted to propose the following revised statement: "The aim of this Society is to promote the appreciation of the sacredness of human sexual relation, and thereby to minimize the moral and physical evils resulting from ignorance and vice." This change of emphasis is well expressed in President Keyes's report to the Society (Journal, Vol. V, No. 1).
As to the relation between sex-hygiene and sex-ethics as phases of the larger sex-education, there has been much discussion. Several writers have contended that there is some conflict between sanitary and moral ends, but have failed to convince most readers that hygiene and ethics should not be associated in teaching. In fact, the most impressive sex-hygiene is that relating to social disease, and its value is chiefly in the ethical appeal for protection of innocent wives and children.
Dr. Cabot's view.
Most prominent of those who have declared that hygienic and moral teaching should be dissociated is Dr. Richard C. Cabot, of Boston. I shall discuss his point of view in connection with a later lecture on "Criticisms of Sex-education" (§ 46). In the present discussion of sexual morality as an important reason for sex-education, it is sufficient to say that Dr. Cabot seems to disagree with other teachers on the question of the influence of formal instruction on the morals of people.
Moral and hygienic problems.
Sex-education is now commonly understood to be attempting to solve the moral as well as the hygienic problems of sex. As suggested before, these two lines of problems are clearly related but not coincident; for sexual health and morals are not entirely coördinated. We must not overlook the possibility that the marvellous progress of bacteriological and medical science may some day largely reduce the health problems of sex without improving morality. In fact, sexual immorality that is hygienic does actually exist to a limited extent. Such facts indicate that while sex-education was first planned to solve health problems, the ultimate sex-education must attempt to guide sexual conduct by moral principles. This coming need of more emphasis on the moral problems of sex should be clearly foreseen by those who are interested in sex-education.