The next information and guidance needed by our boys and girls concerns the influence of sex upon their own development. The objection is continually raised that it is not well for little children to have sex thoughts emphasized in their minds. But at present no boy or girl grows up and plays among other children, or hears talk on the streets, or goes to work in factory or store, without hearing these facts emphasized day by day, emphasized unhealthily and distorted shamefully. We propose simply to have the emphasis shifted and lightened for it will be lightened if the facts are given truly and in right relations. Boys and girls should learn, at the same time they are learning facts of nutrition, excretion, respiration, and circulation of the blood, those facts regarding sex which are most important for healthy growth of mind and body. They should know that the organs of reproduction have a definite relation to the natural and healthful development of the full powers of their bodies in future years; that internal secretions of these organs coming into the blood help to build up bones and muscles, help to make their nerve fibers active and vigorous, help to form their brains, and help to equip them for manly strength and womanly grace in the years that are to come. These are very simple matters. These facts of sex can be conveyed by just a few sentences of clear, considerate, wise information at the right time, in relation to the other facts of bodily development.
Considering now the period of puberty, we find additional needs, for no boy or girl reaches puberty, under ordinary conditions, without knowing that it brings the possibility of fatherhood and motherhood, brings the possibility of that process that we call fertilization, in which the life of plants and animals begins. The boy or girl who reaches this age has a right to know what fertilization means, and what fertilization implies; has a right to the simple biological facts which will tell him the relation between the life of the parents and the life of the child, the mysterious relation in body and mind that we call heredity. The beginning of the socializing of sex energy and sex power depends upon recognition of the fact that this power that develops in the young man and young woman at puberty is not to be used for selfish gratification, is not primarily a source of pleasure, but has a very direct relation to the health, intelligence, and happiness of others. This relation may be enforced by a simple study of succeeding generations of flowers and the ways in which forms, colors, and sizes originate and are handed down from generation to generation in wonderful variety. Or it may be illustrated from an observation of the beginnings of sex in infusoria; how tiny animals in stagnant water grow to full size and each divides simply into two to form a new generation; how this simple asexual process continuing for several generations results in growing weakness and old age, steadily decreasing size, steadily decreasing vitality until there comes a time when one infusorian unites with another. There sex begins. That union of two individuals is required to restore youth, to refresh vitality and energy, and to produce greater variety in the forms of life. When a boy or girl knows these simple facts, he is better able to understand the power of reproduction than he can possibly be if they are not before him, or if all he has heard has been ceaseless reiteration of the pleasures of selfish indulgence of sex appetite.
Finally, when the boy and the girl come into later adolescence and face manhood and womanhood, they are ready to know some of the larger social aspects of sex. They are ready to know of the diseases brought on by perverted sex habits; of the frightful waste of those who give themselves to licentiousness, the frightful waste of strength and youthful energy not only in those that actually go down, but in those that survive. More than that, seeking right relations of themselves to society, they need to know the social aspects of sex. The young man needs to know what it means for a woman to bear a child; he needs to know the social and economic dependence of the pregnant woman and of the young mother, so that he may realize what the power of fatherhood means in the actual work of society. I cannot imagine any man talking glibly of the necessary evil, or of man's inability to control sex passions, if he knows the social facts of sex. Any young man who knows even a part of the burden his mother bore for him, if he has a spark of manhood in his being, is surely fortified against temptation to selfish indulgence. If, beyond that, he can see the relation of the home to society, the relative steadiness and dependability of a worker with a wife and children, who bears the home burdens in a man's way, as compared with the floating, homeless wanderer who walks our streets; if he knows these central facts and the dependence of the home upon the faithfulness of the man and the presence of the man, if he has a spark of patriotism in his heart, he must realize in his thought and in his practice the necessity for the socialization of that passion which, though it begin in individual and selfish forms, issues in such fateful social consequences.
The solution of this great, urgent, pressing problem, which we are feeling the weight of more and more in these years of careful investigation of our social conditions, will come in frankly recognizing the beginnings upon which the whole sex life in mind and body is based, and in transforming fundamentally important animal instincts and desires into higher affections, humanizing them for the sake of the loved one, for the sake of family, for the sake of the social brotherhood and sisterhood in which we are members.
My closing word is one which seems to me most significant of the true, the beautiful, the victorious way out of so much discouragement and so much crime,—that is the word "consecration." That word includes two essential ideas, the ideas of sacredness and coöperation. The problems of sex will never be solved until the sacredness of sex is recognized, for sex is vitally and indissolubly bound up with the two greatest facts that you and I know. The greatest fact of the organized world around us is life, the greatest fact of the spiritual world into which we lift our souls is love, and the beginnings of life and the beginnings of love are in sex. No boy or girl will readily understand what life means except as he has some clear, wise teaching about sex; no boy or girl will fully understand what love means except through recognition of the dignity and worth and purity of the fundamental facts and powers of sex.
Who shall give this enlightenment? I think it must be clear that this enlightenment cannot be given by the very young and inexperienced person, that the facts can be rightly given only by some person who knows their sacredness for himself or herself. They can be given best by a mature person who has seen and felt what they mean. In the long run, I have no doubt that our boys and girls will get the information that they must have from their parents, for the father and the mother are the best qualified to give it. I have named both the father and the mother, for the solution of our problem is not only in knowing the sacredness of sex, it is also in working together for the elevation of sex life. We shall not be able, we men, in the future, to sit down and say, "Oh, well, John will learn from his mother"; "Mary's mother will make that clear to her"; "Their mother does these things." It will not be possible for the socializing of the sex instincts and the ripening of the sex powers to be made clear to young people except as men and women both recognize the sacredness of the sex relation and undertake to make things clear to boys and girls. Men must give up their selfish indifference to evil conditions, and women—some women—must give up the bitterness and hardness that come into their hearts and their faces when they think of the suffering that their sex has endured at the hands of man. This is not a problem for one sex. It cannot be solved by either half of the great whole of humanity. We know this to be true in our personal life; it is equally true in our social life. It is only by the girding-up of the whole spirit of man to go forth and meet his duty as a lover, as a husband, as a father, and it is only by the girding-up of all the powers of the woman to lead and to help, that the family is organized. In this great human family of ours the man and the woman in days that are coming will coöperate to remove from our midst the blackest and most fearful perversion of the natural powers of our race. We do not believe in sitting down idly before this problem and saying, "It has always been, it always will be." In this great day of moral and spiritual progress, with powers that we have inherited from our forefathers in this land and other lands, we know that there is no necessary evil. We are learning what the evil of sex is, and how it arises, and we are beginning to use the forces at hand for its destruction. Conscience is kindling and determination is hardening among our people that this thing shall cease to be. The ape and the tiger shall yet die from our midst, and man's spirit shall triumph in his flesh.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] A. Forel, The Sexual Question, chap. xii, "Religion and Sexual Life"; William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, chap. i; especially the first footnote.
[60] F.W. Foerster, Marriage and the Sex Problem, chap. iv; especially section (d), "The Educational Significance of Monogamy."