Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6

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Title: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6

Author: Havelock Ellis

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME 6 ***

STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME VI

Sex in Relation to Society

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927

PREFACE.

In the previous five volumes of these _Studies_, I have dealt mainly with
the sexual impulse in relation to its object, leaving out of account the
external persons and the environmental influences which yet may powerfully
affect that impulse and its gratification. We cannot afford, however, to
pass unnoticed this relationship of the sexual impulse to third persons
and to the community at large with all its anciently established
traditions. We have to consider sex in relation to society.

In so doing, it will be possible to discuss more summarily than in
preceding volumes the manifold and important problems that are presented
to us. In considering the more special questions of sexual psychology we
entered a neglected field and it was necessary to expend an analytic care
and precision which at many points had never been expended before on these
questions. But when we reach the relationships of sex to society we have
for the most part no such neglect to encounter. The subject of every
chapter in the present volume could easily form, and often has formed, the
topic of a volume, and the literature of many of these subjects is already
extremely voluminous. It must therefore be our main object here not to
accumulate details but to place each subject by turn, as clearly and
succinctly as may be, in relation to those fundamental principles of
sexual psychology which--so far as the data at present admit--have been
set forth in the preceding volumes.

It may seem to some, indeed, that in this exposition I should have
confined myself to the present, and not included so wide a sweep of the
course of human history and the traditions of the race. It may especially
seem that I have laid too great a stress on the influence of Christianity
in moulding sexual ideals and establishing sexual institutions. That, I am
convinced, is an error. It is because it is so frequently made that the
movements of progress among us--movements that can never at any period of
social history cease--are by many so seriously misunderstood. We cannot
escape from our traditions. There never has been, and never can be, any
"age of reason." The most ardent co-called "free-thinker," who casts aside
as he imagines the authority of the Christian past, is still held by that
past. If its traditions are not absolutely in his blood, they are
ingrained in the texture of all the social institutions into which he was
born and they affect even his modes of thinking. The latest modifications
of our institutions are inevitably influenced by the past form of those
institutions. We cannot realize where we are, nor whither we are moving,
unless we know whence we came. We cannot understand the significance of
the changes around us, nor face them with cheerful confidence, unless we
are acquainted with the drift of the great movements that stir all
civilization in never-ending cycles.

In discussing sexual questions which are very largely matters of social
hygiene we shall thus still be preserving the psychological point of view.
Such a point of view in relation to these matters is not only legitimate
but necessary. Discussions of social hygiene that are purely medical or
purely juridical or purely moral or purely theological not only lead to
conclusions that are often entirely opposed to each other but they
obviously fail to possess complete applicability to the complex human
personality. The main task before us must be to ascertain what best
expresses, and what best satisfies, the totality of the impulses and ideas
of civilized men and women. So that while we must constantly bear in mind
medical, legal, and moral demands--which all correspond in some respects
to some individual or social need--the main thing is to satisfy the
demands of the whole human person.

It is necessary to emphasize this point of view because it would seem
that no error is more common among writers on the hygienic and moral
problems of sex than the neglect of the psychological standpoint. They may
take, for instance, the side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual
unrestraint, but they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate
for the needs of complex human beings. From the wider psychological
standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate opposing impulses that
are both alike founded on the human psychic organism.

In the preceding volumes of these _Studies_ I have sought to refrain from
the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as
possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this endeavor, I trust, I have
been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the
sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, not less of the
rationalistic free-thinker than of the orthodox believer, of those who
accept, as well as of those who reject, our most current standards of
morality. This is as it should be, for whatever our criteria of the worth
of feelings and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what
exactly are the feelings of people and how those feelings tend to affect
their conduct. In the present volume, however, where social traditions
necessarily come in for consideration and where we have to discuss the
growth of those traditions in the past and their probable evolution in the
future, I am not sanguine that the objectivity of my attitude will be
equally clear to the reader. I have here to set down not only what people
actually feel and do but what I think they are tending to feel and do.
That is a matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously
it is approached; it cannot be a matter of absolute demonstration. I trust
that those who have followed me in the past will bear with me still, even
if it is impossible for them always to accept the conclusions I have
myself reached.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother
the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense
Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause
in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature
Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The
Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During
Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic
Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the
Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries.

CHAPTER II.

SEXUAL EDUCATION.

Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious Manifestations of the
Sexual Impulse--Are they to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of
Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town Children More
Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning
the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual Education of Children
in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility--Evil
of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The Evil Magnified When
Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best Teacher--The Morbid
Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual
Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task--Sexual Education
in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual Education After
Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack Literature--Danger of
Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation--The Right
Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene
of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene Compatible with the
Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The Invalidism of Women
Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of Physical Training on
Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of Emotional
Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--Influence of These
Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and Addresses on Sexual
Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into
the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The
Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--The Sexual
Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art.

CHAPTER III.

SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS.

The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans Modified That
Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in Mediæval
Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the
Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement--Rise of a New
Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How
Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to
Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of Nakedness in
Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human Body as One of the
Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--The Moral Value of
Nakedness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE.

The Conception of Sexual Love--The Attitude of Mediæval Asceticism--St.
Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny--The Ascetic Insistence on the Proximity of
the Sexual and Excretory Centres--Love as a Sacrament of Nature--The Idea
of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions Generally--Theories of the
Origin of This Idea--The Anti-Ascetic Element in the Bible and Early
Christianity--Clement of Alexandria--St. Augustine's Attitude--The
Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body by Tertullian, Rufinus and
Athanasius--The Reformation--The Sexual Instinct Regarded as Beastly--The
Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like--Lust and Love--The Definition of
Love--Love and Names for Love Unknown in Some Parts of the World--Romantic
Love of Late Development in the White Race--The Mystery of Sexual
Desire--Whether Love is a Delusion--The Spiritual as Well as the Physical
Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love The Testimony of
Men of Intellect to the Supremacy of Love.

CHAPTER V.

THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY.

Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The Eighteenth Century Revolt
Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of Chastity--The
Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and Chastity as Savage
Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among Barbarous
Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with
the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediæval
Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the New Romance of Chaste Love--The
Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials--Influence of the
Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against Virginity as a
Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--The Influences That
Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--The Value of
Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in Popular Estimation--The
Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE.

The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency
of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their Result in Creating
the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual Abstinence in Women--The
Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--Unsatisfactory
Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the Conception of Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No
Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence Entirely Negative--Is
It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual
Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The
Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and
Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--Sexual Abstinence and
Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental
Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This Field--The Unreal
Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The Necessity of Replacing
It by a More Positive Ideal.

CHAPTER VII.

PROSTITUTION.

I. _The Orgy:_--The Religious Origin of the Orgy--The Feast of
Fools--Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans--The Orgy Among
Savages--The Drama--The Object Subserved by the Orgy.

II. _The Origin and Development of Prostitution:_--The Definition of
Prostitution--Prostitution Among Savages--The Conditions Under Which
Professional Prostitution Arises--Sacred Prostitution--The Rite of
Mylitta--The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion--The
Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece--Prostitution in the East--India,
China, Japan, etc.--Prostitution in Rome--The Influence of Christianity on
Prostitution--The Effort to Combat Prostitution--The Mediæval Brothel--The
Appearance of the Courtesan--Tullia D'Aragona--Veronica Franco--Ninon de
Lenclos--Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution--The Regulation of
Prostitution--Its Futility Becoming Recognized.

III. _The Causes of Prostitution:_--Prostitution as a Part of the Marriage
System--The Complex Causation of Prostitution--The Motives Assigned by
Prostitutes--(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution--Poverty Seldom the Chief
Motive for Prostitution--But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real
Influence--The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic
Service--Significance of This Fact--(2) The Biological Factor of
Prostitution--The So-called Born-Prostitute--Alleged Identity with the
Born-Criminal--The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes--The Physical and
Psychic Characters of Prostitutes--(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the
Existence of Prostitution--The Moral Advocates of Prostitution--The Moral
Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution--The Attitude of
Protestantism--Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of
Prostitution--(4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of Prostitution--The
Influence of Urban Life--The Craving for Excitement--Why Servant-girls so
Often Turn to Prostitution--The Small Part Played by Seduction--Prostitutes
Come Largely from the Country--The Appeal of Civilization Attracts Women
to Prostitution--The Corresponding Attraction Felt by Men--The Prostitute
as Artist and Leader of Fashion--The Charm of Vulgarity.

IV. _The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution:_--The Decay of the
Brothel--The Tendency to the Humanization of Prostitution--The Monetary
Aspects of Prostitution--The Geisha--The Hetaira--The Moral Revolt Against
Prostitution--Squalid Vice Based on Luxurious Virtue--The Ordinary
Attitude Towards Prostitutes--Its Cruelty Absurd--The Need of Reforming
Prostitution--The Need of Reforming Marriage--These Two Needs Closely
Correlated--The Dynamic Relationships Involved.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The
Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers
of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating Venereal
Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police Regulation--Necessity
of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of Venereal Diseases--Diseases
Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The Scandinavian
System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment For Transmitting
Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal
Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The
"Disgusting" Not the "Immoral".

CHAPTER IX.

SEXUAL MORALITY.

Prostitution in Relation to Our Marriage System--Marriage and
Morality--The Definition of the Term "Morality"--Theoretical Morality--Its
Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal Morality--Practical
Morality--Practical Morality Based on Custom--The Only Subject of
Scientific Ethics--The Reaction Between Theoretical and Practical
Morality--Sexual Morality in the Past an Application of Economic
Morality--The Combined Rigidity and Laxity of This Morality--The
Growth of a Specific Sexual Morality and the Evolution of Moral
Ideals--Manifestations of Sexual Morality--Disregard of the Forms of
Marriage--Trial Marriage--Marriage After Conception of Child--Phenomena in
Germany, Anglo-Saxon Countries, Russia, etc.--The Status of Woman--The
Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Equality of Women with Men--The Theory
of the Matriarchate--Mother-Descent--Women in Babylonia--Egypt--Rome--The
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries--The Historical Tendency
Favoring Moral Inequality of Woman--The Ambiguous Influence of
Christianity--Influence of Teutonic Custom and Feudalism--Chivalry--Woman
in England--The Sale of Wives--The Vanishing Subjection of
Woman--Inaptitude of the Modern Man to Domineer--The Growth of Moral
Responsibility in Women--The Concomitant Development of Economic
Independence--The Increase of Women Who Work--Invasion of the Modern
Industrial Field by Women--In How Far This Is Socially Justifiable--The
Sexual Responsibility of Women and Its Consequences--The Alleged Moral
Inferiority of Women--The "Self-Sacrifice" of Women--Society Not
Concerned with Sexual Relationships--Procreation the Sole Sexual Concern
of the State--The Supreme Importance of Maternity.

CHAPTER X.

MARRIAGE.

The Definition of Marriage--Marriage Among Animals--The Predominance of
Monogamy--The Question of Group Marriage--Monogamy a Natural Fact, Not
Based on Human Law--The Tendency to Place the Form of Marriage Above the
Fact of Marriage--The History of Marriage--Marriage in Ancient
Rome--Germanic Influence on Marriage--Bride-Sale--The Ring--The Influence
of Christianity on Marriage--The Great Extent of this Influence--The
Sacrament of Matrimony--Origin and Growth of the Sacramental
Conception--The Church Made Marriage a Public Act--Canon Law--Its Sound
Core--Its Development--Its Confusions and Absurdities--Peculiarities of
English Marriage Law--Influence of the Reformation on Marriage--The
Protestant Conception of Marriage as a Secular Contract--The Puritan
Reform of Marriage--Milton as the Pioneer of Marriage Reform--His Views on
Divorce--The Backward Position of England in Marriage Reform--Criticism of
the English Divorce Law--Traditions of the Canon Law Still Persistent--The
Question of Damages for Adultery--Collusion as a Bar to
Divorce--Divorce in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.--The United
States--Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for
Divorce--Divorce by Mutual Consent--Its Origin and Development--Impeded by
the Traditions of Canon Law--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Modern Pioneer
Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent--The Arguments Against Facility of
Divorce--The Interests of the Children--The Protection of Women--The
Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement--Marriage Not a Contract--The
Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years--Legal Disabilities and
Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife--Marriage Not a
Contract But a Fact--Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the
Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract--The Legal Recognition of
Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony--Contracts of the Person Opposed
to Modern Tendencies--The Factor of Moral Responsibility--Marriage as an
Ethical Sacrament--Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom--Freedom the
Best Guarantee of Stability--False Ideas of Individualism--Modern Tendency
of Marriage--With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private
Concern--Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother--How This Can be
Effected--The Firm Basis of Monogamy--The Question of Marriage
Variations--Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy--The Most Common
Variations--The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in
Check--Marriage Variations _versus_ Prostitution--Marriage on a Reasonable
and Humane Basis--Summary and Conclusion.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ART OF LOVE.

Marriage Not Only for Procreation--Theologians on the _Sacramentum
Solationis_--Importance of the _Art of Love_--The Basis of Stability in
Marriage and the Condition for Right Procreation--The Art of Love the
Bulwark Against Divorce--The Unity of Love and Marriage a Principle of
Modern Morality--Christianity and the Art of Love--Ovid--The Art of Love
Among Primitive Peoples--Sexual Initiation in Africa and Elsewhere--The
Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the Art of Love in Early
Life--Flirtation--Sexual Ignorance in Women--The Husband's Place in Sexual
Initiation--Sexual Ignorance in Men--The Husband's Education for
Marriage--The Injury Done by the Ignorance of Husbands--The Physical and
Mental Results of Unskilful Coitus--Women Understand the Art of Love
Better Than Men--Ancient and Modern Opinions Concerning Frequency of
Coitus--Variation in Sexual Capacity--The Sexual Appetite--The Art of Love
Based on the Biological Facts of Courtship--The Art of Pleasing Women--The
Lover Compared to the Musician--The Proposal as a Part of
Courtship--Divination in the Art of Love--The Importance of the
Preliminaries in Courtship--The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of
the Frigid Wife--The Difficulty of Courtship--Simultaneous Orgasm--The
Evils of Incomplete Gratification in Women--Coitus Interruptus--Coitus
Reservatus--The Human Method of Coitus--Variations in Coitus--Posture in
Coitus--The Best Time for Coitus--The Influence of Coitus in Marriage--The
Advantages of Absence in Marriage--The Risks of Absence--Jealousy--The
Primitive Function of Jealousy--Its Predominance Among Animals, Savages,
etc, and in Pathological States--An Anti-Social Emotion--Jealousy
Incompatible With the Progress of Civilization--The Possibility of Loving
More Than One Person at a Time--Platonic Friendship--The Conditions Which
Make It Possible--The Maternal Element in Woman's Love--The Final
Development of Conjugal Love--The Problem of Love One of the Greatest Of
Social Questions.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION.

The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love--Sexual
Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception--Reproduction
Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust--The Question of Procreation as a
Religious Question--The Creed of Eugenics--Ellen Key and Sir Francis
Galton--Our Debt to Posterity--The Problem of Replacing Natural
Selection--The Origin and Development of Eugenics--The General Acceptance
of Eugenical Principles To-day--The Two Channels by Which Eugenical
Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice--The Sense of Sexual
Responsibility in Women--The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood--The
Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood--Causes of the Degradation of
Motherhood--The Control of Conception--Now Practiced by the Majority of
the Population in Civilized Countries--The Fallacy of "Racial
Suicide"--Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?--Procreative
Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress--The Growth of
Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices--Facultative Sterility as Distinct
from Neo-Malthusianism--The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of
Conception--Preventive Methods--Abortion--The New Doctrine of the Duty to
Practice Abortion--How Far is this Justifiable?--Castration as a Method of
Controlling Procreation--Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics--The
Question of Certificates for Marriage--The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act
of Parliament--The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to
Heredity--Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood--The Conditions
Favorable to Procreation--Sterility--The Question of Artificial
Fecundation--The Best Age of Procreation--The Question of Early
Motherhood--The Best Time for Procreation--The Completion of the Divine
Cycle of Life.

CHAPTER I.

THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

A man's sexual nature, like all else that is most essential in him, is
rooted in a soil that was formed very long before his birth. In this, as
in every other respect, he draws the elements of his life from his
ancestors, however new the recombination may be and however greatly it may
be modified by subsequent conditions. A man's destiny stands not in the
future but in the past. That, rightly considered, is the most vital of all
vital facts. Every child thus has a right to choose his own ancestors.
Naturally he can only do this vicariously, through his parents. It is the
most serious and sacred duty of the future father to choose one half of
the ancestral and hereditary character of his future child; it is the most
serious and sacred duty of the future mother to make a similar choice.[1]
In choosing each other they have between them chosen the whole ancestry of
their child. They have determined the stars that will rule his fate.

In the past that fateful determination has usually been made helplessly,
ignorantly, almost unconsciously. It has either been guided by an
instinct which, on the whole, has worked out fairly well, or controlled by
economic interests of the results of which so much cannot be said, or left
to the risks of lower than bestial chances which can produce nothing but
evil. In the future we cannot but have faith--for all the hope of humanity
must rest on that faith--that a new guiding impulse, reinforcing natural
instinct and becoming in time an inseparable accompaniment of it, will
lead civilized man on his racial course. Just as in the past the race has,
on the whole, been moulded by a natural, and in part sexual, selection,
that was unconscious of itself and ignorant of the ends it made towards,
so in the future the race will be moulded by deliberate selection, the
creative energy of Nature becoming self-conscious in the civilized brain
of man. This is not a faith which has its source in a vague hope. The
problems of the individual life are linked on to the fate of the racial
life, and again and again we shall find as we ponder the individual
questions we are here concerned with, that at all points they ultimately
converge towards this same racial end.

Since we have here, therefore, to follow out the sexual relationships of
the individual as they bear on society, it will be convenient at this
point to put aside the questions of ancestry and to accept the individual
as, with hereditary constitution already determined, he lies in his
mother's womb.

It is the mother who is the child's supreme parent. At various points in
zoölogical evolution it has seemed possible that the functions that we now
know as those of maternity would be largely and even equally shared by the
male parent. Nature has tried various experiments in this direction, among
the fishes, for instance, and even among birds. But reasonable and
excellent as these experiments were, and though they were sufficiently
sound to secure their perpetuation unto this day, it remains true that it
was not along these lines that Man was destined to emerge. Among all the
mammal predecessors of Man, the male is an imposing and important figure
in the early days of courtship, but after conception has once been secured
the mother plays the chief part in the racial life. The male must be
content to forage abroad and stand on guard when at home in the
ante-chamber of the family. When she has once been impregnated the female
animal angrily rejects the caresses she had welcomed so coquettishly
before, and even in Man the place of the father at the birth of his child
is not a notably dignified or comfortable one. Nature accords the male but
a secondary and comparatively humble place in the home, the breeding-place
of the race; he may compensate himself if he will, by seeking adventure
and renown in the world outside. The mother is the child's supreme parent,
and during the period from conception to birth the hygiene of the future
man can only be affected by influences which work through her.

