BIOLOGY OF SEX 
FOR PARENTS 
AND TEACHERS 
BY 
T. W. GALLOWAY, Ph.D. 
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES, AMERICAN SOCIAL 
HYGIENE ASSOCIATION; FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, JAMES 
MILLIKIN UNIVERSITY, DECATUR, ILL. 
AUTHOR OF " TEXT BOOK OF ZOOLOGY "; " SEX AND LIFE "; " SEX 
FACTOR IN HUMAN LIFE "; " USE OF MOTIVES IN MORAL AND 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION"; ETC. 
REVISED 
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO Copyright, 1913 and 1922, by 
D. C. HEATH & COMPANY 
2E 2 
PRINTED IN U.S.A. To 
MY WIFE 
AT ONCE MY MOST SYMPATHETIC 
AND EFFECTIVE CRITIC - THIS 
BOOK IS DEDICATED 
THE AUTHOR FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION 
When those meet who have given much thought to the 
question of the need of proper sex instruction for our children, 
there is little time taken in arguing that such instruction is 
desirable or necessary at the hands of parents and teachers. 
The questions which are now being considered by teachers are 
rather these: - What subjects should be included in this in- 
struction? In what order should they come? Where should 
the emphasis be put? At what period in the child's life should 
each topic be presented for best results? Who should do the 
teaching, and under what circumstances? In a word, How 
and in what spirit? 
In every discussion of the matter, after pointing out what 
may be done in college and in high school, or even in the grades, 
by teachers properly equipped with knowledge, earnestness, 
and insight, the attention is always brought back to the fact 
that all this comes too late, if nothing has been done before. 
Before any outside teacher can come to the help of the child, 
important preparatory work must be done by the parents in 
the earliest years. If sex instruction is to amount to anything 
worth while, it must begin, and all its foundations be laid, in 
the home. Furthermore, at every stage in the life of the youth 
efficient parents should have a closeness of approach which 
no one else can gain, and should supplement the work of others 
at every step. Otherwise they are failing in parenthood. 
It is the purpose of the writer in the present book, the ma- 
terial of which was first delivered as a series of talks to meet- 
ings of mothers and teachers, to bring before parents and 
teachers some idea of the biological, social, and moral foun- 
v vi 
FOREWORD 
dations which must underlie all this work and something of 
the spirit which must characterize it. It is not the purpose 
of the writer to give in detail all the facts for which a parent 
may find need. There is an increasing literature in which 
these may be found. 
The problem at the present moment is one of method and 
spirit rather than of matter; - "how" rather than "what." 
How can we take the known facts, which are easy enough for 
any adult to get, and use them in such a way as to do good 
rather than harm to the boys and girls at the various stages 
of their development? Because the writer believes cordially 
that there is a sane solution to the problem, and that parents 
and teachers have, in the phenomena of sex as these bear upon 
character, some most valuable and constructive pedagogical 
materials, which in the past have been either neglected or used 
spasmodically, he presents this brief study of the subject. 
T. W. G. 
James Millikin University, 
Decatur, Illinois, June 30, 1913. PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 
In the years following the first issue of this book the ques- 
tion of sex education has received much attention. The very 
obvious weaknesses of the policy of leaving the sex training 
of young people to the older children, the servants, the de- 
generates, the literature of lewdness, and to the greed of the 
unscrupulous among theatrical and moving picture promoters 
have been largely recognized. Various half-considered efforts 
have been made to introduce sex education wholesale into the 
schools, mostly with hurtful effects. More important than 
these trials, however, have been the numerous quiet experi- 
ments here and there in the colleges and high schools in con- 
nection with appropriate regular courses; and the many re- 
ports from parents, who in their own homes have undertaken 
to aid their children to reach sound ideas, tastes, attitudes, 
and habits relative to sex. 
Then came the war. In meeting the emergency created by 
the war the government, aided by many voluntary agencies, 
undertook to diminish the threat of venereal diseases for the 
fighting men. This called into the social hygiene movement 
as never before the legal agencies for the diminution of pros- 
titution, the medical and health agencies for the prevention and 
cure of the venereal diseases, the general community agencies 
for the guidance of leisure time, and the educational agencies 
to furnish knowledge and to create opinion that would check 
the incidence of these diseases and the causes of them. Most 
of the emphasis during and immediately after the war has 
thus been upon the sex diseases and sex hygiene. While this 
emergency work was necessary, it has had some unfortunate 
vii viii 
PREFACE 
educational results. It has caused many workers in the field 
to think that prostitution and venereal diseases and other 
pathological sex phenomena are the normal and important 
problems of sex for the human race. Worse still it has alien- 
ated from the whole movement of sex education many who 
feel that this is not a sound or a helpful view of sex in life. 
Both because of this backwash of war activities and be- 
cause the total result has been to increase consciousness of 
and interest in the whole matter of sex, the author feels that 
the original emphasis given in this book is needed, and prom- 
ises even more hopefully now, than when it first appeared. 
The object in sex education is to improve such normal sex 
relations as are suggested by the terms boys and girls, men 
and women, courtship and marriage, husbands and wives, 
fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, 
homes and family life. We cannot afford to allow mastur- 
bation, illicit sex relations, prostitution, illegitimacy, white 
slavery, venereal diseases, or divorce to replace these in our 
thought or in our educational plans. 
T. W. G. 
American Social Hygiene Association, 
New York City, Dec. 15, 1921. CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
I. The Actual Conditions i 
i. Introduction, i. 2. Increased Understanding of 
the Meaning of Sex, 1. 3. Two Kinds of Human 
Facts, 2. 4. The Normal Up-building Values of Sex, 
3. 5. The Destructive and Unwholesome Aspects of 
Sex, 4. 6. The Redemption of the Sex Idea, 5. 
7. The Policy of Silence and its Failures, 6. 8. The 
Value of Sound Knowledge, 7. 9. The Limitations of 
Mere Knowledge, 8. 10. Summary, 9. 
II. An Investigation 11 
1. Introduction, n. 2. Questions, n. 3. Results, 
12. 4. Discussion of Results, 13. 5. Summary of 
Conclusions, 16. 
III. Some Principles Which Must Guide Sex In- 
struction 17 
1. Introduction, 17. 2. The First Necessity is "Mo- 
tivation" of the Teacher, 18. 3. The Second Necessity 
is the Preparation of Parents and Teachers, 19. 4. 
The Third Necessity is the Proper Grading of Sex-In- 
struction, ig. 5. Sex-Instruction Must Be Different 
for Boys and Girls, 20. 6. Sex-Instruction Should 
Follow Curiosity, 21. 7. Sex-Instruction Should Pre- 
cede the Actual Need of It, 22. 8. Use the Favoring 
Qualities of Personality, 24. 9. Sex-Instruction Should 
be Incidental to Other Teaching, 25. 10. The Meth- 
od Must Be Emotionally Satisfying, 26. n. Know- 
ledge of the Biology of Sex Not Enough, 28. 12. 
There Must be a Sane and Wise Division of Labor 
in Sex-Instruction, 29. 
IV. Reproduction and Unselfishness 33 
1. Biology of Sex for Parents and Teachers, 33. 2. 
The Construction of the Individual, 34. 3. Rela- 
ix CONTENTS 
X 
CHAPTER PAGE 
tion of Reproduction to this Process, 34. 4. Illus- 
trations of Reproduction, 35. 5. Further Sacrifices 
Growing out of Reproduction, 38. 6. Summary, 39. 
V. Sex and Selfishness 41 
1. Introduction of Fertilization, 41. 2. The Intro- 
duction of Sex, 42. 3. The Meaning of the Sexes, 
44. 4. The Attraction of the Sexes, 46. 5. The 
Selfishness of Sex, 47. 6. Relation between Repro- 
duction and Sex, 47. 7. These Principles Applied 
to Human Life, 48. 
VI. Sex in Relation to Normal Human Physical 
and Mental Development 50 
1. Introduction, 50. 2. The Differences Between 
Male and Female in Humans, 51. 3. The Relation of 
Sex to These Bodily and Mental Developments, 53. 
4. The Relation of Sex to the Normal Development of 
the Human Male, 55. 5. The Relation of Sex to 
the Normal Development of the Human Female, 56. 
6. The Abnormal Aspects of Sex in Human Beings, 
57. 7. Special Abuses of Sex in Men, 58. 8. The 
Abnormal Aspects of Sex in Women, 60. 9. Sum- 
mary, 67. 
VII. The Mental, Social, and Moral Bearing of 
Sex 68 
1. The Relation of Sex to Mental Life, 68. 2. Sex 
and Social Life, 70. 3. Abnormal Influences of Sex 
in Society, 71. 4. The Moral Bearings of Sex, 75. 
5. Human Standards to Protect Social Morals, 76. 
6. The Inner Personal Morals, 78. 7. Incentives 
Leading to Self-Control, 79. 8. Sex and Religion, 
83. 9. Summary, 83. 
VIII. The Central Place of the Home and 
Family 85 
1. The Biological Foundations of the Home, 85. 2. 
Producing and Rearing Children the First Function 
of the Home, 85. 3. The Home the Basis of our So- 
cial Structure, 86. 4. The Central Problem of Hu- CONTENTS 
XI 
CHAPTER PAGE 
man Social Health, 86. 5. The Early Home Drama 
in Education, 88. 6. The Home is at Stake in this 
Problem, 90. 7. Substitutes for Marriage and the 
Monogamous Home, 91. 8. The Weakness of the 
Substitutes, 93. 9. Where the Solution Lies, 94. 
IX. Eugenics 95 
1. The Problem of Human Improvement, 95. 2. 
The Essential Contention of the Eugenist, 96. 3. 
The Penalty of Poor Matings, 98. 4. The Things 
that Influence Birth, 99. 5. Hereditary Transmis- 
sion of Taints, 100. 6. Congenital Infections, 102. 
