s to rise
above the clamoring demands of physical appetite, in the vigorous terms of
the New Testament making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God's sake.
This is a hard saying, and the experience it treats of must always be
confined to a small number of men; yet it goes far toward demonstrating a
general possibility, and it should effectively dispose of the "necessity"
argument, by which men often excuse their vicious practices.

One thing more should be said on this subject of control. Not only are the
higher, more spiritual affections the most effective masters of the lower;
they are the _only_ effective masters. Public reprobation can do much, but
it is ineffectual with large numbers of relatively unattached members of
society, and it is impotent against secret vice. Motives of cautious fear
are always weak with full-blooded and generous youth, and they are likely
to become weaker with all men as medical science discovers ways to prevent
or escape the most obviously fearful consequences of sexual license.

A familiar phrase comes to my mind, as no doubt it comes to yours: "The
expulsive power of the higher affections"; yet I think that phrase is not
quite suitable. It is not a question of expulsion. It is not wholly a
question of control; it is mainly a question of direction. What we need
to-day with boys and girls for the solving of the sex problems is to
direct those energies, which in their false direction are destructive,
into right and healthful ways; that is, we need to socialize and elevate
that affection, which in baser forms has aspects of ugly animalism.

As one of the solutions of the problem of control it has been proposed to
separate the sexes in the adolescent years. From my point of view, this
would defeat our object. In the association of boys and girls during the
adolescent period, we may enlist the higher affections for the control and
the direction of the powers that are set free by sex impulses developed in
that very period of life.

What happens in the experience of the normal boy? In this period of early
adolescence he finds within himself a wonderful quickening of
mind,--impulses, feelings, longings that he does not understand. These
impulses, feelings, longings, perplex him, it may be for years. They reach
out vaguely, blindly toward the opposite sex, sometimes in a perverted
way, but oftener naturally and honestly. Then the young man falls in love.
At once his more or less vague, clou