Fundamental and elementary as is the fact of the predominant position of
the mother in relation to the life of the race, incontestable as it must
seem to all those who have traversed the volumes of these _Studies_ up to
the present point, it must be admitted that it has sometimes been
forgotten or ignored. In the great ages of humanity it has indeed been
accepted as a central and sacred fact. In classic Rome at one period the
house of the pregnant woman was adorned with garlands, and in Athens it
was an inviolable sanctuary where even the criminal might find shelter.
Even amid the mixed influences of the exuberantly vital times which
preceded the outburst of the Renaissance, the ideally beautiful woman, as
pictures still show, was the pregnant woman. But it has not always been
so. At the present time, for instance, there can be no doubt that we are
but beginning to emerge from a period during which this fact was often
disputed and denied, both in theory and in practice, even by women
themselves. This was notably the case both in England and America, and it
is probably owing in large part to the unfortunate infatuation which led
women in these lands to follow after masculine ideals that at the present
moment the inspirations of progress in women's movements come mainly
to-day from the women of other lands. Motherhood and the future of the
race were systematically belittled. Paternity is but a mere incident, it
was argued, in man's life: why should maternity be more than a mere
incident in woman's life? In England, by a curiously perverted form of
sexual attraction, women were so fascinated by the glamour that surrounded
men that they desired to suppress or forget all the facts of organic
constitution which made them unlike men, counting their glory as their
shame, and sought the same education as men, the same occupations as men,
even the same sports. As we know, there was at the origin an element of
rightness in this impulse.[2] It was absolutely right in so far as it was
a claim for freedom from artificial restriction, and a demand for economic
independence. But it became mischievous and absurd when it developed into
a passion for doing, in all respects, the same things as men do; how
mischievous and how absurd we may realize if we imagine men developing a
passion to imitate the ways and avocations of women. Freedom is only good
when it is a freedom to follow the laws of one's own nature; it ceases to
be freedom when it becomes a slavish attempt to imitate others, and would
be disastrous if it could be successful.[3]

At the present day this movement on the theoretical side has ceased to
possess any representatives who exert serious influence. Yet its practical
results are still prominently exhibited in England and the other countries
in which it has been felt. Infantile mortality is enormous, and in England
at all events is only beginning to show a tendency to diminish; motherhood
is without dignity, and the vitality of mothers is speedily crushed, so
that often they cannot so much as suckle their infants; ignorant
girl-mothers give their infants potatoes and gin; on every hand we are
told of the evidence of degeneracy in the race, or if not in the race, at
all events, in the young individuals of to-day.

It would be out of place, and would lead us too far, to discuss
here these various practical outcomes of the foolish attempt to
belittle the immense racial importance of motherhood. It is
enough here to touch on the one point of the excess of infantile
mortality.

In England--which is not from the social point of view in a very
much worse condition than most countries, for in Austria and
Russia the infant mortality is higher still, though in Australia
and New Zealand much lower, but still excessive--more than
one-fourth of the total number of deaths every year is of infants
under one year of age. In the opinion of medical officers of
health who are in the best position to form an opinion, about
one-half of this mortality, roughly speaking, is absolutely
preventable. Moreover, it is doubtful whether there is any real
movement of decrease in this mortality; during the past half
century it has sometimes slightly risen and sometimes slightly
fallen, and though during the past few years the general movement
of mortality for children under five in England and Wales has
shown a tendency to decrease, in London (according to J.F.J.
Sykes, although Sir Shirley Murphy has attempted to minimize the
significance of these figures) the infantile mortality rate for
the first three months of life actually rose from 69 per 1,000 in
the period 1888-1892 to 75 per 1,000 in the period 1898-1901.
(This refers, it must be remembered, to the period before the
introduction of the Notification of Births Act.) In any case,
although the general mortality shows a marked tendency to
improvement there is certainly no adequately corresponding
improvement in the infantile mortality. This is scarcely
surprising, when we realize that there has been no change for the
better, but rather for the worse, in the conditions under which
our infants are born and reared. Thus William Hall, who has had
an intimate knowledge extending over fifty-six years of the slums
of Leeds, and has weighed and measured many thousands of slum
children, besides examining over 120,000 boys and girls as to
their fitness for factory labor, states (_British Medical
Journal_, October 14, 1905) that "fifty years ago the slum mother
was much more sober, cleanly, domestic, and motherly than she is
to-day; she was herself better nourished and she almost always
suckled her children, and after weaning they received more
nutritious bone-making food, and she was able to prepare more
wholesome food at home." The system of compulsory education has
had an unfortunate influence in exerting a strain on the parents
and worsening the conditions of the home. For, excellent as
education is in itself, it is not the primary need of life, and
has been made compulsory before the more essential things of life
have been made equally compulsory. How absolutely unnecessary
this great mortality is may be shown, without evoking the good
example of Australia and New Zealand, by merely comparing small
English towns; thus while in Guildford the infantile death rate
is 65 per thousand, in Burslem it is 205 per thousand.

It is sometimes said that infantile mortality is an economic
question, and that with improvement in wages it would cease. This
is only true to a limited extent and under certain conditions. In
Australia there is no grinding poverty, but the deaths of infants
under one year of age are still between 80 and 90 per thousand,
and one-third of this mortality, according to Hooper (_British
Medical Journal_, 1908, vol. ii, p. 289), being due to the
ignorance of mothers and the dislike to suckling, is easily
preventable. The employment of married women greatly diminishes
the poverty of a family, but nothing can be worse for the welfare
of the woman as mother, or for the welfare of her child. Reid,
the medical officer of health for Staffordshire, where there are
two large centres of artisan population with identical health
conditions, has shown that in the northern centre, where a very
large number of women are engaged in factories, still-births are
three times as frequent as in the southern centre, where there
are practically no trade employments for women; the frequency of
abnormalities is also in the same ratio. The superiority of
Jewish over Christian children, again, and their lower infantile
mortality, seem to be entirely due to the fact that Jewesses are
better mothers. "The Jewish children in the slums," says William
Hall (_British Medical Journal_, October 14, 1905), speaking from
wide and accurate knowledge, "were superior in weight, in teeth,
and in general bodily development, and they seemed less
susceptible to infectious disease. Yet these Jews were
overcrowded, they took little exercise, and their unsanitary
environment was obvious. The fact was, their children were much
better nourished. The pregnant Jewess was more cared for, and no
doubt supplied better nutriment to the foetus. After the children
were born 90 per cent. received breast-milk, and during later
childhood they were abundantly fed on bone-making material; eggs
and oil, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit entered largely into
their diet." G. Newman, in his important and comprehensive book
on _Infant Mortality_, emphasizes the conclusion that "first of
all we need a higher standard of physical motherhood." The
problem of infantile mortality, he declares (page 259), is not
one of sanitation alone, or housing, or indeed of poverty as
such, "_but is mainly a question of motherhood_."

The fundamental need of the pregnant woman is _rest_. Without a large
degree of maternal rest there can be no puericulture.[4] The task of
creating a man needs the whole of a woman's best energies, more especially
during the three months before birth. It cannot be subordinated to the tax
on strength involved by manual or mental labor, or even strenuous social
duties and amusements. The numerous experiments and observations which
have been made during recent years in Maternity Hospitals, more especially
in France, have shown conclusively that not only the present and future
well-being of the mother and the ease of her confinement, but the fate of
the child, are immensely influenced by rest during the last month of
pregnancy. "Every working woman is entitled to rest during the last three
months of her pregnancy." This formula was adopted by the International
Congress of Hygiene in 1900, but it cannot be practically carried out
except by the coöperation of the whole community. For it is not enough to
say that a woman ought to rest during pregnancy; it is the business of the
community to ensure that that rest is duly secured. The woman herself, and
her employer, we may be certain, will do their best to cheat the
community, but it is the community which suffers, both economically and
morally, when a woman casts her inferior children into the world, and in
its own interests the community is forced to control both employer and
employed. We can no longer allow it to be said, in Bouchacourt's words,
that "to-day the dregs of the human species--the blind, the deaf-mute, the
degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the
cretins and epileptics--are better protected than pregnant women."[5]

Pinard, who must always be honored as one of the founders of
eugenics, has, together with his pupils, done much to prepare the
way for the acceptance of this simple but important principle by
making clear the grounds on which it is based. From prolonged
observations on the pregnant women of all classes Pinard has
shown conclusively that women who rest during pregnancy have
finer children than women who do not rest. Apart from the more
general evils of work during pregnancy, Pinard found that during
the later months it had a tendency to press the uterus down into
the pelvis, and so cause the premature birth of undeveloped
children, while labor was rendered more difficult and dangerous
(see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, Nov. 28, 1895, Id.,
_Annales de Gynécologie_, Aug., 1898).

Letourneux has studied the question whether repose during
pregnancy is necessary for women whose professional work is only
slightly fatiguing. He investigated 732 successive confinements
at the Clinique Baudelocque in Paris. He found that 137 women
engaged in fatiguing occupations (servants, cooks, etc.) and not
resting during pregnancy, produced children with an average
weight of 3,081 grammes; 115 women engaged in only slightly
fatiguing occupations (dressmakers, milliners, etc.) and also not
resting during pregnancy, had children with an average weight of
3,130 grammes, a slight but significant difference, in view of
the fact that the women of the first group were large and robust,
while those of the second group were of slight and elegant build.
Again, comparing groups of women who rested during pregnancy, it
was found that the women accustomed to fatiguing work had
children with an average weight of 3,319 grammes, while those
accustomed to less fatiguing work had children with an average
weight of 3,318 grammes. The difference between repose and
non-repose is thus considerable, while it also enables robust
women exercising a fatiguing occupation to catch up, though not
to surpass, the frailer women exercising a less fatiguing
occupation. We see, too, that even in the comparatively
unfatiguing occupations of milliners, etc., rest during pregnancy
still remains important, and cannot safely be dispensed with.
"Society," Letourneux concludes, "must guarantee rest to women
not well off during a part of pregnancy. It will be repaid the
cost of doing so by the increased vigor of the children thus
produced" (Letourneux, _De l'Influence de la Profession de la
Mère sur le Poids de l'Enfant_, Thèse de Paris, 1897).

Dr. Dweira-Bernson (_Revue Pratique d'Obstétrique et de
Pédiatrie_, 1903, p. 370), compared four groups of pregnant women
(servants with light work, servants with heavy work, farm girls,
dressmakers) who rested for three months before confinement with
four groups similarly composed who took no rest before
confinement. In every group he found that the difference in the
average weight of the child was markedly in favor of the women
who rested, and it was notable that the greatest difference was
found in the case of the farm girls who were probably the most
robust and also the hardest worked.

The usual time of gestation ranges between 274 and 280 days (or
280 to 290 days from the last menstrual period), and occasionally
a few days longer, though there is dispute as to the length of
the extreme limit, which some authorities would extend to 300
days, or even to 320 days (Pinard, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de
Physiologie_, vol. vii, pp. 150-162; Taylor, _Medical
Jurisprudence_, fifth edition, pp. 44, 98 et seq.; L.M. Allen,
"Prolonged Gestation," _American Journal Obstetrics_, April,
1907). It is possible, as Müller suggested in 1898 in a Thèse de
Nancy, that civilization tends to shorten the period of
gestation, and that in earlier ages it was longer than it is now.
Such a tendency to premature birth under the exciting nervous
influences of civilization would thus correspond, as Bouchacourt
has pointed out (_La Grossesse_, p. 113), to the similar effect
of domestication in animals. The robust countrywoman becomes
transformed into the more graceful, but also more fragile, town
woman who needs a degree of care and hygiene which the
countrywoman with her more resistant nervous system can to some
extent dispense with, although even she, as we see, suffers in
the person of her child, and probably in her own person, from the
effects of work during pregnancy. The serious nature of this
civilized tendency to premature birth--of which lack of rest in
pregnancy is, however, only one of several important causes--is
shown by the fact that Séropian (_Fréquence Comparée des Causes
de l'Accouchement Prémature_, Thèse de Paris, 1907) found that
about one-third of French births (32.28 per cent.) are to a
greater or less extent premature. Pregnancy is not a morbid
condition; on the contrary, a pregnant woman is at the climax of
her most normal physiological life, but owing to the tension thus
involved she is specially liable to suffer from any slight shock
or strain.

It must be remarked that the increased tendency to premature
birth, while in part it may be due to general tendencies of
civilization, is also in part due to very definite and
preventable causes. Syphilis, alcoholism, and attempts to produce
abortion are among the not uncommon causes of premature birth
(see, e.g., G.F. McCleary, "The Influence of Antenatal Conditions
on Infantile Mortality," _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 13,
1904).

Premature birth ought to be avoided, because the child born too
early is insufficiently equipped for the task before him.
Astengo, dealing with nearly 19,000 cases at the Lariboisière
Hospital in Paris and the Maternité, found, that reckoning from
the date of the last menstruation, there is a direct relation
between the weight of the infant at birth and the length of the
pregnancy. The longer the pregnancy, the finer the child
(Astengo, _Rapport du Poids des Enfants à la Durée de la
Grossesse_, Thèse de Paris, 1905).

The frequency of premature birth is probably as great in England
as in France. Ballantyne states (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology;
The Foetus_, p. 456) that for practical purposes the frequency
of premature labors in maternity hospitals may be put at 20 per
cent., but that if all infants weighing less than 3,000 grammes
are to be regarded as premature, it rises to 41.5 per cent. That
premature birth is increasing in England seems to be indicated by
the fact that during the past twenty-five years there has been a
steady rise in the mortality rate from premature birth. McCleary,
who discusses this point and considers the increase real,
concludes that "it would appear that there has been a diminution
in the quality as well as in the quantity of our output of
babies" (see also a discussion, introduced by Dawson Williams, on
"Physical Deterioration," _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 14,
1905).

It need scarcely be pointed out that not only is immaturity a
cause of deterioration in the infants that survive, but that it
alone serves enormously to decrease the number of infants that
are able to survive. Thus G. Newman states (loc. cit.) that in
most large English urban districts immaturity is the chief cause
of infant mortality, furnishing about 30 per cent. of the infant
deaths; even in London (Islington) Alfred Harris (_British
Medical Journal_, Dec. 14, 1907) finds that it is responsible for
nearly 17 per cent. of the infantile deaths. It is estimated by
Newman that about half of the mothers of infants dying of
immaturity suffer from marked ill-health and poor physique; they
are not, therefore, fitted to be mothers.

Rest during pregnancy is a very powerful agent in preventing
premature birth. Thus Dr. Sarraute-Lourié has compared 1,550
pregnant women at the Asile Michelet who rested before
confinement with 1,550 women confined at the Hôpital Lariboisière
who had enjoyed no such period of rest. She found that the
average duration of pregnancy was at least twenty days shorter in
the latter group (Mme. Sarraute-Lourié, _De l'Influence du Repos
sur la Durée de la Gestation_, Thèse de Paris, 1899).

Leyboff has insisted on the absolute necessity of rest during
pregnancy, as well for the sake of the woman herself as the
burden she carries, and shows the evil results which follow when
rest is neglected. Railway traveling, horse-riding, bicycling,
and sea-voyages are also, Leyboff believes, liable to be
injurious to the course of pregnancy. Leyboff recognizes the
difficulties which procreating women are placed under by present
industrial conditions, and concludes that "it is urgently
necessary to prevent women, by law, from working during the last
three months of pregnancy; that in every district there should be
a maternity fund; that during this enforced rest a woman should
receive the same salary as during work." He adds that the
children of unmarried mothers should be cared for by the State,
that there should be an eight-hours' day for all workers, and
that no children under sixteen should be allowed to work (E.
Leyboff, _L'Hygiène de la Grossesse_, Thèse de Paris, 1905).

Perruc states that at least two months' rest before confinement
should be made compulsory, and that during this period the woman
should receive an indemnity regulated by the State. He is of
opinion that it should take the form of compulsory assurance, to
which the worker, the employer, and the State alike contributed
(Perruc, _Assistance aux Femmes Enceintes_, Thèse de Paris,
1905).

It is probable that during the earlier months of pregnancy, work,
if not excessively heavy and exhausting, has little or no bad
effect; thus Bacchimont (_Documents pour servir a l'Histoire de
la Puériculture Intra-utérine_, Thèse de Paris, 1898) found that,
while there was a great gain in the weight of children of mothers
who had rested for three months, there was no corresponding gain
in the children of those mothers who had rested for longer
periods. It is during the last three months that freedom, repose,
the cessation of the obligatory routine of employment become
necessary. This is the opinion of Pinard, the chief authority on
this matter. Many, however, fearing that economic and industrial
conditions render so long a period of rest too difficult of
practical attainment, are, with Clappier and G. Newman, content
to demand two months as a minimum; Salvat only asks for one
month's rest before confinement, the woman, whether married or
not, receiving a pecuniary indemnity during this period, with
medical care and drugs free. Ballantyne (_Manual of Antenatal
Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 475), as well as Niven, also asks only
for one month's compulsory rest during pregnancy, with indemnity.
Arthur Helme, however, taking a more comprehensive view of all
the factors involved, concludes in a valuable paper on "The
Unborn Child: Its Care and Its Rights" (_British Medical
Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907), "The important thing would be to
prohibit pregnant women from going to work at all, and it is as
important from the standpoint of the child that this prohibition
should include the early as the late months of pregnancy."

In England little progress has yet been made as regards this
question of rest during pregnancy, even as regards the education
of public opinion. Sir William Sinclair, Professor of Obstetrics
at the Victoria University of Manchester, has published (1907) _A
Plea for Establishing Municipal Maternity Homes_. Ballantyne, a
great British authority on the embryology of the child, has
published a "Plea for a Pre-Maternity Hospital" (_British Medical
Journal_, April 6, 1901), has since given an important lecture on
the subject (_British Medical Journal_, Jan. 11, 1908), and has
further discussed the matter in his _Manual of Ante-Natal
Pathology: The Foetus_ (Ch. XXVII); he is, however, more
interested in the establishment of hospitals for the diseases of
pregnancy than in the wider and more fundamental question of rest
for all pregnant women. In England there are, indeed, a few
institutions which receive unmarried women, with a record of good
conduct, who are pregnant for the first time, for, as
Bouchacourt remarks, ancient British prejudices are opposed to
any mercy being shown to women who are recidivists in committing
the crime of conception.