7. Social and Economic Incapacity, 102. 8. Rela- 
tion of these Conditions to Human Marriage, 103. 9. 
Other Reforms Made Necessary by these Facts, 104. 
X. Time and Manner of Instruction 106 
1. Introductory, 106. 2. The Matter of Instruc- 
tion, 106. 3. The Spirit and Aim of Sex Education, 
107. 4. The Periods of the Child's Life as They Re- 
late to Sex-Instruction, 108. 5. The Early Stage: 
from Birth to 4 or 5 Years, 109. 6. The Prepubertal 
Stage: from 7 to 11 or 12 Years, in. 8. The Pubertal 
State: from 11 or 12 to 14 or 15 Years, 113. 9. Post- 
pubertal or Late Adolescent Stage: from 15 to 22 or 24 
Years, 115. Summary, 117. 
XI. Graded Problems and Projects in Sex Edu- 
cation 119 
1. Sex Problems and How to Use Them, 119. 2. 
"Projects" and Their Grading, 120. 3. A list of 
Such Problems and Projects, 121. 4. Examples of 
Project Education in Sex, 124. 5. Summary, 148. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
PAGE 
Figure i. Reproduction by simple cell division (Para- 
mecium) 36 
Figure 2. Reproduction in simple cell by budding 
(Yeast) yj 
Figure 3. Reproduction by budding in many-celled 
organism 37 
Figure 4. Many-celled organism reproducing by simi- 
lar, one-celled offspring (Spores) 38 
Figure 5. Many-celled organism reproducing by simi- 
lar, one-celled offspring which unite 
(Gametes) 41 
Figure 6. Reproduction in which a single parent 
produces two kinds of offspring, - eggs 
and sperm 43 
Figure 7. Reproduction in which the male parent pro- 
duces one kind of offspring and the fe- 
male parent another kind 44 
Figure 8. The sex glands and ducts in the male 59 
Figure 9. The position of the pelvic organs in the 
female; side view 65 
Figure io. The relation of ovary and uterus; ventral 
view 66 
Figure ii. Flower of lily (Section) 130 
Figure 12. Fertilization in the lily 131 
xiii BIOLOGY OF SEX 
CHAPTER I 
THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS 
1. Introduction. - A new book on a subject like this 
must first justify its existence to the reader. This chapter 
undertakes to do this. In the meantime the writer wishes 
to make a few simple statements of fact for the encourage- 
ment of the serious parent or teacher. 
(1) The problem of sex, as it bears on human education 
in character and on conduct and welfare, is one of the most 
practical and important that we are called on to solve. 
(2) On the whole it has been the most neglected, ignored, 
and abused side of our human education. 
(3) For several years there has been on foot a very defi- 
nite and promising movement among educators, social 
workers, and other thoughtful people to take up the prob- 
lem in a scientific and humane way. This is one of the most 
hopeful educational movements of the new century, and 
has in fact made striking progress in America since the 
century began. 
2. Increased Understanding of the Meaning of Sex. - 
During the last seventy-five years science has been discov- 
ering the principles that have made it possible for our inven- 
tors to construct the telegraph, the telephone, the phono- 
graph, and other devices that mean so much in our material 
1 2 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
progress. In just the same way, science, working with the 
phenomena of life, has shown us the great part that sex 
has played in all the life of the earth, including that of man. 
By means of this knowledge of sex, the plant breeder has 
produced wonderful new and improved varieties of fruits, 
grains, daisies, and roses. By means of the same knowl- 
edge, the animal breeder has produced a marvelous im- 
provement in all the domesticated animals. Thus, through 
the biologist, we have learned that there is no more uni- 
versal and important thing in life than the influence of 
sex and reproduction; and, thro ugh the practical work of 
the breeders of plants and animals, we are learning to ask 
the question whether we can not use this knowledge in 
such a way as to improve human life and character quite 
as much as we have improved the qualities of roses and 
chickens. 
3. Two Kinds of Human Facts. - Until recently those 
educators and reformers who have worked at this problem 
have been inclined to dwell on the degrading, abnormal, 
destructive side of sex, as though this were the whole of it. 
The average man still thinks that we must mean some 
such thing when we talk of sex and sex-education. The 
great social vices and diseases that have blighted civiliza- 
tion throughout human history are indeed important reali- 
ties. They are fearful to contemplate and form a most 
serious menace. They are not, however, the real problem 
which the human student of sex must keep before him, 
any more than the army hospital and caring for the wounded 
is the chief consideration of a commanding general in war- 
fare; or than crime and treatment of criminals is the real 
problem of progressive civilization. Disease or the 
removal of disease is not the chief concern of life; sound, THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS 
3 
wholesome living and growth and progress are the real 
problems. 
Any study of this matter of sex, then, which pretends 
to a sense of proportion and to have any permanent and 
constructive value, must take care of two aspects of it - 
primarily, the deep, fundamental, natural, positive, stimu- 
lating, upbuilding role of sex in human life; and secondarily, 
the abnormal, destructive, and dangerous perversions that 
are such a blot on our human history. Deeper still, a 
student of this subject must find out the biological and 
social connections between the normal and the abnormal 
in sex life, and bring the whole of it to bear on the proper 
education of young people for social living. 
4. The Normal, Up-building Values of Sex. - It must 
be understood, at the very beginning, that sex and all that 
it implies is a perfectly natural, normal fact of life, with 
nothing intrinsically unholy or perverse about it. It is 
true that the sex impulses and desires are very powerful; 
but to the biologist this is just a sign that they are very 
important in development and in life and not at all that 
it is a degrading possession. As will be seen later, sex is 
responsible for certain great facts of growth and de- 
velopment in all organisms, from the lowest to the 
highest. 
Without stopping at this point to go into details, we 
know that the differences between men and women, - in 
body, in mind, in disposition, in temperament, - are not 
just mysterious, created differences; but grow quite di- 
rectly out of the sex nature of the individuals and out of 
the differences in the work done by the sexes. Just to il- 
lustrate what a wonderful and vital influence sex has in 
life, one only needs to remember that all that is meant 4 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
by the following words grows out of sex and its results: - 
manliness, womanliness, love, courtship, marriage, home, 
father, mother, family life, parental care and education, 
sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, filial devotion, 
brotherhood. These facts, ideas, and relations, - and 
the human adjustments and virtues that have grown up 
in connection with them, - could not have existed but 
for that which we call sex. These are the normal and 
natural fruits of sex and reproduction. Such fine and beau- 
tiful fruits cannot spring from something essentially bad 
and unwholesome. Undertake to remove from our lives 
and minds the ideas and facts for which these words stand, 
and nothing worth while would be left in human civili- 
zation, history, literature, poetry, or happiness. 
5. The Destructive and Unwholesome Aspects of 
Sex. - While it is true that we must come to know that 
the above-mentioned qualities and relations are the natural 
and most important facts of sex, and that the abnormal is 
the exceptional, it is also true that the abuses of sex are 
great and deep in their evil effects. The abuses, diseases, 
and immoralities of sex are the most distressing of all that 
confront the modern helper of humanity. Merely to men- 
tion the great contagious sex-diseases and the troubles 
that come from them for generations, the numerous chil- 
dren born but of wedlock and the personal and social dis- 
grace and distress occasioned thereby, public prostitution, 
the white slave traffic and all the loathsome immoralities 
and heartlessness that cluster about it, and the strained, 
wrecked lives of many boys and girls, is enough to convince 
anybody that too much cannot be said, nor too much 
done to help the race purify these ancient evils. These 
must be studied by scientists, must be preached against THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS 
5 
by social preachers, must be fought through legislation 
by all statesmen who love their kind, must be met and 
prevented by parents and teachers. But, terrible and prev- 
alent as these perversions are, they are none the less 
perversions. All our study and effort will be out of 
focus if we forget for a moment that the thing perverted 
is bigger and more important than the perversion; that 
the normal, rather than the abnormal, is basal; that 
knowledge of disease and its cure depends on the under- 
standing of the fundamentally healthy structure and 
function; and that complete and constructive education 
of both intellect and emotions is the only social and moral 
prophylaxis. 
6. The Redemption of the Sex Idea. - It is because 
of the facts noted above that the recent movement to 
educate all, especially the young, in the problems of sex 
seems so wise and sane to thoughtful teachers and social 
workers. This education involves the idea that we ac- 
complish two things. We must restore the thought of sex 
to its real biological place, as a wonderful, vital, stimu- 
lating and holy endowment of human life, to be treasured 
and invested as we treasure bodily health, mental ability, 
and attractive disposition; and in doing this we must 
cease to think of the facts of sex and its desires as vicious 
and depraved, and as shameful elements in life, to be 
avoided or ignored or abused. Only when we grasp the 
whole of the problem, with the constructive as well as its 
disastrous possibilities, can we use it as an effective part 
of human education and inspiration. The word sex must 
come to mean fine and high things rather than bestial and 
low to us mature people, before we can afford to bring 
it to the education of our children. In this way alone BIOLOGY OF SEX 
6 
can we escape the embarrassment so many adults feel in 
approaching the subject with children. 
7. The Policy of Silence and Its Failures. - For many 
years there has been a prejudice against any real education 
of young people in the great underlying facts of reproduc- 
tion and sex that have so much to do with our personal 
development and social relations. Parents have neglected 
to treat the matter in a serious and straightforward man- 
ner with their boys and girls, and have been unwilling 
to allow the schools to do so. Teachers have felt that it 
was the duty of parents, if of anybody, to do this work. 
Text-books and school courses to which the subject naturally 
belongs have carefully avoided any mention of the matter, 
or out of respect to these prejudices have touched upon it 
in the most superficial and apologetic way. Physicians 
have given no help until too late, when disease or fear of 
disease and social disgrace has brought the young people 
to them. 
