mall boys the danger of shooting
themselves and other people.

[Sidenote: Hygiene and ethics for health.]

The last quoted sentence suggests Dr. Cabot's whole basis of contention
against sex-hygiene. He seems to have inferred from the earlier papers,
especially those by Dr. Morrow, that the hygiene of sex is to be taught
as an approach to morality. On the contrary, the truth is that the aim
of most of the first leaders in sex-instruction was to teach hygiene
and ethics primarily in order to improve health. Dr. Morrow and others
believed that hygienic teaching would secondarily react on sexual
morality; but the original aim of the Society of Sanitary and Moral
Prophylaxis was to limit the spread of venereal disease by sanitary,
moral, and legal means. In other words, moral appeals were to aid in
checking disease, and knowledge of disease was not claimed to improve
morality, although such knowledge might react against immorality. It is
this misunderstanding or overlooking of the real reasons for teaching
concerning sex health that seems to have led Dr. Cabot into apparent
opposition to the general movement for sex-instruction. One infers from
all his lectures that he believes it good to teach hygiene for health,
ethics for morality, and biology for science; but that these should not
be correlated because to him they are unrelated. It seems to me that he
has simply been misled by the overenthusiasm of some of the first
writers on sex-hygiene and by the widespread use of that limited term
instead of sex-education.

[Sidenote: Is sex-hygiene immoral?]

(2) "Now I say that the preaching about sex-hygiene that is going
on in recent books and in the periodical press is immoral in its
tendency. It is like saying, 'Don't lie, for if you do, you won't
sleep at night, and insomnia is bad for the health.'"

If insomnia often follows lying, then it should be taught as _one_
reason why falsehoods should be avoided. This is not opposed to ethical
teaching, for at the same time we can teach the other reasons for not
telling lies. Likewise, sex-hygiene offers certain reasons for conduct
and may be supplemented by sex-ethics.

[Sidenote: Information and morality.]

(3) "The attempts to consecrate affection and to safeguard
morality by teaching in public or private schools what is called
'sex-hygiene' will, I believe, prove a failure. I have very
little confidence in the restraining or inspiring valu