moral education.
That, however, is an entirely different story. We shall speak about
it; we shall put our faith in it, but at present we are talking of
that specific sexual education which is the fad of the day.

V

Sexual education, to be sure, does not necessarily mean education of
young people only. The adults who know, the married men and women of
the community, may not know enough to protect their sons and
daughters. And the need for their full information may stretch far
beyond their personal family interests. They are to form the public
opinion which must stand behind every real reform, their consciences
must be stirred, the hidden misery must be brought before them. Thus
they need sexual education as much as the youngsters, only they need
it in a form which appeals to them and makes them willing to listen;
and our reformers have at last discovered the form. The public must be
taught from the stage of the theatre. The magazine with its short
stories on sex incidents, the newspaper with its sensational court
reports, may help to carry the gruesome information to the masses, but
the deepest impression will always be made when actual human beings
are shown on the stage in their appealing distress, as living
accusations against the rotten foundations of society. The stage is
overcrowded with sexual drama and the social community inundated with
discussions about it.

It is not easy to find the right attitude toward this red-light
literature. Many different interests are concerned, and it is often
extremely difficult to disentangle them. Three such interests stand
out very clearly: the true aesthetic one, the purely commercial one,
and the sociological one. It would be wonderful if the aesthetic
culture of our community had reached a development at which the
aesthetic attitude toward a play would be absolutely controlling. If we
could trust this aesthetic instinct, no other question would be
admissible but the one whether the play is a good work of art or not.
The social inquiry whether the human fates which the poet shows us
suggests legislative reforms or hygienic improvements would be
entirely inhibited in the truly artistic consciousness. It would make
no difference to the spectator whether the action played in Chicago or
Petersburg, whether it dealt with men and women of to-day or of two
thousand years ago. The human element would absorb our interest, and
as far as the joys