The reasons for this silence are largely (i) cowardice, 
(2) ignorance on the part of parents of the facts and of the 
best way to present them, and (3) an easy-going creed 
(arising largely from both cowardice and ignorance) that 
it is better to keep children in ignorance of such things 
just as long as possible, that innocence and purity belong 
to this ignorance, and that knowledge of the facts of sex 
must bring hurtful results. There are two important 
fallacies in this line of behavior which make it both futile 
and criminal. In the first place, ignorance of fundamen- 
tally important facts in life cannot, in the long run, help 
to meet those facts in the most satisfactory way. In the 
second place, parent and teacher have not the choice 
between ignorance and knowledge of this subject, in the THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS 
7 
child. The only choice is between the incomplete and 
distorted information that may be picked up from com- 
panions, and the sound, accurate knowledge given by those 
who know; between secret and open knowledge; between 
suggestive knowledge given in impure and vulgar ways 
and clean, pure information, graded step by step to the 
needs of the child as it advances, and connected in the 
child's mind with the great normal human values in his 
own family and in life about him. The sex-impulses are 
too powerful, the facts of sex are too wonderful and too 
widely known, and human curiosity is too great for the 
policy of silence to secure its end, even if ignorance were 
best. The very conditions that make it certain that chil- 
dren will get some sort of knowledge make it necessary 
that they should have it in the best possible form, with- 
out the over-emphasis either of neglect or of stress. They 
need it and are entitled to it. 
8. The Value of Sound Knowledge. - One of the val- 
ues of sound knowledge is that it displaces half-knowledge 
and false knowledge, which are the very worst sort of ig- 
norance. But deeper still is the fundamental confidence 
and optimism about the order of the universe which says 
that truth is always better than error, and that knowl- 
edge of truth is a first essential step toward ordering 
one's conduct aright. It would need to be a very hap- 
hazard universe before ignorance could guide as well as 
knowledge. Knowledge may of course not cause us to do 
right; but ignorance of facts can never secure conscious 
rightness of choice. It is conceivable that occasionally 
ignorance might save a weak or reckless individual; but 
where one person is saved by ignorance, thousands are 
lost through ignorance and inaccurate information. Thus 8 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
it has come about that the modern educator feels that 
the right knowledge of sex is more likely, in the long run, 
to help than to harm, and is infinitely better for the sal- 
vation of youth than the vulgar half-knowledge derived 
from slightly older companions. 
There is one other point to be mentioned. It is prob- 
ably true that even wholesome and unemphasized infor- 
mation given by parents and teacher may have a stimu- 
lating effect and make the child want to know more; but 
for that matter the partial knowledge the child gets from 
its companions does the same thing more strikingly, and 
makes the curiosity much more morbid. 
9. The Limitation of Mere Knowledge. - No educator, 
who has observed carefully and has given serious thought 
to his observations, will claim that it will solve all the 
problems of sex and sex relations merely to impart to 
youth in a perfect way all the facts of sex and its place in 
human development. The teaching of the facts and 
hygiene of nutrition has not eliminated abuses of diges- 
tion among us; but who is prepared to say that the teach- 
ing of the hygiene of eating, the new "domestic science," 
and the agitation for pure and uninfected foods, do not 
produce year by year their effect in increasing the proper 
use of foods? Ideas may not operate at once or to their 
full value, but they do gradually mold the attitudes 
and purposes. 
We know that knowledge - even perfect knowledge - 
will not successfully meet the case. There must come in 
addition, through the sanest sort of teaching and inter- 
pretation, - as in all such realms of human character and 
behavior, - ideals, standards of purity, of chivalry, of 
regard for others, of self-restraint, desires, attitudes, habits THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS 
9 
and all such things, which are better than mere knowledge. 
But into all of these knowledge must enter; and there is 
no firmer foundation for these clean motives than a pure 
and wholesome knowledge of all the basic facts. 
It is true that mere knowledge does not insure right 
conduct in any department of life; but there is a correla- 
tion between knowledge and right conduct. That is to 
say, a larger percentage of individuals who know the facts 
in a given situation make right choices than of a selection 
of uninformed and ignorant persons, made at random. 
This has been worked out experimentally in respect to a 
number of human relations, and has been found to be 
true in practise. 
10. Summary. - Three very different streams of human 
influence have been operating to convince us of the need 
for real education in regard to reproduction and sex. First 
among these are the reformers, sensitive to the hideous 
aspects of the social evil in its various forms and to the 
moral degeneration that accompanies the perversions of 
sex. Their point of view, though urgent and compelling, 
is narrow and partial, since it deals with the abnormal and 
destructive rather than with the constructive; their work, 
however, has aroused our consciousness of the problem. 
In the second place, a certain group of students has 
approached the question from the purely biological and 
scientific side. Their interests have centered in the pos- 
sibility of race improvement through better breeding, - 
through heredity. These students are called eugenists. 
They are not moved, primarily, by sensitiveness to social 
and moral abuses of sex. They think rather in terms of 
the loss of present and future racial efficiency through the 
hereditary transmission Qf incompetence and of criminal 10 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
tendencies. This scientific contention has played a large 
part in arousing our interest in sex-instruction, and greatly 
broadens the scope of it. 
Thirdly, students of education have been coming to 
realize that reproduction and sex are among the most 
important human functions; that the impulses connected 
with them are as natural and clean as any we have; that 
these impulses are both general and powerful; that their 
power is a measure of their importance in the life of the 
race and of the individual; that they underlie personal 
character and give character to all social conditions; and 
that such vital qualities cannot fail to be useful in educat- 
ing normal human beings if we but learn how to use them 
aright. 
The reformer would educate in respect to the facts of 
reproduction and sex, in order that youth may be restrained 
and clean and may escape exposure to vice and to the 
personal and social diseases that grow out of it. The 
eugenist would educate in this field in order that we, as a 
race and as individuals, may seek and secure better matings 
and more perfect offspring and thus build up the stock. 
The educator would seek to use the facts, instincts and 
impulses of reproduction and sex in their due course, in 
order to stimulate the right and sound personal and social 
development of the individual, to the end that he may 
add to the perfection of the human home which is at once 
the supreme sex institution and the cornerstone of our 
civilization. CHAPTER II 
AN INVESTIGATION 
1. Introduction. - Following a series of perfectly frank 
talks by the writer, first to college men and later to college 
women of the Christian Associations, an effort was made 
to get the opinion of the young people with respect to cer- 
tain points. A brief series of questions was arranged, and 
the students were requested to answer them. The answers 
were not signed, were entirely confidential, and were left 
wholly optional with the students. There were ninety-six 
answers from the young women, and seventy from the 
young men. These students represent quite normal col- 
lege young people, undoubtedly from the rather better 
classes of homes. The statistics are believed to be fairly 
representative of conditions in the average homes of the 
grade represented. Dr. Exner, in studies of nearly 1000 
college men made a few years after this investigation, dis- 
covers quite similar conditions. Doubtless other inquiries, 
and a larger number of individuals, would show somewhat 
different percentages in the different groups; though the 
main conclusions are so pronounced that it is incon- 
ceivable that more extended testimony would largely 
change the results. 
2. The Questions. - The following were the questions 
asked: 
i. At about what age was the subject of sex first brought 
in a striking way to your consciousness, that is, in such a 
way as to make a permanent impression? 
11 12 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
2. Through whom was it thus brought? 
3. What, in general, was the effect of the information 
upon you, as you look back on it now? 
4. Indicate, if you are willing, in what way this infor- 
mation was good or bad for you, as the case may be. 
5. Do you think that fuller and more authoritative in- 
formation, given in the right spirit, would have been of 
any help to you? 
6. If so, in what way? 
3. The Results. - The following is a tabulation of the 
answers: 
Question 1 
TABLE 1. MEN (70) 
Age (years) 
6 
7 
8 
9 
IO 
II 
12 
13 
14 
15 
Number 
4 
9 
8 
8 
8 
3 
II 
3 
7 
2 
(remainder 
uncertain) 
TABLE 2. WOMEN (96) 
Age 
6 
7 
8 
9 
IO 
II 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
Number . . 
2 
6 
8 
12 
IO 
IO 
18 
15 
9 
4 
2 
I 
Questions 2 and 3 
TABLE 3. MEN 
Through Whom 
Number 
Effects 
Good 
Bad, 
None 
Boy Companions .... 
47 
I 
32 
4 
Parents 
n 
9 
I 
[ Quack Doctor . . 
er j Family Doctor . . 
en [ School Teacher . . 
I 
I 
2 
2 
i (in class) 
I 
Y. M. C. A. pamphlet . . 
i 
I AN INVESTIGATION 
13 
Through Whom 
Number 
Effects 
Good 
Bad 
None 
Girl Companions 
57 
8 
26 
16 
Parents, or 
Elder Sisters 
27I 
6] 
26 
7 
Books 
3 
2 
I 
Patent Medicine Circular . 
1 
I 
TABLE 4. WOMEN 
Question 5 
TABLE 5 
Yes 
No 
Doubtful 
Men 
46 
1 
6 
Women 
60 
7 
3 
4. Discussion of Results. - Tables 3 and 4 show very 
clearly that both the young men and young women think 
that the information that came to them from their mates 
did more harm than good; and that the information that 
came from their maturer friends with wholesome purposes 
helped them. Table 5 shows very general agreement that 
more and better information would have helped them to 
solve their individual problems to better advantage. 
By comparing tables 1 and 2 it will be seen that 58 per 
cent of the boys, who gave the age at which they received 
instruction, learned enough of these matters to make an 
impression on them before they had completed their 
tenth year; whereas only 50 per cent of the girls had 
received it by the close of their eleventh year. Thus the 14 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
boys are more than a year ahead of the girls in getting at 
these facts, in spite of the fact that girls mature more 
rapidly than boys. This is exactly what we should ex- 
pect from our knowledge of the manner of life among boys. 
