Chapter V: Proper Education

_In School._—The most outstanding error, the one most fraught with dire consequences, is the taboo on sex, and the consequent silence upon any matter pertaining to it. All life is dependent upon sex, and all civilization is combined in an effort to make it appear non-existent by ignoring it.

With silly sham codes and an absurd veil of surface morality, civilized society blinds its eyes to sex, and tries to believe that in so doing it is eradicating man’s most fundamental yearning. Naturally, it does no such thing. But what does it do? If it were only a negative result that it achieved, it would be hardly worthy of notice, and could be passed over with a light laugh as a fond parent ignores the amusing make-believe of a child. Such is not the case. The conventions and moral codes are more deadly than a mere sop thrown out to soothe Rotarian consciences. This smoke screen, released to blind the enemy, has deadened the eyes of the defense, and left them open to the most insidious advances of their declared foe. All that conventional morality has succeeded in doing is promulgating an ignorance that is more devastating than anything the most licentious knowledge could possibly foster. Young persons, reaching maturity, blunder onto sex, blinded by ignorance. Small wonder that they make so many grave mistakes. It is hard on both sexes, but harder on girls. In spite of our broadening attitude, girls still pay the price of ignorance in most communities. What chance has a young girl, brought up to believe that she was dropped through the window by a stork, or that her mother found her under a rose bush, when she goes out into a man-made world? She has been taught to keep her boy friends at a proper distance, but when she is alone, and lonely, she finds it not too hard to give the first kiss. Once given, she can see no harm in it. Somehow it doesn’t seem nearly as evil as her parents had told her it was. She does not know that the kiss is a mere preliminary, and when she finally yields, she does not realize the full import of her action. She has only blind ignorance with which to defend herself from the world, only ignorance to protect her from disease, or illegitimate motherhood.

Has this ignorance kept girls any purer? No. An appalling number of babies are born to ignorant girls every year. The crime is not only against the girl, but the baby, who comes into the world branded by the stigma of illegitimacy. And society blames the girl for not knowing how to take care of herself when all of the social energies have been united to maintain her ignorance.

Perhaps the worst result of this sex-ignorance is prostitution. We wonder how many people know where the recruits to this profession are gathered. To be sure, there are some who enter it voluntarily, but they are few. The great majority of them are innocent girls, usually from small towns or country homes, who fall into the trap of some wily man, a trap not baited by the man, but by the girl’s ignorance. Since this has been the result of ignorance, is there a remedy? Yes, education.

Almost everything is taught in our schools today, from how to add two and two to the theory of the fourth dimension. What is taught about sex? In general, nothing. In most of the grade schools there is a course in hygiene, but this assiduously avoids all mention of the most important hygiene of all—sex-hygiene. There are courses which teach the structure of the human body. They give long Latin names to each bone, from the skull to the great toe. But, when they reach the central sections of man’s anatomy, they hurriedly locate the stomach and intestines, and rush on to the thigh bone, leaving a great void between. The reasons for this are absurd. First there is the puritanical teaching that the body is vile, and that any conversation about it is evil. But they do not consider that head, shoulders, chest, thighs, feet are vile. Those portions of the body are acceptable, even to puritan thinking. Only the generative organs are banned. The second reason given for not teaching sex in the schools is that the imparting of scientific information on the subject will stimulate undesirable conduct on the part of the pupils. The so-called undesirable conduct is participated in anyhow, and it is rendered the more harmful through ignorance. The majority of intelligent persons today realize the error of these taboos, but, when asked to advocate sex-knowledge, they decline to support such a reform.

In the last few years there has been some advance made, through the study of biology. The study of plant and animal life is an excellent introduction to that of human life. This is particularly true of the latter, of which human life is merely a more advanced stage. But it is to be feared, that if the smug teachers of these subjects realized this they would immediately expunge it from school curriculums. However, botany and zoology are taught, and it behooves the student to give them careful attention, as it is his only chance of learning anything about sex under the present standards. There is no shame attached to conversation about flowers, their seeding and blooming. We speak of pollen, stamen and pistil without any maiden blushes. We learn of the promiscuity in nature without raising horrified hands. The development of the young from the fertilized ovum to the production of the seed and the plant gives a symbolic picture to the mind of what she is to expect in the human world.

In zoology we come to the next step in this surreptitious learning. Here certain things are regarded shameful by some persons. To the farmer, there is nothing wrong in what a city person may think is not nice. But the farmer would not regard with the same latitude similar human functions. We do not blush when we speak of a chicken laying eggs, nor of the pet cat’s litter of kittens. Even in the most fastidious society anyone may with propriety call attention to a tom cat’s nightly song of wooing. A clear knowledge of zoology will give any student fair comprehension of her own sex-life. In the higher animals, the sex functions almost parallel our own. Learned through these channels, instead of through filthy gutter talk, sex unfolds itself to the youthful mind as an interesting and natural phenomenon, divested of all shame and guilt.

