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The references to "the teacher" in the following are primarily applicable to those who may be called upon to give sex-instruction as class work in schools, colleges, churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and other educational organizations.
If I were stating a defense for biology as one of three or four essential science courses for general education, I should place the greatest emphasis upon the study of animals and plants as a foundation for sex-instruction.
It is well to make clear in this first lecture that no one proposes to limit sex-instruction to schools and colleges.
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.
However, the high schools no longer offer an insoluble problem, for many teachers have succeeded in giving the desirable instruction to the satisfaction of critical principals and parents. There is a widespread impression that sex-instruction should begin with the approach of adolescence and soon be completed.
Chicago Society of Social Hygiene organized. December, 1907. October, 1908. Spokane Society of Social and Moral Prophylaxis organized. June, 1910. American Federation for Sex-Hygiene organized. Oregon Social Hygiene Society organized. July 20, 1912. Resolution of the National Education Association favoring training of teachers with the view, ultimately, of sex-instruction in schools.
Finally, Miss Repplier, like so many other critics of sex-instruction, has in mind only the physical consequences of wrong-doing. Here again is the influence of the pioneer sex-hygiene. However, she pleads for the "gradual and harmonious broadening of the field of knowledge and for a more careful consideration of ways and means" for sex-instruction.
The continued use of the term "sex-hygiene," now that the scope of the desirable sex-instruction has been extended far beyond the accepted limits of the science of health, is tending to cause confusion.
In short, all along the line I have found intelligent parents and others who believe in very thorough sex-instruction for boys, but that "nice" girls should be kept as ignorant and innocent as possible. With such disagreement existing, it is evidently not possible to make such specific recommendations as have been made for boys. The Young Woman's Attitude towards Manhood
It now appears that the great majority of educators, scientists, and intelligent citizens in general have accepted the arguments for sex-instruction, so far as they have been informed concerning the meaning and need of the movement; and this leads me to the belief that in the future we need not new arguments but frequent restatements of the established facts which indicate the importance of widespread knowledge regarding the function that is inseparably connected with the perpetuation of life.
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