A comparison of the ages at which information was 
received with the sources from which it came shows that 
in nearly all the cases (forty-four out of forty-seven) in 
which boys got their information from their mates, it 
came at an early age. Parents gave information to their 
boys as follows: two at eleven years; two at twelve; two 
at thirteen; four at fourteen. The same conditions are 
found for the women, but not quite in the same degree; 
mates among the girls were a little more reticent, and 
mothers a little more prompt in performing their duties 
than the fathers. A considerably larger percentage of the 
women got help from mothers and older sisters, than of 
the young men from their fathers. 
Dr. Exner's investigation shows, as this does, that the 
first memorable sex impressions come very early, - on 
the average before the children are io years of age; also 
that the average age at which masturbation or other sex 
practices began was below 13 years. The average age 
at which the first sex-instruction came from authoritative 
sources was 15.5 years. In the case of these college men 
it is evident that our mature help came too late, by more 
than 5 years, to guard the child against the first vicious 
impressions of sex, and about 3 years too late to give 
him any aid against unwholesome sex experiments and 
practises. 
The answers to the fourth question as to ways in which 
information proved helpful or hurtful are not quite so 
definite nor so capable of tabulation; but they are very AN INVESTIGATION 
15 
illuminating. The young women were more disposed to 
answer the question than the young men. Of those who 
thought the early information from mates was hurtful, six 
thought it created a morbid interest in the subject; ten 
said it caused them to dwell on the subject and take a 
wrong attitude toward it; eight said it gave them false 
ideas; others said it "caused shrinking, depression, and 
unhappiness," "was improperly given," "not pure," 
"feared to go to mother about such things." Among the 
answers of those who got their knowledge from better 
sources and thought that it had helped them, the follow- 
ing are representative reasons: - "It produced a strength- 
ening of principles," "recognized need of careful action," 
"led to preservation of health," "brought content, and 
freedom from dwelling on it," "better attitude," "made 
life seem more beautiful and sacred." 
These answers are so sane and so clearly what an observ- 
ant educator would expect the facts to be, that one has 
no difficulty in believing that they really represent the 
personal convictions of the writers. 
While there were exceptions, the overwhelming convic- 
tion of these young people was that better information, 
from the right people and given in the proper way, would 
have been of much value to them both in their attitudes 
and their actions. Of course, it is quite natural for us to 
think that we might have done better if we had possessed 
more knowledge; and it is not always true that we should 
have done so. On the whole, however, these are the sepa- 
rate judgments of people who are in the best position to 
know what would have influenced their lives, and how. 
While the answers are not scientifically conclusive they 
have a distinct presumptive value. 16 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
5. Summary of Conclusions. - An inquiry among a 
thoughtful group of mature young people, who probably 
represent homes and parents above the average, reveals 
definitely the fact that only about 20 per cent of the fathers 
and about 30 per cent of the mothers had made an effort 
to reach these young people with sound information about 
this most important influence on their bodily and moral 
welfare. The general average for homes of all classes 
would undoubtedly be much less than this. The chief 
training which comes to the minds of the young is the 
inaccurate, morbid, vulgar training of mates, which is 
in some respects unquestionably worse in its effects than 
ignorance. 
It is well known that the first impression is likely to 
prove the abiding and dominant one in respect at least 
to the more vivid and appealing interests of life. Either 
the clean or the vicious presentation, coming first, will 
tend to determine our consciousness of sex and to hold the 
field against the others. It is very clear then if parents 
and teachers are to get to the youthful mind first, and 
establish an open and pure channel for sex-knowledge, 
that they must approach children much earlier than they 
are doing at present and continue their teaching syste- 
matically at all points where it is needed. CHAPTER III 
SOME PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE IN 
SEX-INSTRUCTION 
1. Introduction. - In the two preceding chapters an 
effort has been made to justify, first in theory and then 
by a concrete example, the view of the modern educator 
that our children must have help in respect to the impulses 
of sex, and that the best equipped people in the community 
should undertake the task of giving them adequate sex- 
instruction. This instruction should enable them to avoid 
the pitfalls that beset them at various crises in their fives; 
and, what is still more important, should inspire them 
with an idea of the far-reaching influence of sex as one of 
the most powerful and upbuilding of the impulses and 
characteristics in human life. In this chapter it is pur- 
posed to anticipate some things which will be treated at 
greater length later; here, however, in a brief and some- 
what dogmatic way, will be put down without argument 
certain conclusions that seem to be justified from our gen- 
eral knowledge of education and of the methods that have 
proved successful therein. The effort to provide systematic 
sex-education is new, and until more exact experiments 
have been conducted and the results reported we cannot 
be entirely sure of the best methods to be followed. We 
cannot, however, afford to withhold all sex-education, if 
we are right in contending that it is essential, until the 
way has been completely surveyed and scientifically charted. 
17 18 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
We must start with the best principles we know, apply 
them with common sense to concrete situations, and 
revise them as they are shown by results to be imperfect. 
2. The First Necessity is the " Motivation " of the 
Teacher. - It is a common experience that reforms, or 
educational movements of any kind, do not progress until 
the rank and file of those who must do the work become 
thoroughly convinced as to the necessity and possibility 
of moving. In the face of our long silence about sex and 
of our unwholesome mental complexes on the subject 
there is very definite inertia and opposition to be over- 
come. Our teachers, whether parents, school-teachers 
or Sunday-school teachers, physicians, or ministers, will 
not take up this delicate and difficult work until they have 
an overpowering conviction of its necessity and value to 
humanity. Among teachers, the act of arousing in their 
pupils the purposes and motives that will produce action 
is called "motivation." This is what teachers themselves 
need now in respect to sex-education. To bring home to 
parents and to other teachers this conviction of the duty 
of giving sex-instruction to the young, and to inspire them 
with the interest and motives that will induce them to 
undertake this duty is the first and necessary task of those 
who are themselves convinced of the importance of the 
subject. 
Among students of the question, as has been intimated, 
the more alert teachers and parents are beginning to feel 
that something must be done; but for the most part, even 
the best teachers are generally feeling that the first respon- 
sibility rests with some one else. The motivation of teach- 
ers and parents must become complete and personal. It 
is the purpose of this book to assist in the task. PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
19 
3. The Second Necessity is the Preparation of Parents 
and Teachers. - Adult people have so long taken the 
attitude of silence about sex, have so long regarded it as 
something naturally immodest and vulgar, and have so 
long depended on mere preachments and arbitrary pro- 
hibitions in respect to it that few of them are now pre- 
pared to approach young people wisely or convincingly on 
the subject. Under these circumstances, we cannot hope 
to make the best use by education of the child's inborn 
sex qualities nor help him become rightly adjusted to the 
sex conditions which surround him without specific prepa- 
ration for the task. This preparation includes a number 
of things: (i) an adequate and balanced knowledge of 
the part sex normally plays in individual and social life: 
(2) that we ourselves escape entirely from the embar- 
rassment and false modesty which our training has given 
us; (3) that we cease to think we can successfully im- 
pose our adult conclusions about sex upon the child by 
arbitrary commands and authority; and (4) that we learn 
how to convince the child, sympathetically and on the 
basis of his own happiness and interests, of the great and 
permanent value which the right use of sex has for him. 
We must prepare to do more than give information about 
sex; we must help the child to interpret this information, 
must inspire him in every possible way, including example, 
to form sound standards, ideals, tastes, attitudes, and 
habits in reference to sex. 
4. A Third Necessity is the Proper Grading of Sex- 
Instruction. - If it is important to grade our instruction 
in English and mathematics and adapt these subjects 
to the capacity of the child, it is doubly necessary to grade 
instruction in sex. Instruction in English and mathematics BIOLOGY OF SEX 
20 
seeks information chiefly, while sex-instruction seeks to 
influence attitudes of life and conduct. It is always a 
more delicate and difficult task to mold conduct than to 
impart knowledge. It is for this reason that instruction 
in sex should be most carefully and accurately graded. 
Grading sex-instruction includes the following points: 
(1) It should be different for boys and girls. 
(2) It should in the main be guided by, and follow, the 
progress of the natural curiosity of the child, rather than 
precede it. 
(3) It should precede, at each step, the actual personal 
needs of the child and youth in respect to life and conduct. 
(4) This teaching should be adjusted to, and take ad- 
vantage of, the fact that the development of children 
offers certain specially favorable conditions for certain 
parts of the necessary teaching. 
(5) There should never be an idea that all necessary 
instruction can be reserved until the child is thirteen or 
fourteen and then given all at once. 
(6) The method must be emotionally satisfying and 
convincing to the child. 
5. Sex-Instruction Must Be Different for Boys and 
Girls. - There is much that is common in the information 
that should be given to boys and girls, and each sex should 
in time know and appreciate the main facts about the 
development of the other; yet the sex development and 
the impulses of the two sexes are so different and the special 
practical problems that confront the boy and girl are 
consequently so unlike, that the material and the point of 
view must be properly suited to the peculiar nature and 
needs of each. This makes it necessary that boys and girls 
shall be taught separately in these matters, - though this PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
is probably not necessary in the broad, impersonal studies 
of the question undertaken in the classes in physiology and 
biology. There are teachers, however, who believe that 
better results are possible, even in these classes, if only 
one sex is present. 
We all know that the sex impulses of males are in general 
strong and insistent as compared with those of females; 
hence the problems of the boy are largely problems of 
self-restraint and sex guidance, while, on the other hand, 
the problems of the girl are rather those of resisting external 
temptation to do wrong, and of behaving in such a wise 
and discreet way that no such temptation may arise. These 
biological and psychological differences in the nature of 
the sexes lie at the bottom of all the sex problems of boys 
and girls and must have a large part in molding the scope 
of our teaching and the method of it, if we are to get from 
it such real personal results in character as we seek to 
achieve. 