At present, indeed, it is only in France that the urgent need of
rest during the latter months of pregnancy has been clearly
realized, and any serious and official attempts made to provide
for it. In an interesting Paris thesis (_De la Puériculture avant
le Naissance_, 1907) Clappier has brought together much
information bearing on the efforts now being made to deal
practically with this question. There are many _Asiles_ in Paris
for pregnant women. One of the best is the Asile Michelet,
founded in 1893 by the Assistance Publique de Paris. This is a
sanatorium for pregnant women who have reached a period of seven
and a half months. It is nominally restricted to the admission of
French women who have been domiciled for a year in Paris, but, in
practice, it appears that women from all parts of France are
received. They are employed in light and occasional work for the
institution, being paid for this work, and are also occupied in
making clothes for the expected baby. Married and unmarried women
are admitted alike, all women being equal from the point of view
of motherhood, and indeed the majority of the women who come to
the Asile Michelet are unmarried, some being girls who have even
trudged on foot from Brittany and other remote parts of France,
to seek concealment from their friends in the hospitable
seclusion of these refuges in the great city. It is not the least
advantage of these institutions that they shield unmarried
mothers and their offspring from the manifold evils to which they
are exposed, and thus tend to decrease crime and suffering. In
addition to the maternity refuges, there are institutions in
France for assisting with help and advice those pregnant women
who prefer to remain at home, but are thus enabled to avoid the
necessity for undue domestic labor.

There ought to be no manner of doubt that when, as is the case
to-day in our own and some other supposedly civilized countries,
motherhood outside marriage is accounted as almost a crime, there
is the very greatest need for adequate provision for unmarried
women who are about to become mothers, enabling them to receive
shelter and care in secrecy, and to preserve their self-respect
and social position. This is necessary not only in the interests
of humanity and public economy, but also, as is too often
forgotten, in the interests of morality, for it is certain that
by the neglect to furnish adequate provision of this nature women
are driven to infanticide and prostitution. In earlier, more
humane days, the general provision for the secret reception and
care of illegitimate infants was undoubtedly most beneficial. The
suppression of the mediæval method, which in France took place
gradually between 1833 and 1862, led to a great increase in
infanticide and abortion, and was a direct encouragement to crime
and immorality. In 1887 the Conseil Général of the Seine sought
to replace the prevailing neglect of this matter by the adoption
of more enlightened ideas and founded a _bureau secret
d'admission_ for pregnant women. Since then both the abandonment
of infants and infanticide have greatly diminished, though they
are increasing in those parts of France which possess no
facilities of this kind. It is widely held that the State should
unify the arrangements for assuring secret maternity, and should,
in its own interests, undertake the expense. In 1904 French law
ensured the protection of unmarried mothers by guaranteeing their
secret, but it failed to organize the general establishment of
secret maternities, and has left to doctors the pioneering part
in this great and humane public work (A. Maillard-Brune,
_Refuges, Maternités, Bureaux d'Admission Secrets, comme Moyens
Préservatives des Infanticide_, Thèse de Paris, 1908). It is not
among the least benefits of the falling birth rate that it has
helped to stimulate this beneficent movement.

The development of an industrial system which subordinates the human body
and the human soul to the thirst for gold, has, for a time, dismissed from
social consideration the interests of the race and even of the individual,
but it must be remembered that this has not been always and everywhere so.
Although in some parts of the world the women of savage peoples work up to
the time of confinement, it must be remarked that the conditions of work
in savage life do not resemble the strenuous and continuous labor of
modern factories. In many parts of the world, however, women are not
allowed to work hard during pregnancy and every consideration is shown to
them. This is so, for instance, among the Pueblo Indians, and among the
Indians of Mexico. Similar care is taken in the Carolines and the Gilbert
Islands and in many other regions all over the world. In some places,
women are secluded during pregnancy, and in others are compelled to
observe many more or less excellent rules. It is true that the assigned
cause for these rules is frequently the fear of evil spirits, but they
nevertheless often preserve a hygienic value. In many parts of the world
the discovery of pregnancy is the sign for a festival of more or less
ritual character, and much good advice is given to the expectant mother.
The modern Musselmans are careful to guard the health of their women when
pregnant, and so are the Chinese.[6] Even in Europe, in the thirteenth
century, as Clappier notes, industrial corporations sometimes had regard
to this matter, and would not allow women to work during pregnancy. In
Iceland, where much of the primitive life of Scandinavian Europe is still
preserved, great precautions are taken with pregnant women. They must lead
a quiet life, avoid tight garments, be moderate in eating and drinking,
take no alcohol, be safeguarded from all shocks, while their husbands and
all others who surround them must treat them with consideration, save them
from worry and always bear with them patiently.[7]

It is necessary to emphasize this point because we have to realize that
the modern movement for surrounding the pregnant woman with tenderness and
care, so far from being the mere outcome of civilized softness and
degeneracy, is, in all probability, the return on a higher plane to the
sane practice of those races which laid the foundations of human
greatness.

While rest is the cardinal virtue imposed on a woman during the later
months of pregnancy, there are other points in her regimen that are far
from unimportant in their bearing on the fate of the child. One of these
is the question of the mother's use of alcohol. Undoubtedly alcohol has
been a cause of much fanaticism. But the declamatory extravagance of
anti-alcoholists must not blind us to the fact that the evils of alcohol
are real. On the reproductive process especially, on the mammary glands,
and on the child, alcohol has an arresting and degenerative influence
without any compensatory advantages. It has been proved by experiments on
animals and observations on the human subject that alcohol taken by the
pregnant woman passes freely from the maternal circulation to the foetal
circulation. Féré has further shown that, by injecting alcohol and
aldehydes into hen's eggs during incubation, it is possible to cause
arrest of development and malformation in the chick.[8] The woman who is
bearing her child in her womb or suckling it at her breast would do well
to remember that the alcohol which may be harmless to herself is little
better than poison to the immature being who derives nourishment from her
blood. She should confine herself to the very lightest of alcoholic
beverages in very moderate amounts and would do better still to abandon
these entirely and drink milk instead. She is now the sole source of the
child's life and she cannot be too scrupulous in creating around it an
atmosphere of purity and health. No after-influence can ever compensate
for mistakes made at this time.[9]

What is true of alcohol is equally true of other potent drugs and poisons,
which should all be avoided so far as possible during pregnancy because of
the harmful influence they may directly exert on the embryo. Hygiene is
better than drugs, and care should be exercised in diet, which should by
no means be excessive. It is a mistake to suppose that the pregnant woman
needs considerably more food than usual, and there is much reason to
believe not only that a rich meat diet tends to cause sterility but that
it is also unfavorable to the development of the child in the womb.[10]

How far, if at all, it is often asked, should sexual intercourse be
continued after fecundation has been clearly ascertained? This has not
always been found an easy question to answer, for in the human couple many
considerations combine to complicate the answer. Even the Catholic
theologians have not been entirely in agreement on this point. Clement of
Alexandria said that when the seed had been sown the field must be left
till harvest. But it may be concluded that, as a rule, the Church was
inclined to regard intercourse during pregnancy as at most a venial sin,
provided there was no danger of abortion. Augustine, Gregory the Great,
Aquinas, Dens, for instance, seem to be of this mind; for a few, indeed,
it is no sin at all.[11] Among animals the rule is simple and uniform; as
soon as the female is impregnated at the period of oestrus she absolutely
rejects all advance of the male until, after birth and lactation are over,
another period of oestrus occurs. Among savages the tendency is less
uniform, and sexual abstinence, when it occurs during pregnancy, tends to
become less a natural instinct than a ritual observance, or a custom now
chiefly supported by superstitions. Among many primitive peoples
abstinence during the whole of pregnancy is enjoined because it is
believed that the semen would kill the foetus.[12]

The Talmud is unfavorable to coitus during pregnancy, and the
Koran prohibits it during the whole of the period, as well as
during suckling. Among the Hindus, on the other hand, intercourse
is continued up to the last fortnight of pregnancy, and it is
even believed that the injected semen helps to nourish the embryo
(W.D. Sutherland, "Ueber das Alltagsleben und die Volksmedizin
unter den Bauern Britischostindiens," _Münchener Medizinische
Wochenschrift_, Nos. 12 and 13, 1906). The great Indian physician
Susruta, however, was opposed to coitus during pregnancy, and the
Chinese are emphatically on the same side.

As men have emerged from barbarism in the direction of civilization, the
animal instinct of refusal after impregnation has been completely lost in
women, while at the same time both sexes tend to become indifferent to
those ritual restraints which at an earlier period were almost as binding
as instinct. Sexual intercourse thus came to be practiced after
impregnation, much the same as before, as part of ordinary "marital
rights," though sometimes there has remained a faint suspicion, reflected
in the hesitating attitude of the Catholic Church already alluded to, that
such intercourse may be a sinful indulgence. Morality is, however, called
in to fortify this indulgence. If the husband is shut out from marital
intercourse at this time, it is argued, he will seek extra-marital
intercourse, as indeed in some parts of the world it is recognized that he
legitimately may; therefore the interests of the wife, anxious to retain
her husband's fidelity, and the interests of Christian morality, anxious
to uphold the institution of monogamy, combine to permit the continuation
of coitus during pregnancy. The custom has been furthered by the fact
that, in civilized women at all events, coitus during pregnancy is usually
not less agreeable than at other times and by some women is felt indeed to
be even more agreeable.[13] There is also the further consideration, for
those couples who have sought to prevent conception, that now intercourse
may be enjoyed with impunity. From a higher point of view such intercourse
may also be justified, for if, as all the finer moralists of the sexual
impulse now believe, love has its value not only in so far as it induces
procreation but also in so far as it aids individual development and the
mutual good and harmony of the united couple, it becomes morally right
during pregnancy.

From an early period, however, great authorities have declared themselves
in opposition to the custom of practicing coitus during pregnancy. At the
end of the first century, Soranus, the first of great gynæcologists,
stated, in his treatise on the diseases of women, that sexual intercourse
is injurious throughout pregnancy, because of the movement imparted to the
uterus, and especially injurious during the latter months. For more than
sixteen hundred years the question, having fallen into the hands of the
theologians, seems to have been neglected on the medical side until in
1721 a distinguished French obstetrician, Mauriceau, stated that no
pregnant woman should have intercourse during the last two months and that
no woman subject to miscarriage should have intercourse at all during
pregnancy. For more than a century, however, Mauriceau remained a pioneer
with few or no followers. It would be inconvenient, the opinion went, even
if it were necessary, to forbid intercourse during pregnancy.[14]

During recent years, nevertheless, there has been an increasingly strong
tendency among obstetricians to speak decisively concerning intercourse
during pregnancy, either by condemning it altogether or by enjoining great
prudence. It is highly probable that, in accordance with the classical
experiments of Dareste on chicken embryos, shocks and disturbances to the
human embryo may also produce injurious effects on growth. The disturbance
due to coitus in the early stages of pregnancy may thus tend to produce
malformation. When such conditions are found in the children of perfectly
healthy, vigorous, and generally temperate parents who have indulged
recklessly in coitus during the early stages of pregnancy it is possible
that such coitus has acted on the embryo in the same way as shocks and
intoxications are known to act on the embryo of lower organisms. However
this may be, it is quite certain that in predisposed women, coitus during
pregnancy causes premature birth; it sometimes happens that labor pains
begin a few minutes after the act.[15] The natural instinct of animals
refuses to allow intercourse during pregnancy; the ritual observance of
primitive peoples very frequently points in the same direction; the voice
of medical science, so far as it speaks at all, is beginning to utter the
same warning, and before long will probably be in a position to do so on
the basis of more solid and coherent evidence.

Pinard, the greatest of authorities on puericulture, asserts that
there must be complete cessation of sexual intercourse during the
whole of pregnancy, and in his consulting room at the Clinique
Baudelocque he has placed a large placard with an "Important
Notice" to this effect. Féré was strongly of opinion that sexual
relations during pregnancy, especially when recklessly carried
out, play an important part in the causation of nervous troubles
in children who are of sound heredity and otherwise free from all
morbid infection during gestation and development; he recorded in
detail a case which he considered conclusive ("L'Influence de
l'Incontinence Sexuelle pendant la Gestation sur la Descendance,"
_Archives de Neurologie_, April, 1905). Bouchacourt discusses the
subject fully (_La Grossesse_, pp. 177-214), and thinks that
sexual intercourse during pregnancy should be avoided as much as
possible. Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 226) recommends abstinence from
the sixth or seventh month, and throughout the whole of pregnancy
where there is any tendency to miscarriage, while in all cases
much care and gentleness should be exercised.

The whole subject has been investigated in a Paris Thesis by H.
Brénot (_De L'Influence de la Copulation pendant la Grossesse_,
1903); he concludes that sexual relations are dangerous
throughout pregnancy, frequently provoking premature confinement
or abortion, and that they are more dangerous in primiparæ than
in multiparæ.

Nearly everything that has been said of the hygiene of pregnancy, and the
need for rest, applies also to the period immediately following the birth
of the child. Rest and hygiene on the mother's part continue to be
necessary alike in her own interests and in the child's. This need has
indeed been more generally and more practically recognized than the need
for rest during pregnancy. The laws of several countries make compulsory a
period of rest from employment after confinement, and in some countries
they seek to provide for the remuneration of the mother during this
enforced rest. In no country, indeed, is the principle carried out so
thoroughly and for so long a period as is desirable. But it is the right
principle, and embodies the germ which, in the future, will be developed.
There can be little doubt that whatever are the matters, and they are
certainly many, which may be safely left to the discretion of the
individual, the care of the mother and her child is not among them. That
is a matter which, more than any other, concerns the community as a whole,
and the community cannot afford to be slack in asserting its authority
over it. The State needs healthy men and women, and by any negligence in
attending to this need it inflicts serious charges of all sorts upon
itself, and at the same time dangerously impairs its efficiency in the
world. Nations have begun to recognize the desirability of education, but
they have scarcely yet begun to realize that the nationalization of health
is even more important than the nationalization of education. If it were
necessary to choose between the task of getting children educated and the
task of getting them well-born and healthy it would be better to abandon
education. There have been many great peoples who never dreamed of
national systems of education; there has been no great people without the
art of producing healthy and vigorous children.

This matter becomes of peculiar importance in great industrial states like
England, the United States, and Germany, because in such states a tacit
conspiracy tends to grow up to subordinate national ends to individual
ends, and practically to work for the deterioration of the race. In
England, for instance, this tendency has become peculiarly well marked
with disastrous results. The interest of the employed woman tends to
become one with that of her employer; between them they combine to crush
the interests of the child who represents the race, and to defeat the laws
made in the interests of the race which are those of the community as a
whole. The employed woman wishes to earn as much wages as she can and with
as little interruption as she can; in gratifying that wish she is, at the
same time, acting in the interests of the employer, who carefully avoids
thwarting her.

This impulse on the employed woman's part is by no means always and
entirely the result of poverty, and would not, therefore, be removed by
raising her wages. Long before marriage, when little more than a child,
she has usually gone out to work, and work has become a second nature. She
has mastered her work, she enjoys a certain position and what to her are
high wages; she is among her friends and companions; the noise and bustle
and excitement of the work-room or the factory have become an agreeable
stimulant which she can no longer do without. On the other hand, her home
means nothing to her; she only returns there to sleep, leaving it next
morning at day-break or earlier; she is ignorant even of the simplest
domestic arts; she moves about in her own home like a strange and awkward
child. The mere act of marriage cannot change this state of things;
however willing she may be at marriage to become a domesticated wife, she
is destitute alike of the inclination or the skill for domesticity. Even
in spite of herself she is driven back to the work-shop, to the one place
where she feels really at home.

In Germany women are not allowed to work for four weeks after
confinement, nor during the following two weeks except by medical
certificate. The obligatory insurance against disease which
covers women at confinement assures them an indemnity at this
time equivalent to a large part of their wages. Married and
unmarried mothers benefit alike. The Austrian law is founded on
the same model. This measure has led to a very great decrease in
infantile mortality, and, therefore, a great increase in health
among those who survive. It is, however, regarded as very
inadequate, and there is a movement in Germany for extending the
time, for applying the system to a larger number of women, and
for making it still more definitely compulsory.

In Switzerland it has been illegal since 1877 for any woman to be
received into a factory after confinement, unless she has rested
in all for eight weeks, six weeks at least of this period being
after confinement. Since 1898 Swiss working women have been
protected by law from exercising hard work during pregnancy, and
from various other influences likely to be injurious. But this
law is evaded in practice, because it provides no compensatory
indemnity for the woman. An attempt, in 1899, to amend the law by
providing for such indemnity was rejected by the people.

In Belgium and Holland there are laws against women working
immediately after confinement, but no indemnity is provided, so
that employers and employed combine to evade the law. In France
there is no such law, although its necessity has often been
emphatically asserted (see, e.g., Salvat, _La Dépopulation de la
France_, Thèse de Lyon, 1903).

In England it is illegal to employ a woman "knowingly" in a
work-shop within four weeks of the birth of her child, but no
provision is made by the law for the compensation of the woman
who is thus required to sacrifice herself to the interests of the
State. The woman evades the law in tacit collusion with her
employers, who can always avoid "knowing" that a birth has taken
place, and so escape all responsibility for the mother's
employment. Thus the factory inspectors are unable to take
action, and the law becomes a dead letter; in 1906 only one
prosecution for this offense could be brought into court. By the
insertion of this "knowingly" a premium is placed on ignorance.
The unwisdom of thus beforehand placing a premium on ignorance
has always been more or less clearly recognized by the framers of
legal codes even as far back as the days of the Ten Commandments
and the laws of Hamurabi. It is the business of the Court, of
those who administer the law, to make allowance for ignorance
where such allowance is fairly called for; it is not for the
law-maker to make smooth the path of the law-breaker. There are
evidently law-makers nowadays so scrupulous, or so simple-minded,
that they would be prepared to exact that no pickpocket should be
prosecuted if he was able to declare on oath that he had no
"knowledge" that the purse he had taken belonged to the person he
extracted it from.

