ral problems. A far more helpful view is that expressed by Dr.
Henry Neumann, leader of the Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society:

"Problems of hygiene, whether of sex, or nutrition, or temperance
and the like, are no less moral problems. They are problems of
habit; and habits are impossible without strong incentives to
start them and keep them going.... Ethical instruction is often
misunderstood to be barren preaching. It is nothing of the sort.
It consists in clarifying views of life. It begins with the fact
that there are certain tendencies in our nature which may work ill
or good. Then it tries to show to what these lead. It uses what is
best in us to make over what is worst. That is why problems of
sex-hygiene should be regarded as at bottom problems of
sex-morality."

Sec. 47. _The Arrogance of the Advocates of Sex-education_

In an article in the _Educational Review_, February, 1914,
Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, writes concerning what he
calls "the teaching of child hygiene" as follows:

[Sidenote: Dr. Maxwell's criticisms.]

"There are those to-day who claim that sexual information and
problems should be thrust upon the attention of boys and girls by
the teachers in the public schools, that this teaching is
necessary for the protection of virtue and the prevention of
disease, and that, if anyone hesitates to encourage the spread of
such literature and the teaching of such knowledge, he is an
arrant and presumptuous blockhead. The arrogance of the extreme
advocates of child hygiene blinds them to certain all-important
truths. The first is that our teachers are not prepared, and, in
too many cases, are not the most suitable persons to teach the
subject. The second is that to bring the adolescent mind face to
face with sexual matters engenders the habit of dwelling upon the
sexual passion, and in that may lie spiritual havoc and physical
ruin. A premature interest in the sexual passion debases the mind
and unsettles the will. The third is that parents have no right to
ask the teacher to do the work that is peculiarly theirs.

"And yet some good may emerge from this discussion. Parents may be
incited to do their duty in placing sex information before their
children whenever conditions demand such knowledge. And principals
and teachers, particularly principals, whenever they hav