6. Sex-Instruction Should Follow Curiosity. - Curi- 
osity, in its broadest sense, is the chief internal impulse 
that drives us to seek knowledge. The desire to know is 
at the back of all our investigations. Curiosity begins 
early in the life of the child, and is responsible for the 
great progress that is made during the first years of life, - 
a much more rapid progress than we ever make at any 
subsequent period. The wise educator of youth tries to 
take advantage of this natural curiosity, to keep it alive, 
to enlarge it, to guide it, and to prevent it from becom- 
ing morbid and narrow. In matters of sex the problem is, 
not to increase curiosity, but to prevent it from becoming 
unhealthy and morbid by guiding it into the most valuable 
channels. The facts of sex are so interesting and the 
21 22 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
child is so full of sex himself and so surrounded by it 
that his curiosity is almost sure to be aroused ahead of his 
own sex needs. If not enough information is given, the 
mind is likely to dwell on it unduly, and to wonder; if 
too much is given, so that the child is unable to under- 
stand or assimilate it fully, practically the same results 
follow. 
If the parents take an open and frank attitude toward 
the little child in the home, the active curiosity of the 
child, as shown by its natural questions and aroused by 
the natural incidents of its life, indicates at what intervals 
information should be given and how much should be told. 
This is especially true of younger children, who are much 
with their parents. If this curiosity does not express it- 
self spontaneously, the parent, by a little discreet ques- 
tioning, can readily find out the state of the child's mind. 
If, when the child seeks information, it is withheld or is 
given falsely and evasively (as is so often the case) the 
child will very naturally lose some of the confidence which 
the parent should make every effort to hold, and will go 
elsewhere to get his questions answered. If, on the con- 
trary, the parent, at the first question, gives the child a 
mass of facts for which he is not prepared and for which 
he has felt no need, the child will be confused and unable 
to profit by the knowledge. Both sets of results are un- 
wholesome. The best teaching rule is: follow curiosity 
closely, with carefully graded information, given very 
little at a time, in many conversations, repeating the 
same truth with many illustrations so as to guard against 
the wrong impressions so common in childhood. 
7. Sex-Instruction Should Precede the Actual Need 
of It. - The strong point of the modem plea for sex-educa- PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
23 
tion is that it is badly needed. If this plea be true, it 
follows that the needed information, to be of value, must 
be received and assimilated by the child before the critical 
points in life appear that make the information necessary. 
This need furnishes the only exception to the preceding 
rule. In the case of children of a certain disposition, or 
of those who have been peculiarly sheltered from contact 
with the facts of life, it may be true that curiosity will not 
be alert; or it may sometimes happen that the parent will 
know of some approaching sex crisis that the child has not 
asked about. It may be in such cases the duty of the 
teachers, - parents or others, - to arouse curiosity and 
give the needed help. 
For example, it is important that the child of either sex 
should know beforehand the real nature of some of the 
bodily and mental changes that come at the age of puberty. 
This is peculiarly necessary for girls because of the prob- 
lems both of health and of an emotional nature that arise 
in connection with the onset of menstruation. Similarly, 
the awkwardness of boys, their change of voice, seminal 
emissions, and the like, would not produce the embar- 
rassment and mental distress which they do, if the boys 
knew that these are perfectly natural steps to manhood. 
The physical, mental, and moral catastrophes so frequent 
at this period are largely preventable if the child can be 
made acquainted in a general and inspiring way, with the 
nature of the facts and their meaning. 
Under normal conditions, because of the free conversa- 
tion among children, curiosity usually outruns the actual 
biological development. The child is likely to be preco- 
cious in the matter of sex knowledge. This fact makes 
it necessary for us to be earlier in presenting some sub- 24 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
jects than would otherwise be true. It is as important for 
us to forestall vile information and interpretations of sex, 
which come from the street, as it is to forestall hurtful sex 
practises. 
8. Use the Favoring Qualities of Personality. - We 
have learned that all the elements that go to make up our 
personal character do not begin nor mature at the same 
time. We have seen above that curiosity comes early in 
life and stays with us long. On the other hand, there are 
certain periods in our childhood growth when certain 
characteristics and states of mind dominate us, only to 
decline later and give place to others. Some of these 
states favor one kind or method of sex-instruction, and other 
states demand some other method. It is necessary to good 
teaching to know something of the succession of these 
qualities and impulses of youth and to use them to rein- 
force our instruction on sex, just as wise teachers are using 
them in other phases of education. 
For example, the strong bond that usually exists between 
the young child - whether boy or girl - and the mother; 
the growing boy's admiration for his father; and the 
chivalrous spirit which comes to normal boys in adolescence 
when they begin to admire the girls, - are all illustrations 
of what is meant. These all make certain steps in the 
sound education in facts of sex and sex ideals peculiarly 
possible and timely. There are many such critical points 
in individual development when special appeals should 
be made, appeals which would not have equal weight 
either before or after. In a sense the steps in sex-education 
should be looked upon as a series of "projects." This 
means to plan definitely to use each childish question, 
each point in development, each special need, each impor- PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
25 
tant sex episode in the home or society, to the fullest degree 
to produce the most full and wholesome possible impression 
on the tastes and attitudes of the child. (See Chapter XI.) 
These suggestions will show how mistaken is the practise 
of some parents, who keep back all they have to say until 
some convenient time and then try, with no special relation 
to anything that they know of in the child's life, to tell 
all they think should be known. It would be more sane 
to adopt this wholesale method in teaching mathematics 
than in giving sex information. 
9. Sex-Instruction should be Incidental to Other 
Teaching. - One of the main errors of parents and teachers, 
in dealing with this topic, lies in separating it from other 
teaching so as to make it stand out unduly. In reality 
the facts of sex are in nature closely related to the other 
facts of life. Sex teaching that corresponds naturally 
and incidentally to events that are occurring in the home, 
the farm, or the community, or is given in connection with 
other lessons in school, will have a more natural and less 
disquieting effect, as a rule, than that which is given sepa- 
rately and independently in the form of a lecture or talk. 
Even parents should not plunge suddenly or artificially 
into their talks to their children about sex. They should 
never be "formal." There are so many home incidents 
that lead naturally to all that is valuable about sex that 
we have no lack of opportunities to fit it in without shock. 
It is much better, for example, to connect the early 
teaching of the child concretely with the birth of a baby 
in the home or neighborhood, or with the birth of pets, 
then it is to deal with it as a general or abstract truth. 
Furthermore, much of the instruction which will lead 
to proper ideals and behavior in relation to sex, need not 26 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
be called sex-instruction at all. Chivalry, respect for 
women, the meaning of the home in the organization of 
society, and many other topics which serve to give right 
views of life can do their work without any conscious 
attempt to denote them as a part of the sex problem. Yet 
they are none the less a part of it, and teachers should 
realize this fact. To enable a boy to appreciate his mother 
and to arouse in him a taste or standard of courtesy toward 
her is just as specifically "sex-instruction" as it is to cau- 
tion against masturbation; and on the whole it has more 
value to character. 
10. The Method Must Be Emotionally Satisfying. - 
There is nothing more important in the success of sex-edu- 
cation than the spirit and method of the parent and teacher. 
We have in respect to sex, even in early life, definite and 
strong tendencies, impulses, desire to experiment, and 
curiosity. As teachers of our children we may take the 
attitude that these interests should be openly fought 
and repressed as impure, vulgar or immoral. In truth 
they are none of these. They are merely natural. Never- 
theless, because we know that they are powerful and, if 
unwisely handled, lead into unsocial and immoral prac- 
tises, we naturally feel that we should by our authority 
use fear of punishment or of disapproval to suppress any 
sex expression of youth. Now such an autocratic and 
repressive attitude is too simple to be sound. We cannot 
by such a show of force successfully blot out of existence 
such a powerful group of interests and desires as those 
of sex. Psychologists have shown us that what we really 
do is to force these things deeper into the life, and, either 
in conscious rebellion or by unconscious substitutes and 
modifications, the youth will find sex satisfactions. This PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
27 
is too complex a subject to enter upon here, but we know 
that we permanently wreck the lives of children and make 
them mentally abnormal by trying to impose our codes 
and conventions and opinions upon them in a way to re- 
press by force their desires and impulses. 
Does this mean that we should let these impulses go wild 
and uncontrolled? By no means! It is merely to say 
that we must find better ways, - ways which in them- 
selves persuade and convince and satisfy the emotions 
and longings of the child. There are two ways in which 
we may help the child hold the sex impulses in check, 
and yet let the child get such pleasure in the process that 
there will be no perverse results in his mental sex life: - 
(1) We may substitute other interests for those of sex 
in some degree. If the interest, and strength and time 
of a child are given happily to games and sports, reading, 
scouting, collecting, or to other such attractive hobbies 
on the child's level it is clear that there will be less chance 
for perverse sex feelings or expressions. This is a really 
important method of meeting these and other dangerous 
impulses and trends of childhood. But it is quite easy to 
see that we are not really solving any of the child's sex 
problems in this way. We are really dodging them; and 
sex is too powerful an impulse to be met in this fashion. 
(2) We may refine or sublimate the sex impulses and com- 
bine them with others in such a way as to modify them 
permanently. We can, and must, do this furthermore in 
a manner to please and satisfy the child. For example, 
it is a refinement of the crude sex facts and of the curiosity 
about the manner in which the mother brings babies into 
the world, to give the information so that the purpose 
and meaning of motherhood stands out in the boy's mind 28 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
as a fine and happy thing. Motherhood is sex expression 
at its best. Or we are refining the grosser sex desires 
when we get a youth to think of the love and chivalrous 
devotion and high honor that he has for his first sweet- 
heart as the greatest of his joys. It is quite possible for 
a young man to get more happiness by controlling his 
physical sex urge for the sake of his future wife than by 
gratifying it on a self-indulgent plane. This leaves no 
such "complexes" and rebellions in his mind as if he 
were driven by fear to repress his desires. 
We can further combine the sex impulses with others 
which automatically absorb them in some degree. For 
example, a high sense of honor, or a strong ambition or 
a keen social or religious purpose in life may combine 
with and guide and perfect the sex motive. In this com- 
bination control is conceived by the individual as a positive 
advantage and thus gives pleasure and becomes habitual. 