The third step in teaching sex in schools is in the study of human physiology. At present this is a much-neglected subject. But, the time will come when it is included in every school course. It can be taught to segregated classes. No emphasis need be placed on the generative organs, provided they are mentioned in their proper place. The tendency of the pupils to giggle will disappear if the teacher is sufficiently cool and detached. The teaching, to be valuable, must be comprehensive both as to the organs, and their use and abuse.

_At Home._—The best place for a child to learn the proper facts of sex is in the home. The right education at home is more than ever essential at present, since there is no attempt to teach such matters in the schools. But even when the schools have broadened to include this subject, it should be fully and adequately discussed at home. This education should begin as soon as the child manifests any curiosity on the subject. In general, a child is still very young when she asks, “Where did I come from?” The taboo-inhibited parent need not think that the child fully accepts the threadbare stork or rosebush story. The child may ask for fuller information, but more often, she merely remains silent. For several years, she may learn nothing to contradict this story. But, one day, through her reading or her companions, truth or near-truth will come to her. It will have two deep effects upon her young mind. First, it will start that hideous belief that there is something wrong with sex, something evil about it, that prompted her parents to hide it under a foolish legend. All right, that is what we want, the parent may answer. But the second effect is such that no parent can desire. It gives the child her first glimpse of deception, and breaks her faith in her parents. Remember, that all of the child’s early training has been to convince her that she must always tell the truth. She is punished for lies and deceptions. Then, she suddenly discovers that these parents, who taught her to speak the truth, have lied to her. She does not stop to reason why, she only sees the fact. And a very disillusioning fact it is. Very few parents realize that the art of lying is taught by themselves while they are trying to instil truth as a virtue into the young mind. Example is more powerful than words, or even punishment. The child learns that the parents teach truth, then lie themselves. If the parents are strict, and, by punishment, prevent the child from deception during its childhood, the lesson she learns is only that force has the right of deception. She comes to the conclusion that the elders can do as they wish, and need not be honorable, and the lesson lingers.

How much better is the simple truth. Certainly no one advocates telling a child all of the scientific facts that govern sex. But when the child asks, tell her simply the truth, in a plain sweet manner. Tell her that she was carried close under her mother’s heart, until she was big enough to come out into the world. From this simple beginning, the story can be filled in as the child’s mind grows old enough to understand.

This requires, first, proper knowledge on the part of the parent. It is the duty of every woman who is a mother or who expects to become one, to learn all of the facts about sex. This knowledge will have a twofold value. It will assist in her own life, and will equip her properly to answer her daughter’s questions.

When a girl enters adolescence, it is imperative that her mother tell her frankly and without shame all of the details and practices of sexual life. Knowledge is the best protection that any girl can have. The duty of the wise parents is to enlighten their children fully about the possible ways before them, and what good or ill will be won by following each. The girl who has a thorough comprehension of these facts may be depended upon in the majority of cases to decide far more wisely and constructively problems connected with the sexual urge, than the girl who is reared in blindness and receives such information as she gathers from doubtful sources, thick with the slime of evil minds.

_Love Education._—The adolescent and the young woman will find this information too elementary to be satisfactory. Love is more than a matter of human psychology and its functioning. It is a very subtle art. There must be, ultimately, education in the art of love. The savage races all believed in this. The ceremonies of initiation that were held at the time of puberty of the young men and women, were merely the culmination of an education in love-making that was given frankly and openly in all the tribe. These practices still prevail among such tribes as have evaded the missionaries.

The average man or woman, barring such stray and frequently fouled hints as he receives from friends and companions equally ignorant, enters upon marriage with no understanding of what he is called upon to do. When the daughter of a nice respectable family marries, she is, presumably at least, a virgin. The young man may or may not be; the assumption being that he is not. His sexual knowledge has been gained through prostitutes and “common girls.” More often he has no idea what to do. The girl, we repeat, is virginal. She is not supposed to have any but the most vague ideas on the subject. If the girl really has no knowledge of men, she is shy. Naturally, the largest part of the burden falls upon the man. But the girl should know in advance what sex means. If she does know, it will do a great deal to dissipate her unnecessary shyness.

We repeat, love is an art. The girl must realize that she may suffer a tremendous shock which will render her frigid for life. Medical records are black with the countless cases where the experiences of the nuptial night have wrecked the whole subsequent content of the woman, and in extreme cases, her reason. Young wives who commit suicide on the honeymoon are frequently so impelled by the man’s initial and usually quite unconscious brutality. Love is an art, calling for infinite tact on the part of both the man and the woman.

It will require an immense change in modern conceptions before any wholesale education in the art of love can be given in this country. None the less, it is indispensable to right living and happy loving. It remains for the wise individual to educate herself, by extensive reading of literature upon the subject, and by a personal contact with those in a position to know. It is an idealistic dream to hope for such education now. But, we can be optimistic, for the history of any radical idea is that it has been proposed, hooted at, persecuted, and finally adopted.