riters on sex-hygiene who seem to
overlook the fact that sexual functioning is only a prominent incident
in the cycle of sexual influences in the lives of most people. Human
life, and especially marriage, should no longer be regarded from the
mere biological point of view as for the sole purpose of reproductive
activity. It is a far more uplifting view that the conscious or
unconscious existence of the sexual instincts, with or without
occasional activity, affords the fundamental physical basis for states
of mind that may profoundly affect the whole course of life in every
normal man and woman.

Supplementary to this section on the "Misunderstanding of Sex," I
suggest the reading of Chapters I-VI of "Sex" by Geddes and Thomson,
the "Problems of Sex" by the same authors, and Chapter VI in "The
Wonder of Life" by Thomson.

Sec. 3. _The Need of Sex-Instruction_

[Sidenote: The old silence and the new enlightenment.]

The time-honored policy has been one of silence and mystery concerning
all things sexual. Everything in that line has long been considered
impure and degraded and, therefore, the less said and the less known,
the better, especially for young people. Such has been the almost
universal attitude of parents until within the present century, when
many have awakened to the fact that the policy of silence has been a
gigantic failure, because it has not preserved purity and innocence and
because it has allowed grave evils, both hygienic and moral, to develop
under the cloak of secrecy.

[Sidenote: Children will not remain ignorant.]

"I don't believe in teaching my boys and girls any facts concerning
sex. I prefer to keep them innocent until they have grown up." In these
decisive words a prominent woman closed a statement of her firm
conviction that the world-wide movement for the sex-instruction of
young people is a stupendous mistake. Poor deluded mother! How does she
expect to keep her children ignorant of the world of life around them?
Is she planning to transplant them to a deserted island where they may
grow up innocently? Or is she going to keep the children in some
cloister within whose walls there will be immunity from the
contamination of the great busy world outside? Or is she going to have
them guarded like crown princes, and if so, where are absolutely safe
guards to be found? Such are the questions which rush into the minds of
those who have studied the problem of keeping children ignorant of th