11. Knowledge of the Biology of Sex Not Enough. - 
There is a tendency on the part of some enthusiastic peo- 
ple to think that a thorough knowledge of the facts of sex 
will meet all the needs of the young. There is no doubt 
that this biological information is the foundation, and that 
such knowledge may greatly enlarge and purify the child's 
ideas of reproduction and sex. But this is not enough. 
We want our children to be healthy animals; but we also 
require of them behavior quite different from that of the 
healthy animal. We want them to get a knowledge of 
sex, but to get with it such a disposition that they will have 
within themselves something which will control and guide 
the powerful sex-impulses in the interest of all the fine and 
holy ideals they have built up. To do this, mere biology is 
not enough; we must have in addition all the help that we PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
can get from those kindred fields of human inspiration and 
discovery which we call psychology, sociology, ethics, and 
religion. The child must know the meaning of sex; he 
must know what are the best standards of the race about 
the use of sex; he must be willing to choose to use his own 
sex in accordance with the most social standards; and he 
must have the internal power of character which will en- 
able him to carry out this choice in his conduct. He can- 
not reasonably be expected to attain this disposition in 
ignorance and without expert help. Sound sex culture is 
more a matter of psychology than of biology; and more 
a problem of emotional psychology than of knowledge. 
It is a problem of education in all the springs of 
character. 
12. There must be a Sane and Wise Division of Labor 
in Sex-Instruction. - If we may hold that the principles 
laid down in the foregoing paragraphs are reasonably true 
we have a few groups of people whom society must make 
responsible as classes, for this work of sex-education. Chief 
among these are parents, school-teachers, Sunday-school 
teachers, social workers, physicians and health workers, 
and ministers. In individual cases, there may be persons 
better fitted than any of these to do the needed work; 
but generally speaking, the above classes of people, rather 
than youthful mates or vulgar-minded servants, must 
assume the task. 
(i) Parents are, or should be, much the best fitted of 
all these by their natural position and close relation to 
the children. This is particularly true of younger chil- 
dren, of whom the mother is the natural instructor. On 
the other hand, parents are usually the least fitted by 
information and training to do this work in the best way. 
29 30 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
Often also they feel an embarrassment in approaching 
their own children which others would not feel. 
(2) The physician is possibly best fitted of all in the 
knowledge of the facts; but usually his knowledge of the 
proper methods of teaching is poor. Furthermore, the 
emphasis in his medical schools and in practise is upon 
anatomy, physiology, disease and hygiene of sex; and in 
consequence he tends to overemphasize mere knowledge. 
His work must be supplemented by that of others. 
(3) The public-school teachers are best prepared of all 
in the knowledge of methods of teaching, and next to the 
parents themselves have the children in their direct care. 
Most of these, however, lack information, just as parents 
do, as to the exact facts which should be given and the 
possible results of these facts. Furthermore, they have to 
teach the children in such numbers that another very 
difficult feature is introduced. Much of sex instruction 
should be individual. 
(4) Ministers and other religious workers lack specific 
knowledge of the scientific aspects of the problem, and 
have fewer contacts with the children than parents or 
school teachers. Nevertheless, they have a point of view 
which is very necessary in sex-education. They empha- 
size the very personal and social idealism which is largely 
lacking in the preparation of the physician. As a result 
they are more inclined to minimize both scientific facts 
and pedagogical method, and to depend on mystical and 
unanalyzable influences for effect on character. Physi- 
cians and religious workers each need to combine with the 
other to give a sane and balanced approach. 
(5) The other classes mentioned have some opportuni- 
ties; but are for various reasons limited in what they can PRINCIPLES WHICH MUST GUIDE 
31 
do directly. For example, athletic directors in Christian 
Associations can render special service to adolescent boys 
and girls and to young men and women, as can these di- 
rectors in high schools, colleges, and universities. Similar 
help can be given by the Scouts, Big Brothers and Big 
Sisters, and various social clubs among and for boys and 
girls. 
There must be a full coordination of these various par- 
tial points of view into one; and then cooperation by each 
agency doing its own part in the spirit of the whole. The 
facts and the scientific attitude must come from the physi- 
cians and teachers; the method is that of the teacher; 
the spirit must be that of the parent and the religious 
and social workers. 
It is probable that the teachers will be the first of these 
groups to be aroused to do their proper part. There are 
those who believe that we cannot rely on parents at all 
and must depend almost wholly on the schools. This, 
however, neglects the truth that the time of starting to 
school is too late for some of the simple facts which chil- 
dren must know, if they are to come from pure sources. 
In the opinion of the writer the mothers will be inspired 
and educated by the various social and religious teachers 
to give the children the instruction they should have be- 
fore school age, and to assist the teachers in guiding their 
development beyond that time. The Parent-Teachers 
Associations have a most valuable and hopeful place in 
every part of this movement. 
Physicians can assist the movement by appropriate 
lectures to teachers, parents, and nearly mature young 
men and women, giving the technical facts which bear on 
their various problems. In a similar way, ministers who 32 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
are sufficiently informed can present to the community 
the social and moral bearing of the work. 
The accompanying scheme will at least suggest a gen- 
eral division of responsibility suitable to the average 
community. 
SCHEME SUGGESTING DIVISION OF LABOR AND LOCATION 
OF RESPONSIBILITY IN SEX-INSTRUCTION 
Parents 
Pre-school Period: - 
From birth to 6 years of age 
.Teachers . 
School Grades:- 
7-14 years. 
Teachers 
General Instruction 
Physical Directors 
Development- 
High School 
14-18 years. 
Physicians 
Social Diseases. 
Colleges: - 
(Regular Courses for Future Parents). 
Schools of Education: - 
(Regular Courses for Future Teachers) 
Physicians 
' Teachers 
The church, the religious schools and the social agencies 
should operate throughout the whole period in giving 
spirit and atmosphere to all the above instrumentalities 
and persons, in addition to making their own direct con- 
tribution to the youth. CHAPTER IV 
REPRODUCTION AND UNSELFISHNESS 
1. Biology of Sex for Parents and Teachers. - We 
have concluded that society rightly places on parents and 
teachers a large part of the responsibility for educating the 
rising generation so that sex may be an inspiration and a 
blessing rather than a blight. The family, as we have 
seen, is the primary sex-institution, It is also the place 
in which the child will get its first unconscious sex impres- 
sions and where he can be given the sex-knowledge he 
should have with the most normal relation to life at its 
best. It is also the point at which the ideals of the past 
can best be put in practise to influence the home ideals 
of the future. For all these reasons the home is the most 
natural possible laboratory in which to convey sound sex 
appreciation and attitudes. If this conclusion is right, 
it follows that the parents as leaders of youth must be 
acquainted with the broad biological facts, in order that 
they may have a background, as well as with the details 
of human development, in order that they may meet par- 
ticular cases. In a brief discussion such as this it is im- 
possible to enter into all the particulars of what shall and 
what shall not be taught, even if we knew. The purpose 
of the present book is rather to give to the parent and 
teacher some information about the fundamental biological 
principles of sex which we must respect, accompanied with 
33 34 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
outlines of the general kinds of knowledge that the pupil 
should have. With these in mind the teacher will be able 
to seek successfully the special facts that may be of most 
service. 
2. The Construction of the Individual. - No matter 
how simple or how complex is the individual, the building 
up of its own life is much the same. The one-celled plant 
or animal, in order to be successful, must take just about 
the same steps as an oak or a man. It must begin its life; 
it must be nourished; it must grow and protect what 
it gets; it must upbuild itself through its own powers, 
desires, appetites and activities. In one way or another, 
all these things look toward getting, toward an income for 
the individual. They may be described in a word as 
selfish - because they minister solely to self-construction. 
There is no purpose to suggest that these selfish qualities 
lack in fineness or dignity, merely because they are selfish. 
They are at the very foundation of successful individual 
life, and the later qualities would be quite impossible with- 
out them. They are inadequate socially, but they are un- 
worthy only when they lead to nothing higher. The 
natural, normal first result of these basal things, when 
allowed to have full sway, is to produce sound, healthy, 
self-centered individuals. This we may say is the first and 
most important power of living things, and the higher 
powers depend on it. 
3. Relation of Reproduction to this Process. - Some- 
where at the climax of this emphasis on the self, even in the 
very simplest organisms, there normally comes a complete 
reversal of the behavior of the organism. In some way 
or other, by a process that may seem quite simple or may 
be very complex, the old individual, whose whole energy REPRODUCTION AND UNSELFISHNESS 
35 
hitherto has been given to building itself up, divides. In 
this way the substance so carefully brought together is 
distributed to two individuals. (See Fig. i). This process 
is called reproduction. It is easy to see that reproduction 
is just the opposite of the self-building processes described 
before. It divides up and scatters the living matter at 
the expense of, and often with the complete destruction of, 
the original individual. This represents outgo where the 
former process meant income; this means extending the 
species where the other meant strengthening the individual; 
this means self-sacrifice where the other meant self-build- 
ing. Biologically speaking, reproduction is next in im- 
portance to, and just as universal as, nutrition and growth, 
and is directly opposite to them in nature and results. This 
description is a brief picture of the life of all organisms, 
which consists of a period of selfish growth in which the 
individual is built up to its maturity, followed by a period 
of unselfish reproduction of new individuals which must 
in their turn grow and mature. 
4. Illustrations of Reproduction. - While it is impor- 
tant to remember that all reproduction means sacrifice 
of the individual, the form and degree of the sacrifice 
differs in different kinds of organisms. The accompanying 
diagrams will help the reader to appreciate something 
of this difference. 
In Fig. i, we have a simple organism that grows to its 
full size (i) by the process of nutrition; and after a period 
it divides (2) into two equal, half-sized offspring just like 
the parent, except for size. These grow to the size of the 
parent (3) and (4), and the process is repeated. In this case 
neither of the resulting offspring can properly be called 
the parent; the parent is completely sacrificed in the act 36 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
of reproducing. The mother cell has given its individual 
life for the two daughter cells. 