The annual reports of the English factory inspectors serve to
bring ridicule on this law, which looks so wisely humane and yet
means nothing, but have so far been powerless to effect any
change. These reports show, moreover, that the difficulty is
increasing in magnitude. Thus Miss Martindale, a factory
inspector, states that in all the towns she visits, from a quiet
cathedral city to a large manufacturing town, the employment of
married women is rapidly increasing; they have worked in mills or
factories all their lives and are quite unaccustomed to cooking,
housework and the rearing of children, so that after marriage,
even when not compelled by poverty, they prefer to go on working
as before. Miss Vines, another factory inspector, repeats the
remark of a woman worker in a factory. "I do not need to work,
but I do not like staying at home," while another woman said, "I
would rather be at work a hundred times than at home. I get lost
at home" (_Annual Report Chief Inspector of Factories and
Workshops for 1906_, pp. 325, etc.).

It may be added that not only is the English law enjoining four
weeks' rest on the mother after childbirth practically
inoperative, but the period itself is absurdly inadequate. As a
rest for the mother it is indeed sufficient, but the State is
still more interested in the child than in its mother, and the
child needs the mother's chief care for a much longer period than
four weeks. Helme advocates the State prohibition of women's work
for at least six months after confinement. Where nurseries are
attached to factories, enabling the mother to suckle her infant
in intervals of work, the period may doubtless be shortened.

It is important to remember that it is by no means only the women
in factories who are induced to work as usual during the whole
period of pregnancy, and to return to work immediately after the
brief rest of confinement. The Research Committee of the
Christian Social Union (London Branch) undertook, in 1905, an
inquiry into the employment of women after childbirth. Women in
factories and workshops were excluded from the inquiry which only
had reference to women engaged in household duties, in home
industries, and in casual work. It was found that the majority
carry on their employment right up to the time of confinement and
resume it from ten to fourteen days later. The infantile death
rate for the children of women engaged only in household duties
was greatly lower than that for the children of the other women,
while, as ever, the hand-fed infants had a vastly higher death
rate than the breast-fed infants (_British Medical Journal_, Oct.
24, 1908, p. 1297).

In the great French gun and armour-plate works at Creuzot (Saône
et Loire) the salaries of expectant mothers among the employees
are raised; arrangements are made for giving them proper advice
and medical attendance; they are not allowed to work after the
middle of pregnancy or to return to work after confinement
without a medical certificate of fitness. The results are said to
be excellent, not only on the health of the mothers, but in the
diminution of premature births, the decrease of infantile deaths,
and the general prevalence of breast-feeding. It would probably
be hopeless to expect many employers in Anglo-Saxon lands to
adopt this policy. They are too "practical," they know how small
is the money-value of human lives. With us it is necessary for
the State to intervene.

There can be no doubt that, on the whole, modern civilized
communities are beginning to realize that under the social and
economic conditions now tending more and more to prevail, they
must in their own interests insure that the mother's best energy
and vitality are devoted to the child, both before and after its
birth. They are also realizing that they cannot carry out their
duty in this respect unless they make adequate provision for the
mothers who are thus compelled to renounce their employment in
order to devote themselves to their children. We here reach a
point at which Individualism is at one with Socialism. The
individualist cannot fail to see that it is at all cost necessary
to remove social conditions which crush out all individuality;
the Socialist cannot fail to see that a society which neglects to
introduce order at this central and vital point, the production
of the individual, must speedily perish.

It is involved in the proper fulfilment of a mother's relationship to her
infant child that, provided she is healthy, she should suckle it. Of
recent years this question has become a matter of serious gravity. In the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the upper-class women of France had
grown disinclined to suckle their own children, Rousseau raised so loud
and eloquent a protest that it became once more the fashion for a woman to
fulfil her natural duties. At the present time, when the same evil is
found once more, and in a far more serious form, for now it is not the
small upper-class but the great lower-class that is concerned, the
eloquence of a Rousseau would be powerless, for it is not fashion so much
as convenience, and especially an intractable economic factor, that is
chiefly concerned. Not the least urgent reason for putting women, and
especially mothers, upon a sounder economic basis, is the necessity of
enabling them to suckle their children.

No woman is sound, healthy, and complete unless she possesses
breasts that are beautiful enough to hold the promise of being
functional when the time for their exercise arrives, and nipples
that can give suck. The gravity of this question to-day is shown
by the frequency with which women are lacking in this essential
element of womanhood, and the young man of to-day, it has been
said, often in taking a wife, "actually marries but part of a
woman, the other part being exhibited in the chemist's shop
window, in the shape of a glass feeding-bottle." Blacker found
among a thousand patients from the maternity department of
University College Hospital that thirty-nine had never suckled at
all, seven hundred and forty-seven had suckled all their
children, and two hundred and fourteen had suckled only some.
The chief reason given for not suckling was absence or
insufficiency of milk; other reasons being inability or
disinclination to suckle, and refusal of the child to take the
breast (Blacker, _Medical Chronicle_, Feb., 1900). These results
among the London poor are certainly very much better than could
be found in many manufacturing towns where women work after
marriage. In the other large countries of Europe equally
unsatisfactory results are found. In Paris Madame Dluska has
shown that of 209 women who came for their confinement to the
Clinique Baudelocque, only 74 suckled their children; of the 135
who did not suckle, 35 were prevented by pathological causes or
absence of milk, 100 by the necessities of their work. Even those
who suckled could seldom continue more than seven months on
account of the physiological strain of work (Dluska,
_Contribution à l'Etude de l'Allaitement Maternel_, Thèse de
Paris, 1894). Many statistics have been gathered in the German
countries. Thus Wiedow (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 29,
1895) found that of 525 women at the Freiburg Maternity only half
could suckle thoroughly during the first two weeks; imperfect
nipples were noted in 49 cases, and it was found that the
development of the nipple bore a direct relation to the value of
the breast as a secretory organ. At Munich Escherich and Büller
found that nearly 60 per cent. of women of the lower class were
unable to suckle their children, and at Stuttgart three-quarters
of the child-bearing women were in this condition.

The reasons why children should be suckled at their mothers' breasts are
larger than some may be inclined to believe. In the first place the
psychological reason is one of no mean importance. The breast with its
exquisitely sensitive nipple, vibrating in harmony with the sexual organs,
furnishes the normal mechanism by which maternal love is developed. No
doubt the woman who never suckles her child may love it, but such love is
liable to remain defective on the fundamental and instinctive side. In
some women, indeed, whom we may hesitate to call abnormal, maternal love
fails to awaken at all until brought into action through this mechanism by
the act of suckling.

A more generally recognized and certainly fundamental reason for suckling
the child is that the milk of the mother, provided she is reasonably
healthy, is the infant's only ideally fit food. There are some people
whose confidence in science leads them to believe that it is possible to
manufacture foods that are as good or better than mother's milk; they
fancy that the milk which is best for the calf is equally best for so
different an animal as the baby. These are delusions. The infant's best
food is that elaborated in his own mother's body. All other foods are more
or less possible substitutes, which require trouble to prepare properly
and are, moreover, exposed to various risks from which the mother's milk
is free.

A further reason, especially among the poor, against the use of any
artificial foods is that it accustoms those around the child to try
experiments with its feeding and to fancy that any kind of food they eat
themselves may be good for the infant. It thus happens that bread and
potatoes, brandy and gin, are thrust into infants' mouths. With the infant
that is given the breast it is easier to make plain that, except by the
doctor's orders, nothing else must be given.

An additional reason why the mother should suckle her child is the close
and frequent association with the child thus involved. Not only is the
child better cared for in all respects, but the mother is not deprived of
the discipline of such care, and is also enabled from the outset to learn
and to understand the child's nature.

The inability to suckle acquires great significance if we realize
that it is associated, probably in a large measure as a direct
cause, with infantile mortality. The mortality of
artificially-fed infants during the first year of life is seldom
less than double that of the breast-fed, sometimes it is as much
as three times that of the breast-fed, or even more; thus at
Derby 51.7 per cent. of hand-fed infants die under the age of
twelve months, but only 8.6 per cent. of breast-fed infants.
Those who survive are by no means free from suffering. At the end
of the first year they are found to weigh about 25 per cent. less
than the breast-fed, and to be much shorter; they are more liable
to tuberculosis and rickets, with all the evil results that flow
from these diseases; and there is some reason to believe that the
development of their teeth is injuriously affected. The
degenerate character of the artificially-fed is well indicated by
the fact that of 40,000 children who were brought for treatment
to the Children's Hospital in Munich, 86 per cent. had been
brought up by hand, and the few who had been suckled had usually
only had the breast for a short time. The evil influence persists
even up to adult life. In some parts of France where the
wet-nurse industry flourishes so greatly that nearly all the
children are brought up by hand, it has been found that the
percentage of rejected conscripts is nearly double that for
France generally. Corresponding results have been found by
Friedjung in a large German athletic association. Among 155
members, 65 per cent. were found on inquiry to have been
breast-fed as infants (for an average of six months); but among
the best athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose to 72 per
cent. (for an average period of nine or ten months), while for
the group of 56 who stood lowest in athletic power the percentage
of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an average of only three months).

The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its mother are
greater than can be accounted for by the mere fact of being
suckled rather than hand-fed. This has been shown by Vitrey (_De
la Mortalité Infantile_, Thèse de Lyon, 1907), who found from the
statistics of the Hôtel-Dieu at Lyons, that infants suckled by
their mothers have a mortality of only 12 per cent., but if
suckled by strangers, the mortality rises to 33 per cent. It may
be added that, while suckling is essential to the complete
well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for the sake of
the mother's health also. (Some important statistics are
summarized in a paper on "Infantile Mortality" in _British
Medical Journal_, Nov. 2, 1907), while the various aspects of
suckling have been thoroughly discussed by Bollinger, "Ueber
Säuglings-Sterblichkeit und die Erbliche functionelle Atrophie
der menschlichen Milchdrüse" (_Correspondenzblatt Deutschen
Gesellschaft Anthropologie_, Oct., 1899).

It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, it was a punishable offense for a woman to give her baby
the bottle when she was able to suckle it. In recent years Prof.
Anton von Menger, of Vienna, has argued (in his _Burgerliche
Recht und die Besitzlosen Klassen_) that the future generation
has the right to make this claim, and he proposes that every
mother shall be legally bound to suckle her child unless her
inability to do so has been certified by a physician. E.A.
Schroeder (_Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen Ordnung_, 1893, p.
346) also argued that a mother should be legally bound to suckle
her infant for at least nine months, unless solid grounds could
be shown to the contrary, and this demand, which seems reasonable
and natural, since it is a mother's privilege as well as her duty
to suckle her infant when able to do so, has been insistently
made by others also. It has been supported from the legal side by
Weinberg (_Mutterschutz_, Sept., 1907). In France the Loi Roussel
forbids a woman to act as a wet-nurse until her child is seven
months old, and this has had an excellent effect in lowering
infantile mortality (A. Allée, _Puériculture et la Loi Roussel_,
Thèse de Paris, 1908). In some parts of Germany manufacturers are
compelled to set up a suckling-room in the factory, where mothers
can give the breast to the child in the intervals of work. The
control and upkeep of these rooms, with provision of doctors and
nurses, is undertaken by the municipality (_Sexual-Probleme_,
Sept., 1908, p. 573).

As things are to-day in modern industrial countries the righting of these
wrongs cannot be left to Nature, that is, to the ignorant and untrained
impulses of persons who live in a whirl of artificial life where the voice
of instinct is drowned. The mother, we are accustomed to think, may be
trusted to see to the welfare of her child, and it is unnecessary, or even
"immoral," to come to her assistance. Yet there are few things, I think,
more pathetic than the sight of a young Lancashire mother who works in the
mills, when she has to stay at home to nurse her sick child. She is used
to rise before day-break to go to the mill; she has scarcely seen her
child by the light of the sun, she knows nothing of its necessities, the
hands that are so skilful to catch the loom cannot soothe the child. The
mother gazes down at it in vague, awkward, speechless misery. It is not a
sight one can ever forget.

It is France that is taking the lead in the initiation of the scientific
and practical movements for the care of the young child before and after
birth, and it is in France that we may find the germs of nearly all the
methods now becoming adopted for arresting infantile mortality. The
village system of Villiers-le-Duc, near Dijon in the Côte d'Or, has proved
a germ of this fruitful kind. Here every pregnant woman not able to secure
the right conditions for her own life and that of the child she is
bearing, is able to claim the assistance of the village authorities; she
is entitled, without payment, to the attendance of a doctor and midwife
and to one franc a day during her confinement. The measures adopted in
this village have practically abolished both maternal and infantile
mortality. A few years ago Dr. Samson Moore, the medical officer of health
for Huddersfield, heard of this village, and Mr. Benjamin Broadbent, the
Mayor of Huddersfield, visited Villiers-le-Duc. It was resolved to
initiate in Huddersfield a movement for combating infant mortality.
Henceforth arose what is known as the Huddersfield scheme, a scheme which
has been fruitful in splendid results. The points of the Huddersfield
scheme are: (1) compulsory notification of births within forty-eight
hours; (2) the appointment of lady assistant medical officers of help to
visit the home, inquire, advise, and assist; (3) the organized aid of
voluntary lady workers in subordination to the municipal part of the
scheme; (4) appeal to the medical officer of help when the baby, not being
under medical care, fails to thrive. The infantile mortality of
Huddersfield has been very greatly reduced by this scheme.[16]

The Huddersfield scheme may be said to be the origin of the
English Notification of Births Act, which came into operation in
1908. This Act represents, in England, the national inauguration
of a scheme for the betterment of the race, the ultimate results
of which it is impossible to foresee. When this Act comes into
universal action every baby of the land will be entitled--legally
and not by individual caprice or philanthropic condescension--to
medical attention from the day of birth, and every mother will
have at hand the counsel of an educated woman in touch with the
municipal authorities. There could be no greater triumph for
medical science, for national efficiency, and the cause of
humanity generally. Even on the lower financial plane, it is easy
to see that an enormous saving of public and private money will
thus be effected. The Act is adoptive, and not compulsory. This
was a wise precaution, for an Act of this kind cannot be
effectual unless it is carried out thoroughly by the community
adopting it, and it will not be adopted until a community has
clearly realized its advantages and the methods of attaining
them.

An important adjunct of this organization is the School for
Mothers. Such schools, which are now beginning to spring up
everywhere, may be said to have their origins in the
_Consultations de Nourrissons_ (with their offshoot the _Goutte
de Lait_), established by Professor Budin in 1892, which have
spread all over France and been widely influential for good. At
the _Consultations_ infants are examined and weighed weekly, and
the mothers advised and encouraged to suckle their children. The
_Gouttes_ are practically milk dispensaries where infants for
whom breast-feeding is impossible are fed with milk under medical
supervision. Schools for Mothers represent an enlargement of the
same scheme, covering a variety of subjects which it is necessary
for a mother to know. Some of the first of these schools were
established at Bonn, at the Bavarian town of Weissenberg, and in
Ghent. At some of the Schools for Mothers, and notably at Ghent
(described by Mrs. Bertrand Russell in the _Nineteenth Century_,
1906), the important step has been taken of giving training to
young girls from fourteen to eighteen; they receive instruction
in infant anatomy and physiology, in the preparation of
sterilized milk, in weighing children, in taking temperatures and
making charts, in managing crêches, and after two years are able
to earn a salary. In various parts of England, schools for young
mothers and girls on these lines are now being established, first
in London, under the auspices of Dr. F.J. Sykes, Medical Officer
of Health for St. Pancreas (see, e.g., _A School For Mothers_,
1908, describing an establishment of this kind at Somers Town,
with a preface by Sir Thomas Barlow; an account of recent
attempts to improve the care of infants in London will also be
found in the _Lancet_, Sept. 26, 1908). It may be added that some
English municipalities have established depôts for supplying
mothers cheaply with good milk. Such depôts are, however, likely
to be more mischievous than beneficial if they promote the
substitution of hand-feeding for suckling. They should never be
established except in connection with Schools for Mothers, where
an educational influence may be exerted, and no mother should be
supplied with milk unless she presents a medical certificate
showing that she is unable to nourish her child (Byers, "Medical
Women and Public Health Questions," _British Medical Journal_,
Oct. 6, 1906). It is noteworthy that in England the local
authorities will shortly be empowered by law to establish Schools
for Mothers.

The great benefits produced by these institutions in France, both
in diminishing the infant mortality and in promoting the
education of mothers and their pride and interest in their
children, have been set forth in two Paris theses by G. Chaignon
(_Organisation des Consultations de Nourrissons à la Campagne_,
1908), and Alcide Alexandre (_Consultation de Nourrissons et
Goutte de Lait d'Arques_, 1908).

The movement is now spreading throughout Europe, and an
International Union has been formed, including all the
institutions specially founded for the protection of child life
and the promotion of puericulture. The permanent committee is in
Brussels, and a Congress of Infant Protection (_Goutte de Lait_)
is held every two years.

It will be seen that all the movements now being set in action for the
improvement of the race through the child and the child's mother,
recognize the intimacy of the relation between the mother and her child
and are designed to aid her, even if necessary by the exercise of some
pressure, in performing her natural functions in relation to her child. To
the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper,
nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing by
setting up State nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of
everything connected with the production of the men of the future beyond
the pleasure--if such it happens to be--of conceiving them and the trouble
of bearing them, and at the same time to rear them up independently of the
home, in a wholesome, economical, and scientific manner.[17] Nothing seems
simpler, but from the fundamental psychological standpoint nothing is
falser. The idea of a State which is outside the community is but a
survival in another form of that antiquated notion which compelled Louis
XIV to declare "L'Etat c'est moi!" A State which admits that the
individuals composing it are incompetent to perform their own most sacred
and intimate functions, and takes upon itself to perform them instead,
attempts a task which would be undesirable, even if it were possible of
achievement. It must always be remembered that a State which proposes to
relieve its constituent members of their natural functions and
responsibilities attempts something quite different from the State which
seeks to aid its members to fulfil their own biological and social
functions more adequately. A State which enables its mothers to rest when
they are child-bearing is engaged in a reasonable task; a State which
takes over its mothers' children is reducing philanthropy to absurdity. It
is easy to realize this if we consider the inevitable course of
circumstances under a system of "State-nurseries." The child would be
removed from its natural mother at the earliest age, but some one has to
perform the mother's duties; the substitute must therefore be properly
trained for such duties; and in exercising them under favorable
circumstances a maternal relationship is developed between the child and
the "mother," who doubtless possesses natural maternal instincts but has
no natural maternal bond to the child she is mothering. Such a
relationship tends to become on both sides practically and emotionally the
real relationship. We very often have opportunity of seeing how
unsatisfactory such a relationship becomes. The artificial mother is
deprived of a child she had begun to feel her own; the child's emotional
relationships are upset, split and distorted; the real mother has the
bitterness of feeling that for her child she is not the real mother. Would
it not have been much better for all if the State had encouraged the vast
army of women it had trained for the position of mothering other women's
children, to have, instead, children of their own? The women who are
incapable of mothering their own children could then be trained to refrain
from bearing them.

