ach the boy or girl
how not to interfere with health; but it is improbable that such brief
instruction will make a permanent impression which will insure hygienic
practice of the precepts laid down. If we hold that sex-hygiene is
important, then it must be drilled into the learner from several points
of view. An isolated lesson on any topic of general hygiene is of very
doubtful efficiency.

[Sidenote: Brief instruction does not fix attitude.]

The most important reason why sex-instruction should not be
concentrated in a short period of youth is that it is impossible to
exert the most desirable influence upon health, attitude, and morals
except by instruction beginning in early childhood and graded for each
period of life up to maturity. Most young people who in early
adolescence receive their first lessons from parents and teachers have
already had their attitude formed by their playmates. Even their morals
may become corrupted and their health irreparably injured several years
before puberty. The only sure pathway to health, attitude, and morals
is in beginning with young children and instructing them as gradually
as the problems of sex come forward.

[Sidenote: Sex-instruction after youth.]

The greatest possible good of sex-education will not be secured if it
stops with early adolescent years. There are many problems of sex in
relation to society, particularly in relation to monogamic marriage,
that young people should be led to consider in the late teens and early
twenties. Our sex-education system will not be completely organized
until we find ways and means for carrying the instruction by lectures,
conferences, and books beyond the years commonly occupied by
public-school education. Colleges and other higher educational
institutions may contribute somewhat to this advanced sex-instruction;
but obviously the great majority of maturing young people cannot be
reached personally except by instruction arranged in churches, the
Y.M.C.A., and the Y.W.C.A., evening schools, and other such
institutions. In many respects this proposed instruction for maturing
young people is of very great importance and deserves encouragement
such as has not yet been given by those who have written and lectured
in favor of a movement for sex-education of young people.

[Sidenote: The larger sex-education.]

In conclusion of this introductory lecture, let me say that I have
tried to suggest in a general survey that sex-education in i