The sacrifice is not usually so complete as this. In 
Fig. 2 we have a scheme of budding by which the parent 
can produce one 
or more smaller 
members of its 
kind without 
being completely 
destroyed in do- 
ing so. Repro- 
duction in this 
case merely 
checks tempora- 
rily the individ- 
ual, selfish growth 
processes of the 
mother. This is 
also a kind of 
division, just as 
in Fig. i; repro- 
duction is always 
division. This 
however, is more 
economical, and 
leaves the parent 
in such form that it may reproduce again. This allows a 
more lengthened life to the parent, and thus a greater 
possibility of developing a more permanent and higher 
individual. 
Fig. 2 represents reproduction by budding in an organ- 
ism of one cell. 
Fig. i. Reproduction by simple division in a single- 
celled animal (Paramecium): i, an adult organism; 
2, the same in process of dividing into two daughter 
organisms; 3, a later stage of the same; 4, the two 
daughter animals mature. The sacrifice of the mother 
cell is complete here. REPRODUCTION AND UNSELFISHNESS 
Fig. 3 illustraste 
a many-celled or- 
ganism which, in a 
similar way, buds 
off a smaller daugh- 
ter organism; but 
the daughter in this 
case consists of 
many cells at the 
start. 
Fig. 4 represents 
reproduction in a 
still higher organ- 
ism,- one made up 
of many cells,-such 
as a moss or a fern, 
or some kinds of worms. In this case the difference be- 
tween the parent (many- 
celled) and the offspring 
(one-celled spore) is still 
greater than we have had 
before. It will be clear 
that reproduction in these 
forms is still division, but 
is even more economical 
and less of a sacrifice than 
it was in the other cases. 
The parent therefore has 
a still better chance to go 
on with its own life history 
and perfect itself to a 
degree impossible in Figs, i 
37 
Fig. 2. Reproduction by budding in a single- 
celled plant (Yeast): i, an adult cell; 2 and 3, 
stages in budding in which new outgrowths from the 
mother cells produce daughters. These grow up 
and may become independent or remain attached 
in a chain. The sacrifice of a mother cell in this 
case is not complete. 
Fig. 3. Reproduction by budding in 
a many-celled organism, in which the 
daughter is also many-celled. M, Mother; 
D, daughter. The degree of sacrifice is 
similar to that in Fig. 2. This figure is 
idealized and might stand for such animals 
as Hydra and many of the worms, or any 
of the multicellular plants that produce 
buds, runners, tubers, and the like. It is 
a very common method of reproduction. 38 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
and 2. Usually such organisms, which have come to 
economize by reproducing through a single cell, are able 
to produce many off- 
spring during their life. 
The paramecium can 
produce only two. In 
this way the species, as 
well as the individual, 
profits by the economy. 
However, this econom- 
ical method has its 
drawbacks. The off- 
spring are very much 
reduced and have a long 
way to go, in order to 
become adult. The par- 
amecium had to grow only 100 per cent. A fern spore 
must ultimately increase millions of times to reach 
maturity. 
5. Further Sacrifices Growing out of Reproduction. - 
Reproduction has been shown above to be the first and 
most fundamental form of sacrifice which we find in nature. 
It is not the only sacrifice to produce the offspring. This 
is but a beginning. The care of offspring in order to 
bring them safely to the point where they can care for 
themselves is also very common among plants and animals. 
This is a tax on parents which oftentimes means more 
sacrifice than reproduction itself. As in the case of repro- 
duction there are all degrees of sacrifice in the care of off- 
spring from the condition seen in the lower animals up to 
birds, mammals, and man. In some (as fishes) it is merely 
the storing of a large amount of food in the eggs; in some 
Fig. 4. Reproduction in which a many- 
celled mother (P) produces many one-celled 
reproductive bodies or offspring (R and S), 
which are all alike. This may be taken to 
illustrate any many-celled, spore-bearing 
plants, such as ferns, mosses, and the like. 
It will be seen that reproduction, while still 
meaning division and sacrifice, is much more 
economical than it was at the beginning. REPRODUCTION AND UNSELFISHNESS 
39 
(as insects) it means locating the young in special places 
where food is abundant; in some (as birds) it means, in 
addition to food in the egg, the building of nests and in- 
cubation of the eggs; in some (as mammals) it means 
carrying the young in the body of the mother; in some, 
particularly in man, it means the building of homes, special 
nourishment, protection, training, education, and conscious 
sympathy and devotion and sacrifice. Reproduction is 
thus, not merely itself the first, most fundamental form 
of sacrifice shown in nature, it is the beginning and in- 
spiration of the richest line of sacrifice and unselfish in- 
stincts and acts found in men or animals. Around it is 
built, as we have seen, the most admirable social insti- 
tution which has been devised, - the home and family. 
Save for reproduction there would be no offspring to 
care for; yet the connection is closer than this. The very 
instincts of reproduction are so closely intertwined with 
those of love and care for offspring that it is impossible to 
distinguish them. We often find that the mother's love 
for her offspring is immediate and unthinking and in- 
stinctive, - following at once on the fact of reproduction. 
And we cannot possibly separate the reproductive function 
of our mothers from the sex qualities that we admire in 
them. 
6. Summary. - Reproduction is a perfectly natural 
and normal thing in life. It is next in importance to nu- 
trition. There is nothing in it which should bring shame 
and aversion. This is not all. While nutrition is individ- 
ual and selfish, reproduction is unselfish and looks to the 
future of the race. It is the bridge over which individual 
selfishness and energy were first transformed into social 
unselfishness. It is the avenue by which we are led from 40 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
self-considering attitudes and acts to the most unselfish 
acts of which we are capable, - as expressed in the devo- 
tion of the mother to her child. It is thus the foundation 
of the most altruistic and spiritual qualities we possess. 
It is nothing less than sacred. Indeed we have never found 
any better, more convincing way to picture the relation 
of God to man than by parental love. Can we afford, then, 
either to ignore or to abuse the sources of it in the educa- 
tion of our children? Or can we allow ourselves or our 
children to think of reproduction and the origin of new 
life in human beings as either trivial or vulgar? CHAPTER V 
SEX AND SELFISHNESS 
1. The Introduction of Fertilization. - In Section 4 of 
Chapter IV a series of illustrations is given to picture some 
simple steps in reproduction. In Fig. 1, which is the 
simplest, an organism of a single cell divides into two 
equal, one-celled offspring. In the last of the series, Fig. 4, 
we have a many-celled 
organism reproducing 
by dividing off a number 
of single cells. This 
makes reproduction 
more easy; but it can 
readily be seen that it 
leaves a larger task for 
the offspring after repro- 
duction. The offspring 
must grow up from its 
simple state into a com- 
plex form like its parent. 
The daughter cells in 
Fig. 1 have only to in- 
crease in size to be like 
the original parent, and they already possess one-half the 
original parent's material to do it with. The offspring 
in Fig. 4 must grow many times its own size, and must 
do more than grow: it must change in other ways from 
Fig. 5. Reproduction in which a many- 
celled mother produces numerous, similar, 
one-celled offspring. These offspring swim 
about together and finally unite in pairs {con- 
jugate) to secure the development of the 
adult. 1, a mother cell producing the re- 
productive bodies (gametes); 2, offspring 
(gametes) escaping; 3, gametes conjugating; 
4, the new embryo organism resulting from 
the union of the gametes and capable of 
development into the mature plant. 
41 42 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
its simple structure to the complex makeup which the 
adult parent has. This is called differentiation or de- 
velopment. 
Quite low down among organisms an interesting device 
appears, which helps in some way to secure this develop- 
ment. It often happens, among the exactly similar spore- 
like offspring of an organism like that in Fig. 4 or 5, that 
two of the young after swimming around for a while will 
unite completely into one cell (Fig. 5). After this the large 
cell formed by the union will grow and develop into an or- 
ganism like the parent. Just what the gain from this 
union is we are not sure. Many things have been suggested; 
and biologists are agreed that it must serve some interest- 
ing and valuable purpose, because it is found so generally 
through the plant and animal kingdom alike. This act of 
uniting two offspring is called conjugation or fertilization. 
It is easy to see that it is just the opposite of reproduction, 
- which is always division. Conjugation is always the 
union of two organisms into one. The offspring which 
are to unite are called gametes. The result of the union is 
an embryo with the power of developing into the adult. 
In many cases the gametes, if they have no opportunity 
of pairing, may develop without uniting. 
2. The Introduction of Sex. - Another advance in this 
interesting biological series is shown in Fig. 6 where the 
gametes that are reproduced by the many-celled parent 
are of two kinds. One class is large and sluggish, and 
the other is smaller and active. The first are known as 
eggs (Fig. 6, £); the second, as sperm-cells (Fig. 6, S). 
Usually an egg and a sperm-cell must unite before any 
development will take place. Each will die without further 
growth unless united with the other. This union is called SEX AND SELFISHNESS 
43 
fertilization, and apparently means the same thing here 
that it meant in the preceding illustration, where it is 
called conjugation. The egg is known as a female gamete, 
and the sperm is known as a male gamete. This difference 
of the gametes is the mark of sex. This is the first time 
that the differences of sex have appeared in our series of 
illustrations. In 
Fig. 6, however, the 
parent itself is 
neither male nor 
female or, if one 
prefers, it is both 
male and female. 
It may produce 
both kinds of off- 
spring. The point 
is that sex differ- 
ences first ap- 
peared, in the evo- 
lution of sex, in the 
sex cells and not in 
the body of the 
parent. We shall 
see later that the same is true in the development of 
each one of us. 
Fig. 7, which is wholly diagrammatic, introduces us to 
another step in the development of sex among organisms. 