Ellen Key (in her _Century of the Child_, and elsewhere) has
advocated for all young women a year of compulsory "service,"
analogous to the compulsory military service imposed in most
countries on young men. During this period the girl would be
trained in rational housekeeping, in the principles of hygiene,
in the care of the sick, and especially in the care of infants
and all that concerns the physical and psychic development of
children. The principle of this proposal has since been widely
accepted. Marie von Schmid (in her _Mutterdienst_, 1907) goes so
far as to advocate a general training of young women in such
duties, carried on in a kind of enlarged and improved midwifery
school. The service would last a year, and the young woman would
then be for three years in the reserves, and liable to be called
up for duty. There is certainly much to be said for such a
proposal, considerably more than is to be said for compulsory
military service. For while it is very doubtful whether a man
will ever be called on to fight, most women are liable to be
called on to exercise household duties or to look after children,
whether for themselves or for other people.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is not, of course, always literally true that each parent supplies
exactly half the heredity, for, as we see among animals generally, the
offspring may sometimes approach more nearly to one parent, sometimes to
the other, while among plants, as De Vries and others have shown, the
heredity may be still more unequally divided.

[2] It should scarcely be necessary to say that to assert that motherhood
is a woman's supreme function is by no means to assert that her activities
should be confined to the home. That is an opinion which may now be
regarded as almost extinct even among those who most glorify the function
of woman as mother. As Friedrich Naumann and others have very truly
pointed out, a woman is not adequately equipped to fulfil her functions as
mother and trainer of children unless she has lived in the world and
exercised a vocation.

[3] "Were the capacities of the brain and the heart equal in the sexes,"
Lily Braun (_Die Frauenfrage_, page 207) well says, "the entry of women
into public life would be of no value to humanity, and would even lead to
a still wilder competition. Only the recognition that the entire nature of
woman is different from that of man, that it signifies a new vivifying
principle in human life, makes the women's movement, in spite of the
misconception of its enemies and its friends, a social revolution" (see
also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, 1904, especially Ch.
XVIII).

[4] The word "puericulture" was invented by Dr. Caron in 1866 to signify
the culture of children after birth. It was Pinard, the distinguished
French obstetrician, who, in 1895, gave it a larger and truer significance
by applying it to include the culture of children before birth. It is now
defined as "the science which has for its end the search for the knowledge
relative to the reproduction, the preservation, and the amelioration of
the human race" (Péchin, _La Puériculture avant la Naissance_, Thèse de
Paris, 1908).

[5] In _La Grossesse_ (pp. 450 et seq.) Bouchacourt has discussed the
problems of puericulture at some length.

[6] The importance of antenatal puericulture was fully recognized in China
a thousand years ago. Thus Madame Cheng wrote at that time concerning the
education of the child: "Even before birth his education may begin; and,
therefore, the prospective mother of old, when lying down, lay straight;
when sitting down, sat upright; and when standing, stood erect. She would
not taste strange flavors, nor have anything to do with spiritualism; if
her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were
not set straight, she would not sit upon it. She would not look at any
objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable sound, nor utter any
rude word, nor handle any impure thing. At night she studied some
canonical work, by day she occupied herself with ceremonies and music.
Therefore, her sons were upright and eminent for their talents and
virtues; such was the result of antenatal training" (H.A. Giles, "Woman in
Chinese Literature," _Nineteenth Century_, Nov., 1904).

[7] Max Bartels, "Isländischer Brauch," etc., _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, 1900, p. 65. A summary of the customs of various peoples in
regard to pregnancy is given by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Sect. XXIX.

[8] On the influence of alcohol during pregnancy on the embryo, see, e.g.,
G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, pp. 72-77. W.C. Sullivan (_Alcoholism_,
1906, Ch. XI), summarizes the evidence showing that alcohol is a factor in
human degeneration.

[9] There is even reason to believe that the alcoholism of the mother's
father may impair her ability as a mother. Bunge (_Die Zunehmende
Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen_, fifth edition, 1907), from
an investigation extending over 2,000 families, finds that chronic
alcoholic poisoning in the father is the chief cause of the daughter's
inability to suckle, this inability not usually being recovered in
subsequent generations. Bunge has, however, been opposed by Dr. Agnes
Bluhm, "Die Stillungsnot," _Zeitschrift für Soziale Medizin_, 1908 (fully
summarized by herself in _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1909).

[10] See, e.g., T. Arthur Helme, "The Unborn Child," _British Medical
Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907. Nutrition should, of course, be adequate. Noel
Paton has shown (_Lancet_, July 4, 1903) that defective nutrition of the
pregnant woman diminishes the weight of the offspring.

[11] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 277. And from the Protestant side see
Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch. IX), who permits sexual
intercourse during pregnancy.

[12] See Appendix A to the third volume of these _Studies_; also Ploss and
Bartels, loc. cit.

[13] Thus one lady writes: "I have only had one child, but I may say that
during pregnancy the desire for union was much stronger, for the whole
time, than at any other period." Bouchacourt (_La Grossesse_, pp. 180-183)
states that, as a rule, sexual desire is not diminished by pregnancy, and
is occasionally increased.

[14] This "inconvenience" remains to-day a stumbling-block with many
excellent authorities. "Except when there is a tendency to miscarriage,"
says Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to
Marriage_, vol. i, p. 257), "we must be very guarded in ordering
abstinence from intercourse during pregnancy," and Ballantyne (_The
Foetus_, p. 475) cautiously remarks that the question is difficult to
decide. Forel also (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, fourth edition, p. 81), who is
not prepared to advocate complete sexual abstinence during a normal
pregnancy, admits that it is a rather difficult question.

[15] This point is discussed, for instance, by Séropian in a Paris Thesis
(_Fréquence comparée des Causes de l'Accouchement Prémature_, 1907); he
concludes that coitus during pregnancy is a more frequent cause of
premature confinement than is commonly supposed, especially in primiparæ,
and markedly so by the ninth month.

[16] "Infantile Mortality: The Huddersfield Scheme," _British Medical
Journal_, Dec., 1907; Samson Moore, "Infant Mortality," ib., August 29,
1908.

[17] Ellen Key has admirably dealt with proposals of this kind (as put
forth by C.P. Stetson) in her Essays "On Love and Marriage." In opposition
to such proposals Ellen Key suggests that such women as have been properly
trained for maternal duties and are unable entirely to support themselves
while exercising them should be subsidized by the State during the child's
first three years of life. It may be added that in Leipzig the plan of
subsidizing mothers who (under proper medical and other supervision)
suckle their infants has already been introduced.

CHAPTER II.

SEXUAL EDUCATION.

Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious Manifestations of the
Sexual Impulse--Are They to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of
Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town Children More
Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning
the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual Education of Children
in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility--Evil
of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The Evil Magnified When
Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best Teacher--The Morbid
Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual
Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task--Sexual Education
in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual Education After
Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack Literature--Danger of
Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation--The Right
Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene
of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene Compatible with the
Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The Invalidism of Women
Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of Physical Training on
Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of Emotional
Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--Influence of These
Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and Addresses on Sexual
Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into
the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The
Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--The Sexual
Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art.

It may seem to some that in attaching weight to the ancestry, the
parentage, the conception, the gestation, even the first infancy, of the
child we are wandering away from the sphere of the psychology of sex. That
is far from being the case. We are, on the contrary, going to the root of
sex. All our growing knowledge tends to show that, equally with his
physical nature, the child's psychic nature is based on breed and nurture,
on the quality of the stocks he belongs to, and on the care taken at the
early moments when care counts for most, to preserve the fine quality of
those stocks.

It must, of course, be remembered that the influences of both
breed and nurture are alike influential on the fate of the
individual. The influence of nurture is so obvious that few are
likely to under-rate it. The influence of breed, however, is less
obvious, and we may still meet with persons so ill informed, and
perhaps so prejudiced, as to deny it altogether. The growth of
our knowledge in this matter, by showing how subtle and
penetrative is the influence of heredity, cannot fail to dispel
this mischievous notion. No sound civilization is possible except
in a community which in the mass is not only well-nurtured but
well-bred. And in no part of life so much as in the sexual
relationships is the influence of good breeding more decisive. An
instructive illustration may be gleaned from the minute and
precise history of his early life furnished to me by a highly
cultured Russian gentleman. He was brought up in childhood with
his own brothers and sisters and a little girl of the same age
who had been adopted from infancy, the child of a prostitute who
had died soon after the infant's birth. The adopted child was
treated as one of the family, and all the children supposed that
she was a real sister. Yet from early years she developed
instincts unlike those of the children with whom she was
nurtured; she lied, she was cruel, she loved to make mischief,
and she developed precociously vicious sexual impulses; though
carefully educated, she adopted the occupation of her mother, and
at the age of twenty-two was exiled to Siberia for robbery and
attempt to murder. The child of a chance father and a prostitute
mother is not fatally devoted to ruin; but such a child is
ill-bred, and that fact, in some cases, may neutralize all the
influences of good nurture.

When we reach the period of infancy we have already passed beyond the
foundations and potentialities of the sexual life; we are in some cases
witnessing its actual beginnings. It is a well-established fact that
auto-erotic manifestations may sometimes be observed even in infants of
less than twelve months. We are not now called upon to discuss the
disputable point as to how far such manifestations at this age can be
called normal.[18] A slight degree of menstrual and mammary activity
sometimes occurs at birth.[19] It seems clear that nervous and psychic
sexual activity has its first springs at this early period, and as the
years go by an increasing number of individuals join the stream until at
puberty practically all are carried along in the great current.

While, therefore, it is possibly, even probably, true that the soundest
and healthiest individuals show no definite signs of nervous and psychic
sexuality in childhood, such manifestations are still sufficiently
frequent to make it impossible to say that sexual hygiene may be
completely ignored until puberty is approaching.

Precocious physical development occurs as a somewhat rare
variation. W. Roger Williams ("Precocious Sexual Development with
Abstracts of over One Hundred Cases," _British Gynæcological
Journal_, May, 1902) has furnished an important contribution to
the knowledge of this anomaly which is much commoner in girls
than in boys. Roger Williams's cases include only twenty boys to
eighty girls, and precocity is not only more frequent but more
pronounced in girls, who have been known to conceive at eight,
while thirteen is stated to be the earliest age at which boys
have proved able to beget children. This, it may be remarked, is
also the earliest age at which spermatozoa are found in the
seminal fluid of boys; before that age the ejaculations contain
no spermatozoa, and, as Fürbringer and Moll have found, they may
even be absent at sixteen, or later. In female children
precocious sexual development is less commonly associated with
general increase of bodily development than in boys. (An
individual case of early sexual development in a girl of five has
been completely described and figured in the _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, 1896, Heft 4, p. 262.)

Precocious sexual impulses are generally vague, occasional, and
more or less innocent. A case of rare and pronounced character,
in which a child, a boy, from the age of two had been sexually
attracted to girls and women, and directed all his thoughts and
actions to sexual attempts on them, has been described by Herbert
Rich, of Detroit (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Nov., 1905).
General evidence from the literature of the subject as to sexual
precocity, its frequency and significance, has been brought
together by L.M. Terman ("A Study in Precocity," _American
Journal Psychology_, April, 1905).

The erections that are liable to occur in male infants have
usually no sexual significance, though, as Moll remarks, they may
acquire it by attracting the child's attention; they are merely
reflex. It is believed by some, however, and notably by Freud,
that certain manifestations of infant activity, especially
thumb-sucking, are of sexual causation, and that the sexual
impulse constantly manifests itself at a very early age. The
belief that the sexual instinct is absent in childhood, Freud
regards as a serious error, so easy to correct by observation
that he wonders how it can have arisen. "In reality," he remarks,
"the new-born infant brings sexuality with it into the world,
sexual sensations accompany it through the days of lactation and
childhood, and very few children can fail to experience sexual
activities and feelings before the period of puberty" (Freud,
"Zur Sexuellen Aufklärung der Kinder," _Soziale Medizin und
Hygiene_, Bd. ii, 1907; cf., for details, the same author's _Drei
Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, 1905). Moll, on the other hand,
considers that Freud's views on sexuality in infancy are
exaggerations which must be decisively rejected, though he admits
that it is difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate the
feelings in childhood (Moll, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_, p.
154). Moll believes also that psycho-sexual manifestations
appearing after the age of eight are not pathological; children
who are weakly or of bad heredity are not seldom sexually
precocious, but, on the other hand, Moll has known children of
eight or nine with strongly developed sexual impulses, who yet
become finely developed men.

Rudimentary sexual activities in childhood, accompanied by sexual
feelings, must indeed--when they are not too pronounced or too
premature--be regarded as coming within the normal sphere, though
when they occur in children of bad heredity they are not without
serious risks. But in healthy children, after the age of seven or
eight, they tend to produce no evil results, and are strictly of
the nature of play. Play, both in animals and men, as Groos has
shown with marvelous wealth of illustration, is a beneficent
process of education; the young creature is thereby preparing
itself for the exercise of those functions which in later life it
must carry out more completely and more seriously. In his _Spiele
der Menschen_, Groos applies this idea to the sexual play of
children, and brings forward quotations from literature in
evidence. Keller, in his "Romeo und Juliet auf dem Dorfe," has
given an admirably truthful picture of these childish
love-relationships. Emil Schultze-Malkowsky (_Geschlecht und
Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, p. 370) reproduces some scenes from the
life of a little girl of seven clearly illustrating the exact
nature of the sexual manifestation at this age.

A kind of rudimentary sexual intercourse between children, as
Bloch has remarked (_Beiträge_, etc., Bd. ii, p. 254), occurs in
many parts of the world, and is recognized by their elders as
play. This is, for instance, the case among the Bawenda of the
Transvaal (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, Heft 4, p. 364),
and among the Papuans of Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land, with the approval
of the parents, although much reticence is observed (id., 1889,
Heft 1, p. 16). Godard (_Egypte et Palestine_, 1867, p. 105)
noted the sexual play of the boys and girls in Cairo. In New
Mexico W.A. Hammond (_Sexual Impotence_, p. 107) has seen boys
and girls attempting a playful sexual conjunction with the
encouragement of men and women, and in New York he has seen boys
and girls of three and four doing the same in the presence of
their parents, with only a laughing rebuke. "Playing at pa and
ma" is indeed extremely common among children in genuine
innocence, and with a complete absence of viciousness; and is by
no means confined to children of low social class. Moll remarks
on its frequency (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. i, p. 277), and the
committee of evangelical pastors, in their investigation of
German rural morality (_Die Geschlechtliche-sittliche
Verhältnisse_, Bd. i, p. 102) found that children who are not yet
of school age make attempts at coitus. The sexual play of
children is by no means confined to father and mother games;
frequently there are games of school with the climax in exposure
and smackings, and occasionally there are games of being doctors
and making examinations. Thus a young English woman says: "Of
course, when we were at school [at the age of twelve and earlier]
we used to play with one another, several of us girls; we used to
go into a field and pretend we were doctors and had to examine
one another, and then we used to pull up one another's clothes
and feel each other."

These games do not necessarily involve the coöperation of the
sexual impulse, and still less have they any element of love. But
emotions of love, scarcely if at all distinguishable from adult
sexual love, frequently appear at equally early ages. They are of
the nature of play, in so far as play is a preparation for the
activities of later life, though, unlike the games, they are not
felt as play. Ramdohr, more than a century ago (_Venus Urania_,
1798), referred to the frequent love of little boys for women.
More usually the love is felt towards individuals of the opposite
or the same sex who are not widely different in age, though
usually older. The most comprehensive study of the matter has
been made by Sanford Bell in America on a basis of as many as
2,300 cases (S. Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love
Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902).
Bell finds that the presence of the emotion between three and
eight years of age is shown by such actions as hugging, kissing,
lifting each other, scuffling, sitting close to each other,
confessions to each other and to others, talking about each other
when apart, seeking each other and excluding the rest, grief at
separation, giving gifts, showing special courtesies to each
other, making sacrifices for each other, exhibiting jealousy. The
girls are, on the whole, more aggressive than the boys, and less
anxious to keep the matter secret. After the age of eight, the
girls increase in modesty and the boys become still more
secretive. The physical sensations are not usually located in the
sexual organs; erection of the penis and hyperæmia of the female
sexual parts Bell regards as marking undue precocity. But there
is diffused vascular and nervous tumescence and a state of
exaltation comparable, though not equal, to that experienced in
adolescent and adult age. On the whole, as Bell soundly
concludes, "love between children of opposite sex bears much the
same relation to that between adults as the flower does to the
fruit, and has about as little of physical sexuality in it as an
apple-blossom has of the apple that develops from it." Moll also
(op. cit. p. 76) considers that kissing and other similar
superficial contacts, which he denominates the phenomena of
contrectation, constitute most frequently the first and sole
manifestation of the sexual impulse in childhood.

It is often stated that it is easier for children to preserve
their sexual innocence in the country than in the town, and that
only in cities is sexuality rampant and conspicuous. This is by
no means true, and in some respects it is the reverse of the
truth. Certainly, hard work, a natural and simple life, and a
lack of alert intelligence often combine to keep the rural lad
chaste in thought and act until the period of adolescence is
completed. Ammon, for instance, states, though without giving
definite evidence, that this is common among the Baden
conscripts. Certainly, also, all the multiple sensory excitements
of urban life tend to arouse the nervous and cerebral
excitability of the young at a comparatively early age in the
sexual as in other fields, and promote premature desires and
curiosities. But, on the other hand, urban life offers the young
no gratification for their desires and curiosities. The publicity
of a city, the universal surveillance, the studied decorum of a
population conscious that it is continually exposed to the gaze
of strangers, combine to spread a veil over the esoteric side of
life, which, even when at last it fails to conceal from the young
the urban stimuli of that life, effectually conceals, for the
most part, the gratifications of those stimuli. In the country,
however, these restraints do not exist in any corresponding
degree; animals render the elemental facts of sexual life clear
to all; there is less need or regard for decorum; speech is
plainer; supervision is impossible, and the amplest opportunities
for sexual intimacy are at hand. If the city may perhaps be said
to favor unchastity of thought in the young, the country may
certainly be said to favor unchastity of act.

