Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 244, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1913 — SEX SECRECY PERIL [ARTICLE]

SEX SECRECY PERIL

School Conference Speaker Advocates Education as Cure. 8eo« the Religious Aspect and Dedares That the Will to Do the Right Should Go With the Knowledge of the Right. Buffalo, N. Y. —Representatives of the many boards of education, who were here gathering hints for the teaching of sex hygiene in the high schools at the International Congress on School Hygiene, displayed much interest in an address on “The Social Emergency,” delivered by Dr. William T. Foster, president of Reed college, and also president of the Pacific Coast Federation for Sex Hygiene. Dr. Foster said in part: “Many generations have Joined in the ‘conspiracy of science’ in matters pertaining to sex and reproduction. The result is widespread Ignorance of matters of the utmost importance to the individual and the race —ignorance of which many good people are proud. During these generations in which the home, the church and the school have withheld the truth from young people, other agencies have been busy disseminating falsehoods. Having almost no opportunity to hear sex and matrimony discussed with reverence, our young people have almost invariably heard these subjects discussed with vulgarity. “Partly as a result of all this has come the general acceptance of the double standard of morality which has bitterly condemned the girl—made her an outcast of society—and excused the boy for the same offence on the specious plea of physiological necessity. With, the sanction of this double Btandard, tacitly accepted by society, the majority of men have grown up in indulgence and have developed habits which are, or which they believe td be. beyond their control. Millions of men who recognize no law in sex life but their own appetites are thus contributed to us by the past. They are factors in the present situation and must be reckoned with. “As a matter of fact the educational phases of social reform are of most immediate importance. Nothing can so profitably occupy the attention of social hygiene societies as the education of the public. “No aspects are more important than those concerning morals and religion. The restraining fear of disease may and probably will be thrown off by science. Whether education in scientific aspects of the subject will do good or harm in a given case depends on the extent to which moral and religious ideals control the conduct of the individual. The inadequacy of mere information in matters of sex is painfully evident To the knowledge of what is right must be added the will to do the right. All the other aspects of the social emergency treated with superhuman wisdom would still leave the greatest problem unsolved. As moral and religious instruction is the dominant educational need of the present generation, so the moral and religious aspects of sex problems transcend the —Others in importance. "To attempt to deal with sex aspects of school hygiene, as (, though these problems were distinct from other phases of the social emergency is to invite failure from the start The union of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene and the American Vigilance association is a step in the right direction, for it gives promise of seeing the social emergency clearly and seeing it whole.”