p Fire Girls, and other organizations which aim to reach young
people socially, religiously, and ethically. The part which these have
already taken in the sex-education movement is in the aggregate far
more important than what the schools have been able to accomplish.
Sex-education, then, should be understood as including all serious
instruction--no matter where or when or by whom given--which aims to
help young people face the problems that normal sexual processes bring
to every life.

[Sidenote: Sex-instruction impossible in most homes.]

In a later lecture I shall urge the importance of beginning
sex-instruction in the home. There are some parents who wish that it
were possible not only to begin but also to end it there, for they fear
that public instruction will lead to a weakening of a certain sense of
reserve and privacy that has long been considered sacred to the best
family life. Perhaps this has some truth, but we must remember that
only in rare homes are there such ideal relationships of parents to
each other and to their offspring that matters of sex are sacred to the
family circle. The fact which parents and educators must face is that
there are now relatively few homes in which there is one parent able to
begin the elementary instruction of young children; and, therefore, as
a practical matter for the best interests of the vast majority of young
people, we must consider ways and means for instruction outside of most
homes. This need not interfere in the least with the parents who are
able and willing to give sex-instruction to the children, for the home
instruction will naturally anticipate that which the schools must give
for the pupils who are not properly instructed at home. It seems to me
to be a situation like that of children learning to read at home and
later continuing reading at school. Sex-instruction begun at home will
form the child's attitude and give him some elementary information, and
later he may profitably learn more in the same lines in the class work
of school, especially in connection with science instruction for which
few homes have facilities. Moreover, it is quite possible that one
instructed at home in childhood may gain from later school instruction
something of great social value, for we must remember that the problems
of sex which most demand attention are not individual, but social.
Hence, it may be worth while for the home-instructed individual to
learn through class instructi