The elaborate investigations of the Committee of Lutheran pastors
into sexual morality (_Die Geschlechtich-sittliche Verhältnisse
im Deutschen Reiche_), published a few years ago, demonstrate
amply the sexual freedom in rural Germany, and Moll, who is
decidedly of opinion that the country enjoys no relative freedom
from sexuality, states (op. cit., pp. 137-139, 239) that even the
circulation of obscene books and pictures among school-children
seems to be more frequent in small towns and the country than in
large cities. In Russia, where it might be thought that urban and
rural conditions offered less contrast than in many countries,
the same difference has been observed. "I do not know," a Russian
correspondent writes, "whether Zola in _La Terre_ correctly
describes the life of French villages. But the ways of a Russian
village, where I passed part of my childhood, fairly resemble
those described by Zola. In the life of the rural population into
which I was plunged everything was impregnated with erotism. One
was surrounded by animal lubricity in all its immodesty. Contrary
to the generally received opinion, I believe that a child may
preserve his sexual innocence more easily in a town than in the
country. There are, no doubt, many exceptions to this rule. But
the functions of the sexual life are generally more concealed in
the towns than in the fields. Modesty (whether or not of the
merely superficial and exterior kind) is more developed among
urban populations. In speaking of sexual things in the towns
people veil their thought more; even the lower class in towns
employ more restraint, more euphemisms, than peasants. Thus in
the towns a child may easily fail to comprehend when risky
subjects are talked of in his presence. It may be said that the
corruption of towns, though more concealed, is all the deeper.
Maybe, but that concealment preserves children from it. The town
child sees prostitutes in the street every day without
distinguishing them from other people. In the country he would
every day hear it stated in the crudest terms that such and such
a girl has been found at night in a barn or a ditch making love
with such and such a youth, or that the servant girl slips every
night into the coachman's bed, the facts of sexual intercourse,
pregnancy, and childbirth being spoken of in the plainest terms.
In towns the child's attention is solicited by a thousand
different objects; in the country, except fieldwork, which fails
to interest him, he hears only of the reproduction of animals and
the erotic exploits of girls and youths. When we say that the
urban environment is more exciting we are thinking of adults, but
the things which excite the adult have usually no erotic effect
on the child, who cannot, however, long remain asexual when he
sees the great peasant girls, as ardent as mares in heat,
abandoning themselves to the arms of robust youths. He cannot
fail to remark these frank manifestations of sexuality, though
the subtle and perverse refinements of the town would escape his
notice. I know that in the countries of exaggerated prudery there
is much hidden corruption, more, one is sometimes inclined to
think, than in less hypocritical countries. But I believe that
that is a false impression, and am persuaded that precisely
because of all these little concealments which excite the
malicious amusement of foreigners, there are really many more
young people in England who remain chaste than in the countries
which treat sexual relations more frankly. At all events, if I
have known Englishmen who were very debauched and very refined in
vice, I have also known young men of the same nation, over
twenty, who were as innocent as children, but never a young
Frenchman, Italian, or Spaniard of whom this could be said."
There is undoubtedly truth in this statement, though it must be
remembered that, excellent as chastity is, if it is based on mere
ignorance, its possessor is exposed to terrible dangers.

The question of sexual hygiene, more especially in its special aspect of
sexual enlightenment, is not, however, dependent on the fact that in some
children the psychic and nervous manifestation of sex appears at an
earlier age than in others. It rests upon the larger general fact that in
all children the activity of intelligence begins to work at a very early
age, and that this activity tends to manifest itself in an inquisitive
desire to know many elementary facts of life which are really dependent on
sex. The primary and most universal of these desires is the desire to know
where children come from. No question could be more natural; the question
of origins is necessarily a fundamental one in childish philosophies as,
in more ultimate shapes, it is in adult philosophies. Most children,
either guided by the statements, usually the misstatements, of their
elders, or by their own intelligence working amid such indications as are
open to them, are in possession of a theory of the origin of babies.

Stanley Hall ("Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School,"
_Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891) has collected some of the
beliefs of young children as to the origin of babies. "God makes
babies in heaven, though the Holy Mother and even Santa Claus
make some. He lets them down and drops them, and the women or
doctors catch them, or He leaves them on the sidewalk, or brings
them down a wooden ladder backwards and pulls it up again, or
mamma or the doctor or the nurse go up and fetch them, sometimes
in a balloon, or they fly down and lose off their wings in some
place or other and forget it, and jump down to Jesus, who gives
them around. They were also often said to be found in
flour-barrels, and the flour sticks ever so long, you know, or
they grew in cabbages, or God puts them in water, perhaps in the
sewer, and the doctor gets them out and takes them to sick folks
that want them, or the milkman brings them early in the morning;
they are dug out of the ground, or bought at the baby store."

In England and America the inquisitive child is often told that
the baby was found in the garden, under a gooseberry bush or
elsewhere; or more commonly it is said, with what is doubtless
felt to be a nearer approach to the truth, that the doctor
brought it. In Germany the common story told to children is that
the stork brings the baby. Various theories, mostly based on
folk-lore, have been put forward to explain this story, but none
of them seem quite convincing (see, e.g., G. Herman,
"Sexual-Mythen," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. i, Heft 5,
1906, p. 176, and P. Näcke, _Neurologische Centralblatt_, No. 17,
1907). Näcke thinks there is some plausibility in Professor
Petermann's suggestion that a frog writhing in a stork's bill
resembles a tiny human creature.

In Iceland, according to Max Bartels ("Isländischer Brauch und
Volksglaube," etc., _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, Heft 2
and 3) we find a transition between the natural and the fanciful
in the stories told to children of the origin of babies (the
stork is here precluded, for it only extends to the southern
border of Scandinavian lands). In North Iceland it is said that
God made the baby and the mother bore it, and on that account is
now ill. In the northwest it is said that God made the baby and
gave it to the mother. Elsewhere it is said that God sent the
baby and the midwife brought it, the mother only being in bed to
be near the baby (which is seldom placed in a cradle). It is also
sometimes said that a lamb or a bird brought the baby. Again it
is said to have entered during the night through the window.
Sometimes, however, the child is told that the baby came out of
the mother's breasts, or from below her breasts, and that is why
she is not well.

Even when children learn that babies come out of the mother's
body this knowledge often remains very vague and inaccurate. It
very commonly happens, for instance, in all civilized countries
that the navel is regarded as the baby's point of exit from the
body. This is a natural conclusion, since the navel is seemingly
a channel into the body, and a channel for which there is no
obvious use, while the pudendal cleft would not suggest itself to
girls (and still less to boys) as the gate of birth, since it
already appears to be monopolized by the urinary excretion. This
belief concerning the navel is sometimes preserved through the
whole period of adolescence, especially in girls of the so-called
educated class, who are too well-bred to discuss the matter with
their married friends, and believe indeed that they are already
sufficiently well informed. At this age the belief may not be
altogether harmless, in so far as it leads to the real gate of
sex being left unguarded. In Elsass where girls commonly believe,
and are taught, that babies come through the navel, popular
folk-tales are current (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, p. 89)
which represent the mistakes resulting from this belief as
leading to the loss of virginity.

Freud, who believes that children give little credit to the stork
fable and similar stories invented for their mystification, has
made an interesting psychological investigation into the real
theories which children themselves, as the result of observation
and thought, reach concerning the sexual facts of life (S. Freud,
"Ueber Infantile Sexualtheorien," _Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908).
Such theories, he remarks, correspond to the brilliant, but
defective hypotheses which primitive peoples arrive at concerning
the nature and origin of the world. There are three theories,
which, as Freud quite truly concludes, are very commonly formed
by children. The first, and the most widely disseminated, is that
there is no real anatomical difference between boys and girls; if
the boy notices that his little sister has no obvious penis he
even concludes that it is because she is too young, and the
little girl herself takes the same view. The fact that in early
life the clitoris is relatively larger and more penis-like helps
to confirm this view which Freud connects with the tendency in
later life to erotic dream of women furnished with a penis. This
theory, as Freud also remarks, favors the growth of homosexuality
when its germs are present. The second theory is the fæcal theory
of the origin of babies. The child, who perhaps thinks his mother
has a penis, and is in any case ignorant of the vagina, concludes
that the baby is brought into the world by an action analogous to
the action of the bowels. The third theory, which is perhaps less
prevalent than the others, Freud terms the sadistic theory of
coitus. The child realizes that his father must have taken some
sort of part in his production. The theory that sexual
intercourse consists in violence has in it a trace of truth, but
seems to be arrived at rather obscurely. The child's own sexual
feelings are often aroused for the first time when wrestling or
struggling with a companion; he may see his mother, also,
resisting more or less playfully a sudden caress from his father,
and if a real quarrel takes place, the impression may be
fortified. As to what the state of marriage consists in, Freud
finds that it is usually regarded as a state which abolishes
modesty; the most prevalent theory being that marriage means that
people can make water before each other, while another common
childish theory is that marriage is when people can show each
other their private parts.

Thus it is that at a very early stage of the child's life we are brought
face to face with the question how we may most wisely begin his initiation
into the knowledge of the great central facts of sex. It is perhaps a
little late in the day to regard it as a question, but so it is among us,
although three thousand five hundred years ago, the Egyptian father spoke
to his child: "I have given you a mother who has carried you within her, a
heavy burden, for your sake, and without resting on me. When at last you
were born, she indeed submitted herself to the yoke, for during three
years were her nipples in your mouth. Your excrements never turned her
stomach, nor made her say, 'What am I doing?' When you were sent to school
she went regularly every day to carry the household bread and beer to your
master. When in your turn you marry and have a child, bring up your child
as your mother brought you up."[20]

I take it for granted, however, that--whatever doubt there may be as to
the how or the when--no doubt is any longer possible as to the absolute
necessity of taking deliberate and active part in this sexual initiation,
instead of leaving it to the chance revelation of ignorant and perhaps
vicious companions or servants. It is becoming more and more widely felt
that the risks of ignorant innocence are too great.

"All the love and solicitude parental yearning can bestow,"
writes Dr. G.F. Butler, of Chicago (_Love and its Affinities_,
1899, p. 83), "all that the most refined religious influence can
offer, all that the most cultivated associations can accomplish,
in one fatal moment may be obliterated. There is no room for
ethical reasoning, indeed oftentimes no consciousness of wrong,
but only Margaret's 'Es war so süss'." The same writer adds (as
had been previously remarked by Mrs. Craik and others) that among
church members it is the finer and more sensitive organizations
that are the most susceptible to sexual emotions. So far as boys
are concerned, we leave instruction in matters of sex, the most
sacred and central fact in the world, as Canon Lyttelton remarks,
to "dirty-minded school-boys, grooms, garden-boys, anyone, in
short, who at an early age may be sufficiently defiled and
sufficiently reckless to talk of them." And, so far as girls are
concerned, as Balzac long ago remarked, "a mother may bring up
her daughter severely, and cover her beneath her wings for
seventeen years; but a servant-girl can destroy that long work by
a word, even by a gesture."

The great part played by servant-girls of the lower class in the
sexual initiation of the children of the middle class has been
illustrated in dealing with "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol.
iii, of these _Studies_, and need not now be further discussed.
I would only here say a word, in passing, on the other side.
Often as servant-girls take this part, we must not go so far as
to say that it is the case with the majority. As regards Germany,
Dr. Alfred Kind has lately put on record his experience: "I have
_never_, in youth, heard a bad or improper word on
sex-relationships from a servant-girl, although servant-girls
followed one another in our house like sunshine and showers in
April, and there was always a relation of comradeship between us
children and the servants." As regards England, I can add that my
own youthful experiences correspond to Dr. Kind's. This is not
surprising, for one may say that in the ordinary well-conditioned
girl, though her virtue may not be developed to heroic
proportions, there is yet usually a natural respect for the
innocence of children, a natural sexual indifference to them, and
a natural expectation that the male should take the active part
when a sexual situation arises.

It is also beginning to be felt that, especially as regards women,
ignorant innocence is not merely too fragile a possession to be worth
preservation, but that it is positively mischievous, since it involves the
lack of necessary knowledge. "It is little short of criminal," writes Dr.
F.M. Goodchild,[21] "to send our young people into the midst of the
excitements and temptations of a great city with no more preparation than
if they were going to live in Paradise." In the case of women, ignorance
has the further disadvantage that it deprives them of the knowledge
necessary for intelligent sympathy with other women. The unsympathetic
attitude of women towards women is often largely due to sheer ignorance of
the facts of life. "Why," writes in a private letter a married lady who
keenly realizes this, "are women brought up with such a profound ignorance
of their own and especially other women's natures? They do not know half
as much about other women as a man of the most average capacity learns in
his day's march." We try to make up for our failure to educate women in
the essential matters of sex by imposing upon the police and other
guardians of public order the duty of protecting women and morals. But, as
Moll insists, the real problem of chastity lies, not in the multiplication
of laws and policemen, but largely in women's knowledge of the dangers of
sex and in the cultivation of their sense of responsibility.[22] We are
always making laws for the protection of children and setting the police
on guard. But laws and the police, whether their activities are good or
bad, are in either case alike ineffectual. They can for the most part only
be invoked when the damage is already done. We have to learn to go to the
root of the matter. We have to teach children to be a law to themselves.
We have to give them that knowledge which will enable them to guard their
own personalities.[23] There is an authentic story of a lady who had
learned to swim, much to the horror of her clergyman, who thought that
swimming was unfeminine. "But," she said, "suppose I was drowning." "In
that case," he replied, "you ought to wait until a man comes along and
saves you." There we have the two methods of salvation which have been
preached to women, the old method and the new. In no sea have women been
more often in danger of drowning than that of sex. There ought to be no
question as to which is the better method of salvation.

It is difficult nowadays to find any serious arguments against
the desirability of early sexual enlightenment, and it is almost
with amusement that we read how the novelist Alphonse Daudet,
when asked his opinion of such enlightenment, protested--in a
spirit certainly common among the men of his time--that it was
unnecessary, because boys could learn everything from the streets
and the newspapers, while "as to young girls--no! I would teach
them none of the truths of physiology. I can only see
disadvantages in such a proceeding. These truths are ugly,
disillusioning, sure to shock, to frighten, to disgust the mind,
the nature, of a girl." It is as much as to say that there is no
need to supply sources of pure water when there are puddles in
the street that anyone can drink of. A contemporary of Daudet's,
who possessed a far finer spiritual insight, Coventry Patmore,
the poet, in the essay on "Ancient and Modern Ideas of Purity" in
his beautiful book, _Religio Poetæ_, had already finely protested
against that "disease of impurity" which comes of "our modern
undivine silences" for which Daudet pleaded. And Metchnikoff,
more recently, from the scientific side, speaking especially as
regards women, declares that knowledge is so indispensable for
moral conduct that "ignorance must be counted the most immoral of
acts" (_Essais Optimistes_, p. 420).

The distinguished Belgian novelist, Camille Lemonnier, in his
_L'Homme en Amour_, deals with the question of the sexual
education of the young by presenting the history of a young man,
brought up under the influence of the conventional and
hypocritical views which teach that nudity and sex are shameful
and disgusting things. In this way he passes by the opportunities
of innocent and natural love, to become hopelessly enslaved at
last to a sensual woman who treats him merely as the instrument
of her pleasure, the last of a long succession of lovers. The
book is a powerful plea for a sane, wholesome, and natural
education in matters of sex. It was, however, prosecuted at
Bruges, in 1901, though the trial finally ended in acquittal.
Such a verdict is in harmony with the general tendency of feeling
at the present time.

The old ideas, expressed by Daudet, that the facts of sex are
ugly and disillusioning, and that they shock the mind of the
young, are both alike entirely false. As Canon Lyttelton remarks,
in urging that the laws of the transmission of life should be
taught to children by the mother: "The way they receive it with
native reverence, truthfulness of understanding and guileless
delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing
beauty of nature. People sometimes speak of the indescribable
beauty of children's innocence. But I venture to say that no one
quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being
the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth
and the mystery of their own being. Not only do we fail to build
up sound knowledge in them, but we put away from ourselves the
chance of learning something that must be divine." In the same
way, Edward Carpenter, stating that it is easy and natural for
the child to learn from the first its physical relation to its
mother, remarks (_Love's Coming of Age_, p. 9): "A child at the
age of puberty, with the unfolding of its far-down emotional and
sexual nature, is eminently capable of the most sensitive,
affectional and serene appreciation of what _sex_ means
(generally more so as things are to-day, than its worldling
parent or guardian); and can absorb the teaching, if
sympathetically given, without any shock or disturbance to its
sense of shame--that sense which is so natural and valuable a
safeguard of early youth."

How widespread, even some years ago, had become the conviction
that the sexual facts of life should be taught to girls as well
as boys, was shown when the opinions of a very miscellaneous
assortment of more or less prominent persons were sought on the
question ("The Tree of Knowledge," _New Review_, June, 1894). A
small minority of two only (Rabbi Adler and Mrs. Lynn Lynton)
were against such knowledge, while among the majority in favor of
it were Mme. Adam, Thomas Hardy, Sir Walter Besant, Björnson,
Hall Caine, Sarah Grand, Nordau, Lady Henry Somerset, Baroness
von Suttner, and Miss Willard. The leaders of the woman's
movement are, of course, in favor of such knowledge. Thus a
meeting of the Bund für Mutterschutz at Berlin, in 1905, almost
unanimously passed a resolution declaring that the early sexual
enlightenment of children in the facts of the sexual life is
urgently necessary (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 2, p. 91). It may
be added that medical opinion has long approved of this
enlightenment. Thus in England it was editorially stated in the
_British Medical Journal_ some years ago (June 9, 1894): "Most
medical men of an age to beget confidence in such affairs will be
able to recall instances in which an ignorance, which would have
been ludicrous if it had not been so sad, has been displayed on
matters regarding which every woman entering on married life
ought to have been accurately informed. There can, we think, be
little doubt that much unhappiness and a great deal of illness
would be prevented if young people of both sexes possessed a
little accurate knowledge regarding the sexual relations, and
were well impressed with the profound importance of selecting
healthy mates. Knowledge need not necessarily be nasty, but even
if it were, it certainly is not comparable in that respect with
the imaginings of ignorance." In America, also, where at an
annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. Denslow
Lewis, of Chicago, eloquently urged the need of teaching sexual
hygiene to youths and girls, all the subsequent nine speakers,
some of them physicians of worldwide fame, expressed their
essential agreement (_Medico-Legal Journal_, June-Sept., 1903).
Howard, again, at the end of his elaborate _History of
Matrimonial Institutions_ (vol. iii, p. 257) asserts the
necessity for education in matters of sex, as going to the root
of the marriage problem. "In the future educational programme,"
he remarks, "sex questions must hold an honorable place."

