While society has set forward, generation after generation, the age at
which marriage seems feasible, the age of puberty has remained virtually
the same. This unnatural condition--as artificial as the clothes we
wear--is a phase of the emergency which should be considered by those who
condemn as unnatural and forced the education of adolescent boys and girls
in sexual hygiene and morals. Partly as a result of this has come the
general acceptance of the double standard of chastity which has bitterly
condemned the girl--made her an outcast of society--and excused the boy
for the same offense, on the false plea of physiological necessity.

With the sanction of this double standard, tacitly accepted by society,
thousands of prostitutes have been harbored and protected. What shall we
do with them? We may drive them out of certain districts and certain
houses, and even certain cities, but they are still with us, and we are
responsible for them. If they are denied resorts where men seek them, they
will seek men. Most of them are unable, without special training, to earn
a living in any other way, and many of them would not if they could. A
majority are mentally defective and should be wards of society. Any plan
which fails to take care of these women--adequately, permanently, and
humanely--ignores one of the greatest of the problems which history, with
the sanction of society, has made a factor of the present emergency.

The medical phase of the present situation is not often ignored, except by
those who hold that there is no such thing as disease. All countries are
alarmed over the prevalence of venereal infection. Definite information,
however, concerning the extent of these diseases, the sources and
conditions of contagion, and the complications and results, is not to be
had; because society still persists in treating venereal diseases as not
subject to public registration and control, in spite of their terrible
attacks on tens of thousands of innocent victims.

The fear of contracting disease has long been used in attempts to promote
a single standard of chastity. Such fear has no doubt played its part and
will continue to keep many prudent men away from prostitutes. But in
looking forward to the work of the next generation, we must face the need
of higher motives than the fear of disease, for science may at any time
discover positive safeguards against contagion, thus diminishing one of
the factors of the present emergenc