While, however, it is now widely recognized that children are entitled to
sexual enlightenment, it cannot be said that this belief is widely put
into practice. Many persons, who are fully persuaded that children should
sooner or later be enlightened concerning the sexual sources of life, are
somewhat nervously anxious as to the precise age at which this
enlightenment should begin. Their latent feeling seems to be that sex is
an evil, and enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however necessary,
and that the chief point is to ascertain the latest moment to which we can
safely postpone this necessary evil. Such an attitude is, however,
altogether wrong-headed. The child's desire for knowledge concerning the
origin of himself is a perfectly natural, honest, and harmless desire, so
long as it is not perverted by being thwarted. A child of four may ask
questions on this matter, simply and spontaneously. As soon as the
questions are put, certainly as soon as they become at all insistent, they
should be answered, in the same simple and spontaneous spirit, truthfully,
though according to the measure of the child's intelligence and his
capacity and desire for knowledge. This period should not, and, if these
indications are followed, naturally would not, in any case, be delayed
beyond the sixth year. After that age even the most carefully guarded
child is liable to contaminating communications from outside. Moll points
out that the sexual enlightenment of girls in its various stages ought to
be always a little ahead of that of boys, and as the development of girls
up to the pubertal age is more precocious than that of boys, this demand
is reasonable.

If the elements of sexual education are to be imparted in early childhood,
it is quite clear who ought to be the teacher. There should be no question
that this privilege belongs by every right to the mother. Except where a
child is artificially separated from his chief parent it is indeed only
the mother who has any natural opportunity of receiving and responding to
these questions. It is unnecessary for her to take any initiative in the
matter. The inevitable awakening of the child's intelligence and the
evolution of his boundless curiosity furnish her love and skill with all
opportunities for guiding her child's thoughts and knowledge. Nor is it
necessary for her to possess the slightest technical information at this
stage. It is only essential that she should have the most absolute faith
in the purity and dignity of her physical relationship to her child, and
be able to speak of it with frankness and tenderness. When that essential
condition is fulfilled every mother has all the knowledge that her young
child needs.

Among the best authorities, both men and women, in all the
countries where this matter is attracting attention, there seems
now to be unanimity of opinion in favor of the elementary facts
of the baby's relationship to its mother being explained to the
child by the mother as soon as the child begins to ask questions.
Thus in Germany Moll has repeatedly argued in this sense; he
insists that sexual enlightenment should be mainly a private and
individual matter; that in schools there should be no general and
personal warnings about masturbation, etc. (though at a later age
he approves of instruction in regard to venereal diseases), but
that the mother is the proper person to impart intimate knowledge
to the child, and that any age is suitable for the commencement
of such enlightenment, provided it is put into a form fitted for
the age (Moll, op. cit., p. 264).

At the Mannheim meeting of the Congress of the German Society for
Combating Venereal Disease, when the question of sexual
enlightenment formed the sole subject of discussion, the opinion
in favor of early teaching by the mother prevailed. "It is the
mother who must, in the first place, be made responsible for the
child's clear understanding of sexual things, so often lacking,"
said Frau Krukenberg ("Die Aufgabe der Mutter,"
_Sexualpädagogik_, p. 13), while Max Enderlin, a teacher, said on
the same occasion ("Die Sexuelle Frage in die Volksschule," id.,
p. 35): "It is the mother who has to give the child his first
explanations, for it is to his mother that he first naturally
comes with his questions." In England, Canon Lyttelton, who is
distinguished among the heads of public schools not least by his
clear and admirable statements on these questions, states
(_Mothers and Sons_, p. 99) that the mother's part in the sexual
enlightenment and sexual guardianship of her son is of paramount
importance, and should begin at the earliest years. J.H. Badley,
another schoolmaster ("The Sex Difficulty," _Broad Views_, June,
1904), also states that the mother's part comes first. Northcote
(_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 25) believes that the duty
of the parents is primary in this matter, the family doctor and
the schoolmaster coming in at a later stage. In America, Dr. Mary
Wood Allen, who occupies a prominent and influential position in
women's social movements, urges (in _Child-Confidence Rewarded_,
and other pamphlets) that a mother should begin to tell her child
these things as soon as he begins to ask questions, the age of
four not being too young, and explains how this may be done,
giving examples of its happy results in promoting a sweet
confidence between the child and his mother.

If, as a few believe should be the case, the first initiation is delayed
to the tenth year or even later, there is the difficulty that it is no
longer so easy to talk simply and naturally about such things; the mother
is beginning to feel too shy to speak for the first time about these
difficult subjects to a son or a daughter who is nearly as big as herself.
She feels that she can only do it awkwardly and ineffectively, and she
probably decides not to do it at all. Thus an atmosphere of mystery is
created with all the embarrassing and perverting influences which mystery
encourages.

There can be no doubt that, more especially in highly intelligent
children with vague and unspecialized yet insistent sexual
impulses, the artificial mystery with which sex is too often
clothed not only accentuates the natural curiosity but also tends
to favor the morbid intensity and even prurience of the sexual
impulse. This has long been recognized. Dr. Beddoes wrote at the
beginning of the nineteenth century: "It is in vain that we
dissemble to ourselves the eagerness with which children of
either sex seek to satisfy themselves concerning the conformation
of the other. No degree of reserve in the heads of families, no
contrivances, no care to put books of one description out of
sight and to garble others, has perhaps, with any one set of
children, succeeded in preventing or stifling this kind of
curiosity. No part of the history of human thought would perhaps
be more singular than the stratagems devised by young people in
different situations to make themselves masters or witnesses of
the secret. And every discovery, due to their own inquiries, can
but be so much oil poured upon an imagination in flames" (T.
Beddoes, _Hygeia_, 1802, vol. iii, p. 59). Kaan, again, in one of
the earliest books on morbid sexuality, sets down mystery as one
of the causes of _psychopathia sexualis_. Marro (_La Pubertà_, p.
299) points out how the veil of mystery thrown over sexual
matters merely serves to concentrate attention on them. The
distinguished Dutch writer Multatuli, in one of his letters
(quoted with approval by Freud), remarks on the dangers of hiding
things from boys and girls in a veil of mystery, pointing out
that this must only heighten the curiosity of children, and so
far from keeping them pure, which mere ignorance can never do,
heats and perverts their imaginations. Mrs. Mary Wood Allen,
also, warns the mother (op. cit., p. 5) against the danger of
allowing any air of embarrassing mystery to creep over these
things. "If the instructor feels any embarrassment in answering
the queries of the child, he is not fitted to be the teacher, for
the feeling of embarrassment will, in some subtle way,
communicate itself to the child, and he will experience an
indefinable sense of offended delicacy which is both unnecessary
and undesirable. Purification of one's own thought is, then, the
first step towards teaching the truth purely. Why," she adds, "is
death, the gateway out of life, any more dignified or pathetic
than birth, the gateway into life? Or why is the taking of
earthly life a more awful fact than the giving of life?" Mrs.
Ennis Richmond, in a book of advice to mothers which contains
many wise and true things, says: "I want to insist, more strongly
than upon anything else, that it is the _secrecy_ that surrounds
certain parts of the body and their functions that gives them
their danger in the child's thought. Little children, from
earliest years, are taught to think of these parts of their body
as mysterious, and not only so, but that they are mysterious
because they are unclean. Children have not even a name for them.
If you have to speak to your child, you allude to them
mysteriously and in a half-whisper as 'that little part of you
that you don't speak of,' or words to that effect. Before
everything it is important that your child should have a good
working name for these parts of his body, and for their
functions, and that he should be taught to use and to hear the
names, and that as naturally and openly as though he or you were
speaking of his head or his foot. Convention has, for various
reasons, made it impossible to speak in this way in public. But
you can, at any rate, break through this in the nursery. There
this rule of convention has no advantage, and many a serious
disadvantage. It is easy to say to a child, the first time he
makes an 'awkward' remark in public: 'Look here, laddie, you may
say what you like to me or to daddy, but, for some reason or
other, one does not talk about these' (only say _what_ things)
'in public.' Only let your child make the remark in public
_before_ you speak (never mind the shock to your caller's
feelings), don't warn him against doing so" (Ennis Richmond,
_Boyhood_, p. 60). Sex must always be a mystery, but, as Mrs.
Richmond rightly says, "the real and true mysteries of generation
and birth are very different from the vulgar secretiveness with
which custom surrounds them."

The question as to the precise names to be given to the more
private bodily parts and functions is sometimes a little
difficult to solve. Every mother will naturally follow her own
instincts, and probably her own traditions, in this matter. I
have elsewhere pointed out (in the study of "The Evolution of
Modesty") how widespread and instinctive is the tendency to adopt
constantly new euphemisms in this field. The ancient and simple
words, which in England a great poet like Chaucer could still use
rightly and naturally, are so often dropped in the mud by the
vulgar that there is an instinctive hesitation nowadays in
applying them to beautiful uses. They are, however,
unquestionably the best, and, in their origin, the most dignified
and expressive words. Many persons are of opinion that on this
account they should be rescued from the mud, and their sacredness
taught to children. A medical friend writes that he always taught
his son that the vulgar sex names are really beautiful words of
ancient origin, and that when we understand them aright we cannot
possibly see in them any motive for low jesting. They are simple,
serious and solemn words, connoting the most central facts of
life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause
obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privately and
anonymously printed some pamphlets on sex questions, also takes
this view, and consistently and methodically uses the ancient
and simple words. I am of opinion that this is the ideal to be
sought, but that there are obvious difficulties at present in the
way of attaining it. In any case, however, the mother should be
in possession of a very precise vocabulary for all the bodily
parts and acts which it concerns her children to know.

It is sometimes said that at this early age children should not be told,
even in a simple and elementary form, the real facts of their origin but
should, instead, hear a fairy-tale having in it perhaps some kind of
symbolic truth. This contention may be absolutely rejected, without
thereby, in any degree, denying the important place which fairy-tales hold
in the imagination of young children. Fairy-tales have a real value to the
child; they are a mental food he needs, if he is not to be spiritually
starved; to deprive him of fairy-tales at this age is to do him a wrong
which can never be made up at any subsequent age. But not only are sex
matters too vital even in childhood to be safely made matter for a
fairy-tale, but the real facts are themselves as wonderful as any
fairy-tale, and appeal to the child's imagination with as much force as a
fairy-tale.

Even, however, if there were no other reasons against telling children
fairy-tales of sex instead of the real facts, there is one reason which
ought to be decisive with every mother who values her influence over her
child. He will very quickly discover, either by information from others or
by his own natural intelligence, that the fairy-tale, that was told him in
reply to a question about a simple matter of fact, was a lie. With that
discovery his mother's influence over him in all such matters vanishes for
ever, for not only has a child a horror of being duped, but he is
extremely sensitive about any rebuff of this kind, and never repeats what
he has been made to feel was a mistake to be ashamed of. He will not
trouble his mother with any more questions on this matter; he will not
confide in her; he will himself learn the art of telling "fairy-tales"
about sex matters. He had turned to his mother in trust; she had not
responded with equal trust, and she must suffer the punishment, as
Henriette Fürth puts it, of seeing "the love and trust of her son stolen
from her by the first boy he makes friends with in the street." When, as
sometimes happens (Moll mentions a case), a mother goes on repeating these
silly stories to a girl or boy of seven who is secretly well-informed, she
only degrades herself in her child's eyes. It is this fatal mistake, so
often made by mothers, which at first leads them to imagine that their
children are so innocent, and in later years causes them many hours of
bitterness because they realize they do not possess their children's
trust. In the matter of trust it is for the mother to take the first step;
the children who do not trust their mothers are, for the most part, merely
remembering the lesson they learned at their mother's knee.

The number of little books and pamphlets dealing with the
question of the sexual enlightenment of the young--whether
intended to be read by the young or offering guidance to mothers
and teachers in the task of imparting knowledge--has become very
large indeed during recent years in America, England, and
especially Germany, where there has been of late an enormous
production of such literature. The late Ben Elmy, writing under
the pseudonym of "Ellis Ethelmer," published two booklets, _Baby
Buds_, and _The Human Flower_ (issued by Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy,
Buxton House, Congleton), which state the facts in a simple and
delicate manner, though the author was not a notably reliable
guide on the scientific aspects of these questions. A charming
conversation between a mother and child, from a French source, is
reprinted by Edward Carpenter at the end of his _Love's Coming of
Age. How We Are Born_, by Mrs. N.J. (apparently a Russian lady
writing in English), prefaced by J.H. Badley, is satisfactory.
Mention may also be made of _The Wonder of Life_, by Mary Tudor
Pole. Margaret Morley's _Song of Life_, an American book, which I
have not seen, has been highly praised. Most of these books are
intended for quite young children, and while they explain more or
less clearly the origin of babies, nearly always starting with
the facts of plant life, they touch very slightly, if at all, on
the relations of the sexes.

Mrs. Ennis Richmond's books, largely addressed to mothers, deal
with these questions in a very sane, direct, and admirable
manner, and Canon Lyttelton's books, discussing such questions
generally, are also excellent. Most of the books now to be
mentioned are intended to be read by boys and girls who have
reached the age of puberty. They refer more or less precisely to
sexual relationships, and they usually touch on masturbation.
_The Story of Life_, written by a very accomplished woman, the
late Ellice Hopkins, is somewhat vague, and introduces too many
exalted religious ideas. Arthur Trewby's _Healthy Boyhood_ is a
little book of wholesome tendency; it deals specially with
masturbation. _A Talk with Boys About Themselves_ and _A Talk
with Girls About Themselves_, both by Edward Bruce Kirk (the
latter book written in conjunction with a lady) deal with general
as well as sexual hygiene. There could be no better book to put
into the hands of a boy or girl at puberty than M.A. Warren's
_Almost Fourteen_, written by an American school teacher in 1892.
It was a most charming and delicately written book, which could
not have offended the innocence of the most sensitive maiden.
Nothing, however, is sacred to prurience, and it was easy for the
prurient to capture the law and obtain (in 1897) legal
condemnation of this book as "obscene." Anything which sexually
excites a prurient mind is, it is true, "obscene" for that mind,
for, as Mr. Theodore Schroeder remarks, obscenity is "the
contribution of the reading mind," but we need such books as this
in order to diminish the number of prurient minds, and the
condemnation of so entirely admirable a book makes, not for
morality, but for immorality. I am told that the book was
subsequently issued anew with most of its best portions omitted,
and it is stated by Schroeder (_Liberty of Speech and Press
Essential to Purity Propaganda_, p. 34) that the author was
compelled to resign his position as a public school principal.
Maria Lischnewska's _Geschlechtliche Belehrung der Kinder_
(reprinted from _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4 and 5) is a most
admirable and thorough discussion of the whole question of sexual
education, though the writer is more interested in the teacher's
share in this question than in the mother's. Suggestions to
mothers are contained in Hugo Salus, _Wo kommen die Kinder her?_,
E. Stiehl, _Eine Mutterpflicht_, and many other books. Dr. Alfred
Kind strongly recommends Ludwig Gurlitt's _Der Verkehr mit meinem
Kindern_, more especially in its combination of sexual education
with artistic education. Many similar books are referred to by
Bloch, in his _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. xxvi.

I have enumerated the names of these little books because they
are frequently issued in a semi-private manner, and are seldom
easy to procure or to hear of. The propagation of such books
seems to be felt to be almost a disgraceful action, only to be
performed by stealth. And such a feeling seems not unnatural when
we see, as in the case of the author of _Almost Fourteen_, that a
nominally civilized country, instead of loading with honors a man
who has worked for its moral and physical welfare, seeks so far
as it can to ruin him.

I may add that while it would usually be very helpful to a mother
to be acquainted with a few of the booklets I have named, she
would do well, in actually talking to her children, to rely
mainly on her own knowledge and inspiration.

The sexual education which it is the mother's duty and privilege to
initiate during her child's early years cannot and ought not to be
technical. It is not of the nature of formal instruction but is a private
and intimate initiation. No doubt the mother must herself be taught.[24]
But the education she needs is mainly an education in love and insight.
The actual facts which she requires to use at this early stage are very
simple. Her main task is to make clear the child's own intimate relations
to herself and to show that all young things have a similar intimate
relation to their mothers; in generalizing on this point the egg is the
simplest and most fundamental type to explain the origin of the individual
life, for the idea of the egg--in its widest sense as the seed--not only
has its truth for the human creature but may be applied throughout the
animal and vegetable world. In this explanation the child's physical
relationship to his father is not necessarily at first involved; it may be
left to a further stage or until the child's questions lead up to it.

Apart from his interest in his origin, the child is also interested in his
sexual, or as they seem to him exclusively, his excretory organs, and in
those of other people, his sisters and parents. On these points, at this
age, his mother may simply and naturally satisfy his simple and natural
curiosity, calling things by precise names, whether the names used are
common or uncommon being a matter in regard to which she may exercise her
judgment and taste. In this manner the mother will, indirectly, be able to
safeguard her child at the outset against the prudish and prurient notions
alike which he will encounter later. She will also without unnatural
stress be able to lead the child into a reverential attitude towards his
own organs and so exert an influence against any undesirable tampering
with them. In talking with him about the origin of life and about his own
body and functions, in however elementary a fashion, she will have
initiated him both in sexual knowledge and in sexual hygiene.

The mother who establishes a relationship of confidence with her child
during these first years will probably, if she possesses any measure of
wisdom and tact, be able to preserve it even after the epoch of puberty
into the difficult years of adolescence. But as an educator in the
narrower sense her functions will, in most cases, end at or before
puberty. A somewhat more technical and completely impersonal acquaintance
with the essential facts of sex then becomes desirable, and this would
usually be supplied by the school.

The great though capricious educator, Basedow, to some extent a
pupil of Rousseau, was an early pioneer in both the theory and
the practice of giving school children instruction in the facts
of the sexual life, from the age of ten onwards. He insists much
on this subject in his great treatise, the _Elementarwerk_
(1770-1774). The questions of children are to be answered
truthfully, he states, and they must be taught never to jest at
anything so sacred and serious as the sexual relations. They are
to be shown pictures of childbirth, and the dangers of sexual
irregularities are to be clearly expounded to them at the outset.
Boys are to be taken to hospitals to see the results of venereal
disease. Basedow is aware that many parents and teachers will be
shocked at his insistence on these things in his books and in his
practical pedagogic work, but such people, he declares, ought to
be shocked at the Bible (see, e.g., Pinloche, _La Rèforme de
l'Education en Allemagne au dixhuitième siècle: Basedow et le
Philanthropinisme_, pp. 125, 256, 260, 272). Basedow was too far
ahead of his own time, and even of ours, to exert much influence
in this matter, and he had few immediate imitators.

Somewhat later than Basedow, a distinguished English physician,
Thomas Beddoes, worked on somewhat the same lines, seeking to
promote sexual knowledge by lectures and demonstrations. In his
remarkable book, _Hygeia_, published in 1802 (vol. i, Essay IV)
he sets forth the absurdity of the conventional requirement that
"discretion and ignorance should lodge in the same bosom," and
deals at length with the question of masturbation and the need of
sexual education. He insists on the great importance of lectures
on natural history which, he had found, could be given with
perfect propriety to a mixed audience. His experiences had shown
that botany, the amphibia, the hen and her eggs, human anatomy,
even disease and sometimes the sight of it, are salutary from
this point of view. He thinks it is a happy thing for a child to
gain his first knowledge of sexual difference from anatomical
subjects, the dignity of death being a noble prelude to the
knowledge of sex and depriving it forever of morbid prurience.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that this method of teaching
children the elements of sexual anatomy in the _post-mortem_ room
has not found many advocates or followers; it is undesirable, for
it fails to take into account the sensitiveness of children to
such impressions, and it is unnecessary, for it is just as easy
to teach the dignity of life as the dignity of death.

The duty of the school to impart education in matters of sex to
children has in recent years been vigorously and ably advocated
by Maria Lischnewska (op. cit.), who speaks with thirty years'
experience as a teacher and an intimate acquaintance with
children and their home life. She argues that among the mass of
the population to-day, while in the home-life there is every
opportunity for coarse familiarity with sexual matters, there is
no opportunity for a pure and enlightened introduction to them,
parents being for the most part both morally and intellectually
incapable of aiding their children here. That the school should
assume the leading part in this task is, she believes, in
accordance with the whole tendency of modern civilized life. She
would have the instruction graduated in such a manner that during
the fifth or sixth year of school life the pupil would receive
instruction, with the aid of diagrams, concerning the sexual
organs and functions of the higher mammals, the bull and cow
being selected by preference. The facts of gestation would of
course be included. When this stage was reached it would be easy
to pass on to the human species with the statement: "Just in the
same way as the calf develops in the cow so the child develops in
the mother's body."

It is difficult not to recognize the force of Maria Lischnewska's
argument, and it seems highly probable that, as she asserts, the
instruction proposed lies in the course of our present path of
progress. Such instruction would be formal, unemotional, and
impersonal; it would be given not as specific instruction in
matters of sex, but simply as a part of natural history. It would
supplement, so far as mere knowledge is concerned, the
information the child had already received from its mother. But
it would by no means supplant or replace the personal and
intimate relationship of confidence between mother and child.
That is always to be aimed at, and though it may not be possible
among the ill-educated masses of to-day, nothing else will
adequately take its place.

There can be no doubt, however, that while in the future the school will
most probably be regarded as the proper place in which to teach the
elements of physiology--and not as at present a merely emasculated and
effeminated physiology--the introduction of such reformed teaching is as
yet impracticable in many communities. A coarse and ill-bred community
moves in a vicious circle. Its members are brought up to believe that sex
matters are filthy, and when they become adults they protest violently
against their children being taught this filthy knowledge. The teacher's
task is thus rendered at the best difficult, and under democratic
conditions impossible. We cannot, therefore, hope for any immediate
introduction of sexual physiology into schools, even in the unobtrusive
form in which alone it could properly be introduced, that is to say as a
natural and inevitable part of general physiology.

This objection to animal physiology by no means applies, however, to
botany. There can be little doubt that botany is of all the natural
sciences that which best admits of this incidental instruction in the
fundamental facts of sex, when we are concerned with children below the
age of puberty. There are at least two reasons why this should be so. In
the first place botany really presents the beginnings of sex, in their
most naked and essential forms; it makes clear the nature, origin, and
significance of sex. In the second place, in dealing with plants the facts
of sex can be stated to children of either sex or any age quite plainly
and nakedly without any reserve, for no one nowadays regards the botanical
facts of sex as in any way offensive. The expounder of sex in plants also
has on his side the advantage of being able to assert, without question,
the entire beauty of the sexual process. He is not confronted by the
ignorance, bad education, and false associations which have made it so
difficult either to see or to show the beauty of sex in animals. From the
sex-life of plants to the sex-life of the lower animals there is, however,
but a step which the teacher, according to his discretion, may take.

An early educational authority, Salzmann, in 1785 advocated the
sexual enlightenment of children by first teaching them botany,
to be followed by zoölogy. In modern times the method of
imparting sex knowledge to children by means, in the first place,
of botany, has been generally advocated, and from the most
various quarters. Thus Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 300) recommends
this plan. J. Hudrey-Menos ("La Question du Sexe dans
l'Education," _Revue Socialiste_, June, 1895), gives the same
advice. Rudolf Sommer, in a paper entitled "Mädchenerziehung oder
Menschenbildung?" (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I,
Heft 3) recommends that the first introduction of sex knowledge
to children should be made by talking to them on simple natural
history subjects; "there are endless opportunities," he remarks,
"over a fairy-tale, or a walk, or a fruit, or an egg, the sowing
of seed or the nest-building of birds." Canon Lyttelton
(_Training of the Young in Laws of Sex_, pp. 74 et seq.) advises
a somewhat similar method, though laying chief stress on personal
confidence between the child and his mother; "reference is made
to the animal world just so far as the child's knowledge extends,
so as to prevent the new facts from being viewed in isolation,
but the main emphasis is laid on his feeling for his mother and
the instinct which exists in nearly all children of reverence due
to the maternal relation;" he adds that, however difficult the
subject may seem, the essential facts of paternity must also be
explained to boys and girls alike. Keyes, again (_New York
Medical Journal_, Feb. 10, 1906), advocates teaching children
from an early age the sexual facts of plant life and also
concerning insects and other lower animals, and so gradually
leading up to human beings, the matter being thus robbed of its
unwholesome mystery. Mrs. Ennis Richmond (_Boyhood_, p. 62)
recommends that children should be sent to spend some of their
time upon a farm, so that they may not only become acquainted
with the general facts of the natural world, but also with the
sexual lives of animals, learning things which it is difficult to
teach verbally. Karina Karin ("Wie erzieht man ein Kind zür
wissenden Keuschheit?" _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I,
Heft 4), reproducing some of her talks with her nine-year old
son, from the time that he first asked her where children came
from, shows how she began with telling him about flowers, to pass
on to fish and birds, and finally to the facts of human
pregnancy, showing him pictures from an obstetrical manual of the
child in its mother's body. It may be added that the advisability
of beginning the sex teaching of children with the facts of
botany was repeatedly emphasized by various speakers at the
special meeting of the German Congress for Combating Venereal
Disease devoted to the subject of sexual instruction
(_Sexualpädagogik_, especially pp. 36, 47, 76).

The transition from botany to the elementary zoölogy of the lower animals,
to human anatomy and physiology, and to the science of anthropology based
on these, is simple and natural. It is not likely to be taken in detail
until the age of puberty. Sex enters into all these subjects and should
not be artificially excluded from them in the education of either boys or
girls. The text-books from which the sexual system is entirely omitted
ought no longer to be tolerated. The nature and secretion of the
testicles, the meaning of the ovaries and of menstruation, as well as the
significance of metabolism and the urinary excretion, should be clear in
their main lines to all boys and girls who have reached the age of
puberty.

At puberty there arises a new and powerful reason why boys and girls
should receive definite instruction in matters of sex. Before that age it
is possible for the foolish parent to imagine that a child may be
preserved in ignorant innocence.[25] At puberty that belief is obviously
no longer possible. The efflorescence of puberty with the development of
the sexual organs, the appearance of hair in unfamiliar places, the
general related organic changes, the spontaneous and perhaps alarming
occurrence in boys of seminal emissions, and in girls of menstruation, the
unaccustomed and sometimes acute recognition of sexual desire accompanied
by new sensations in the sexual organs and leading perhaps to
masturbation; all these arouse, as we cannot fail to realize, a new
anxiety in the boy's or girl's mind, and a new curiosity, all the more
acute in many cases because it is carefully concealed as too private, and
even too shameful, to speak of to anyone. In boys, especially if of
sensitive temperament, the suffering thus caused may be keen and
prolonged.

A doctor of philosophy, prominent in his profession, wrote to
Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 452): "My entire youth,
from six to eighteen, was made miserable from lack of knowledge
that any one who knew anything of the nature of puberty might
have given; this long sense of defect, dread of operation, shame
and worry, has left an indelible mark." There are certainly many
men who could say the same. Lancaster ("Psychology and Pedagogy
of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, pp. 123-5)
speaks strongly regarding the evils of ignorance of sexual
hygiene, and the terrible fact that millions of youths are always
in the hands of quacks who dupe them into the belief that they
are on the road to an awful destiny merely because they have
occasional emissions during sleep. "This is not a light matter,"
Lancaster declares. "It strikes at the very foundation of our
inmost life. It deals with the reproductory part of our natures,
and must have a deep hereditary influence. It is a natural result
of the foolish false modesty shown regarding all sex instruction.
Every boy should be taught the simple physiological facts before
his life is forever blighted by this cause." Lancaster has had in
his hands one thousand letters, mostly written by young people,
who were usually normal, and addressed to quacks who were duping
them. From time to time the suicides of youths from this cause
are reported, and in many mysterious suicides this has
undoubtedly been the real cause. "Week after week," writes the
_British Medical Journal_ in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack
Literature: The Moral of a Recent Suicide," Oct. 1, 1892), "we
receive despairing letters from those victims of foul birds of
prey who have obtained their first hold on those they rob,
torture and often ruin, by advertisements inserted by newspapers
of a respectable, nay, even of a valuable and respected,
character." It is added that the wealthy proprietors of such
newspapers, often enjoying a reputation for benevolence, even
when the matter is brought before them, refuse to interfere as
they would thereby lose a source of income, and a censorship of
advertisements is proposed. This, however, is difficult, and
would be quite unnecessary if youths received proper
enlightenment from their natural guardians.

Masturbation, and the fear that by an occasional and perhaps
outgrown practice of masturbation they have sometimes done
themselves irreparable injury, is a common source of anxiety to
boys. It has long been a question whether a boy should be warned
against masturbation. At a meeting of the Section of Psychology
of the British Medical Association some years ago, four speakers,
including the President (Dr. Blandford), were decidedly in favor
of parents warning their children against masturbation, while
three speakers were decidedly against that course, mainly on the
ground that it was possible to pass through even a public school
life without hearing of masturbation, and also that the warning
against masturbation might encourage the practice. It is,
however, becoming more and more clearly realized that ignorance,
even if it can be maintained, is a perilous possession, while the
teaching that consists, as it should, in a loving mother's
counsel to the child from his earliest years to treat his sexual
parts with care and respect, can only lead to masturbation in the
child who is already irresistibly impelled to it. Most of the sex
manuals for boys touch on masturbation, sometimes exaggerating
its dangers; such exaggeration should be avoided, for it leads to
far worse evils than those it attempts to prevent. It seems
undesirable that any warnings about masturbation should form part
of school instruction, unless under very special circumstances.
The sexual instruction imparted in the school on sexual as on
other subjects should be absolutely impersonal and objective.

At this point we approach one of the difficulties in the way of
sexual enlightenment: the ignorance or unwisdom of the would-be
teachers. This difficulty at present exists both in the home and
the school, while it destroys the value of many manuals written
for the sexual instruction of the young. The mother, who ought to
be the child's confidant and guide in matters of sexual
education, and could naturally be so if left to her own healthy
instincts, has usually been brought up in false traditions which
it requires a high degree of intelligence and character to escape
from; the school-teacher, even if only called upon to give
instruction in natural history, is oppressed by the same
traditions, and by false shame concerning the whole subject of
sex; the writer of manuals on sex has often only freed himself
from these bonds in order to advocate dogmatic, unscientific, and
sometimes mischievous opinions which have been evolved in entire
ignorance of the real facts. As Moll says (Das _Sexualleben des
Kindes_, p. 276), necessary as sexual enlightenment is, we cannot
help feeling a little skeptical as to its results so long as
those who ought to enlighten are themselves often in need of
enlightenment. He refers also to the fact that even among
competent authorities there is difference of opinion concerning
important matters, as, for instance, whether masturbation is
physiological at the first development of the sexual impulse and
how far sexual abstinence is beneficial. But it is evident that
the difficulties due to false tradition and ignorance will
diminish as sound traditions and better knowledge become more
widely diffused.

The girl at puberty is usually less keenly and definitely conscious of her
sexual nature than the boy. But the risks she runs from sexual ignorance,
though for the most part different, are more subtle and less easy to
repair. She is often extremely inquisitive concerning these matters; the
thoughts of adolescent girls, and often their conversation among
themselves, revolve much around sexual and allied mysteries. Even in the
matter of conscious sexual impulse the girl is often not so widely
different from her brother, nor so much less likely to escape the
contamination of evil communications, so that the scruples of foolish and
ignorant persons who dread to "sully her purity" by proper instruction are
exceedingly misplaced.

Conversations dealing with the important mysteries of human
nature, Obici and Marchesini were told by ladies who had formerly
been pupils in Italian Normal Schools, are the order of the day
in schools and colleges, and specially circle around procreation,
the most difficult mystery of all. In England, even in the best
and most modern colleges, in which games and physical exercise
are much cultivated, I am told that "the majority of the girls
are entirely ignorant of all sexual matters, and understand
nothing whatever about them. But they do wonder about them, and
talk about them constantly" (see Appendix D, "The School
Friendships of Girls," in the second volume of these _Studies_).
"The restricted life and fettered mind of girls," wrote a
well-known physician some years ago (J. Milner Fothergill,
_Adolescence_, 1880, pp. 20, 22) "leave them with less to
actively occupy their thoughts than is the case with boys. They
are studiously taught concealment, and a girl may be a perfect
model of outward decorum and yet have a very filthy mind. The
prudishness with which she is brought up leaves her no
alternative but to view her passions from the nasty side of human
nature. All healthy thought on the subject is vigorously
repressed. Everything is done to darken her mind and foul her
imagination by throwing her back on her own thoughts and a
literature with which she is ashamed to own acquaintance. It is
opposed to a girl's best interests to prevent her from having
fair and just conceptions about herself and her nature. Many a
fair young girl is irredeemably ruined on the very threshold of
life, herself and her family disgraced, from ignorance as much as
from vice. When the moment of temptation comes she falls without
any palpable resistance; she has no trained educated power of
resistance within herself; her whole future hangs, not upon
herself, but upon the perfection of the social safeguards by
which she is hedged and surrounded." Under the free social order
of America to-day much the same results are found. In an
instructive article ("Why Girls Go Wrong," _Ladies' Home
Journal_, Jan., 1907) B.B. Lindsey, who, as Judge of the Juvenile
Court of Denver, is able to speak with authority, brings forward
ample evidence on this head. Both girls and boys, he has found,
sometimes possess manuscript books in which they had written down
the crudest sexual things. These children were often sweet-faced,
pleasant, refined and intelligent, and they had respectable
parents; but no one had ever spoken to them of sex matters,
except the worst of their school-fellows or some coarse-minded
and reckless adult. By careful inquiry Lindsey found that only in
one in twenty cases had the parents ever spoken to the children
of sexual subjects. In nearly every case the children
acknowledged that it was not from their parents, but in the
street or from older companions, that they learnt the facts of
sex. The parents usually imagined that their children were
absolutely ignorant of these matters, and were astonished to
realize their mistake; "parents do not know their children, nor
have they the least idea of what their children know, or what
their children talk about and do when away from them." The
parents guilty of this neglect to instruct their children, are,
Lindsey declares, traitors to their children. From his own
experience he judges that nine-tenths of the girls who "go
wrong," whether or not they sink in the world, do so owing to the
inattention of their parents, and that in the case of most
prostitutes the mischief is really done before the age of twelve;
"every wayward girl I have talked to has assured me of this
truth." He considers that nine-tenths of school-boys and
school-girls, in town or country, are very inquisitive regarding
matters of sex, and, to his own amazement, he has found that in
the girls this is as marked as in the boys.

It is the business of the girl's mother, at least as much as of the boy's,
to watch over her child from the earliest years and to win her confidence
in all the intimate and personal matters of sex. With these aspects the
school cannot properly meddle. But in matters of physical sexual hygiene,
notably menstruation, in regard to which all girls stand on the same
level, it is certainly the duty of the teacher to take an actively
watchful part, and, moreover, to direct the general work of education
accordingly, and to ensure that the pupil shall rest whenever that may
seem to be desirable. This is part of the very elements of the education
of girls. To disregard it should disqualify a teacher from taking further
share in educational work. Yet it is constantly and persistently
neglected. A large number of girls have not even been prepared by their
mothers or teachers for the first onset of the menstrual flow, sometimes
with disastrous results both to their bodily and mental health.[26]

"I know of no large girl's school," wrote a distinguished
gynæcologist, Sir W.S. Playfair ("Education and Training of Girls
at Puberty," _British Medical Journal_, Dec. 7, 1895), "in which
the absolute distinction which exists between boys and girls as
regards the dominant menstrual function is systematically cared
for and attended to. Indeed, the feeling of all schoolmistresses
is distinctly antagonistic to such an admission. The contention
is that there is no real difference between an adolescent male
and female, that what is good for one is good for the other, and
that such as there is is due to the evil customs of the past
which have denied to women the ambitions and advantages open to
men, and that this will disappear when a happier era is
inaugurated. If this be so, how comes it that while every
practical physician of experience has seen many cases of anæmia
and chlorosis in girls, accompanied by amenorrhæa or menorrhagia,
headaches, palpitations, emaciation, and all the familiar
accompaniments of breakdown, an analogous condition in a
school-boy is so rare that it may well be doubted

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