Hitherto there has been no difference in the parents. Here 
there are two different kinds of parents. One kind (F) 
produces only the large gametes or eggs; the other (Af) 
produces only the small, active gametes or sperm. In 
this case we call the parent which produces eggs a female, 
Fig. 6. Reproduction in which the single parent 
plant has two kinds of offspring; - that is, the 
parent is both father and mother at once. E, the 
egg, produced in the special female organ A; S the 
sperm, produced in the male organ M. The sperm 
swims down the channel in the female organ and 
unites with the egg to produce the embryo of the 
new generation. Here the gametes and the organs 
that produce them show the male and female quali- 
ties, but the parent itself must be regarded as of 
both sexes. BIOLOGY OF SEX 
44 
and the parent which produces the sperm, a male. This 
is the condition in all the higher animals, including man. 
The reproductive cells show very striking sex differences, 
and the parents which produce these different kinds of 
cells are as different 
as the cells. 
3. The Meaning 
of the Sexes.-Since 
we find fertilization, 
or the bringing to- 
gether of the one- 
celled offspring, so 
universal in nature, 
we conclude that it 
is for some reason 
necessary. In pro- 
portion as it is im- 
portant a new prob- 
lem arises: How can 
these two separate 
sexual cells be 
brought together 
with enough cer- 
tainty and regularity to insure their union and thus insure 
the new generation? As long as any one of these offspring 
could go on and make the adult without union, as in Figs. 
1-4, the problem of development was a very easy one. 
In the first place, in making a success of the new method, 
by which different kinds of cells from two different par- 
ents are to be brought together, it is necessary that more 
of both kinds of cells be produced by the parents than 
would be necessary if the cells could settle down and grow 
Fig. 7. An idealized figure which may be taken 
to illustrate the condition in any of the higher 
plants and animals. There are two kinds of multi- 
cellular parents, - F, the female, producing ova, 
or the female offspring (0) within, and M, the 
male, producing male offspring or sperm (S). 
The offspring show sex differences and the parents 
no less. 1-4 illustrate stages in the union of the 
gametes, sperm and ova, to produce an embryo. SEX AND SELFISHNESS 
45 
at once without union; because in the very nature of the 
case many of them can never find mates. If they can- 
not develop without mating many will die because of 
the lack of it. In the second place, some ways must be 
devised whereby the cells may be brought together, whereby 
one of them at least may recognize the presence of the 
other, and may if necessary move so that the two cells 
may actively unite. 
Even in the simplest organisms these conditions are ful- 
filled. The smaller male cell, of which a great many are 
usually formed, is active and usually able to swim freely 
in fluids. It is also sensitive to chemical changes produced 
by substances secreted by the egg, and is caused by the 
attraction exerted by these to seek out the egg, to enter it, 
and thus unite with it. The egg is passive except for 
making this secretion which attracts and guides the sperm 
in its active pursuit of the egg. This is the meaning of the 
different qualities of the two sexes in organisms as simple 
as those figured in Figs. 5 and 6. It provides for attraction 
in the female and positive response of a seeking nature in 
the male. The meaning is practically the same for such 
organisms as that in Fig. 7, and clear up to man, where 
the parents that produce the mating cells are also different. 
Clearly if the mutual attraction can be had in the par- 
ents which produce the cells as well as between the sex 
cells themselves, the chances of fertilization are much in- 
creased. The differences between the male and female 
parents are for the same purpose as the differences be- 
tween the sex cells: viz., to bring together with the greatest 
certainty the male and female cells. The special organs 
and instincts of males and females exist to insure fertiliza- 
tion. The parents are brought together in order that the 46 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
cells may be brought together, The bringing together of 
male and female parents may be known as mating. There 
are no more striking differences in the whole animal king- 
dom, including man, than these bodily and mental sex 
differences which make the sexes able to perform their 
special functions, and make them attractive to one another. 
4. The Attraction of the Sexes. - The simple conditions 
described above show why, biologically, the sexes must 
attract each other. It was seen that this attraction is a 
purely chemical one between the two cells in the simplest 
cases. This chemical attraction is found also between these 
cells in the higher forms; but there is much more than this 
in the higher forms. As we come up the scale of life to 
those animals in which maleness and femaleness is found 
in the parents as well as in the reproductive cells, and the 
parents have complex nervous and sensitive powers, the 
attractions of sex become more complex and powerful. 
In the main it is still true, as it is with the egg and sperm, 
that the female attracts the male, and the latter actively 
seeks out the female. In the higher animals we know that 
the attraction of the female may be exerted through odor, 
sound, color, or form. In addition to these attractions 
through the senses, there are in both parents, but in the 
male especially, powerful internal instincts and appetites 
that make them seek one another. These tremendous 
desires and attractions between the parents, whether con- 
scious or unconscious, have the one biological purpose: - 
they insure the bringing together of the two kinds of cells 
in order that they may unite and thus make reproduction 
more sure. These mental attractions between the parent? 
lead the way for the chemical attraction and union of th' 
cells which they produce. They secure fertilization and a SEX AND SELFISHNESS 
47 
improved method of reproduction by making mating 
attractive and satisfying. 
5. The Selfishness of Sex. - It will be clear to the 
reader that we have in some way come again, in sex, into 
a realm of selfishness and gratification of appetite. It is 
quite as much so as that we spoke of in connection with 
getting food and individual growth. The presence of food 
arouses the desires of the organism and it responds to it; 
or the absence of food produces hunger, - an internal 
desire or appetite of a purely selfish character, - which 
drives it to seek its food. Just so the presence of the egg 
or the female may arouse the seeking action of the sperm 
or male; or internal desires and appetites, looking to- 
ward self-gratification, may drive the male to seek the 
female. We have seen that reproduction is a drain on 
the parent. It is itself unselfish and accompanied by a 
lavish series of sacrifices. It would seem that we have, 
in following the process of reproduction, fallen again to a 
plane of extreme selfishness and individual gratification. 
There is no gratification so keen nor selfishness so deep as 
the gratification and selfishness of sex-indulgence. Neither 
the higher animals nor primitive man recognized that 
there is any connection between sex-gratification and the 
reproduction of young. The sex-appetite in these conditions 
stands out merely as another individual and selfish want. 
6. Relation between Reproduction and Sex. - Is there 
any solution for this seeming paradox? Reproduction is 
the great biological foundation of unselfishness and sacri- 
fice of the self for the species; fertilization, although just 
the opposite of reproduction, is for some reason a strong 
agency for making reproduction effective by uniting two 
offspring into one; sex in parents is a very satisfactory 48 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
means of securing fertilization and of selecting the mat- 
ings; around sex, and making fertilization still more sure, 
is the most remarkable series of attractions, desires, appe- 
tites, passions, and gratifications known in biology. They 
seem to be as general and practically as powerful as hunger 
and thirst. We believe this to be an evidence and measure 
of their importance in life. 
The connection seems to be something like this: This 
powerful set of selfish passions has grown up about, and 
so to speak rewards , the unselfish act of reproduction, and 
thus helps to insure that the sacrifice shall continue. If 
it were not for the gratification that attends sex-indulgence, 
fertilization might fail, and the efficiency of reproduction 
- even the very sacrifice itself of reproduction - 
might cease. The sacrifice necessary to preserve the 
species is insured by coupling with it a selfish impulse and 
gratification. 
7. These Principles Applied to Human Life. - All that 
has been described above as belonging to sex life in the 
higher organisms is equally true of human beings. Con- 
sciousness comes in and makes the appetites stronger and 
more difficult to control; but the fundamental facts are 
the same. All of this shows that reproduction is as natural 
and as universal as the taking of food; that some sort of 
fertilization is almost as prevalent as reproduction; that 
sex differences are found in well-nigh all animals and plants; 
and that attractions and appetites and gratifications always 
accompany sex. The first and most wholesome deduction 
which we must make from these facts is this: Methods 
and conditions so universal in nature must be an important 
part of the plan of God himself, and cannot be vulgar nor 
vile in themselves. They are as important and as sacred SEX AND SELFISHNESS 
49 
as life itself, since on these foundations all higher life has 
arisen, held its own, and advanced on its way. 
These broad biological conclusions are presented to 
parents and teachers not so much with the thought that 
they will furnish material to present directly to the pu- 
pils; but rather to give them as teachers a fuller conscious- 
ness of the greatness of the place of reproduction and sex 
in life, and thus form a background for the particular in- 
struction. It will help to lift sex out of the vulgar connec- 
tions into which it has come through human abuses, if we 
can realize that it has this wonderful and universal con- 
structive side. It ought, too, to aid us in banishing the 
embarrassment and false modesty which have so often 
prevented us from doing our duty in respect to our children. 
There is matter in these chapters which should be brought 
in the teacher's own time and way to the knowledge of the 
pupils; but the method employed here is that of adults 
talking to adults, and not to children. CHAPTER VI 
SEX IN RELATION TO NORMAL HUMAN 
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 
1. Introduction. - We have seen that in animals the 
task of producing and caring for eggs is the work of the fe- 
male, just as producing sperm and bringing them where 
they can unite with the eggs is the work of the male. The 
nature, structures, and instincts of the female are deter- 
mined by the task that is hers. In the same way the pecul- 
iar organs and passions of the male have arisen in connec- 
tion with forming sperm cells and with caring for them 
successfully. In other words, the essential fact of male- 
ness and femaleness consists in the sexual cells; and the 
peculiar features of the male and female parents, which we 
recognize externally, are purely dependent on the kinds 
of cells they produce, and exist to the end that the sexual 
cells may be effectively handled. These bodily, sexual 
features of the parents are secondary. 
This fact is the explanation of those we shall next under- 
take to give, and it is important that the reader should 
recognize the difference between this statement and the 
ordinary view. We usually think that a female animal 
produces eggs because she has the normal external char- 
acteristics which we find in the female of that species. In 
other words, we think that the quality of maleness or fe- 
maleness comes to an individual in some mysterious way, 
and that bv virtue of this principle it develops certain 
50 RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
51 
foreordained organs, and that because the body is female 
or male these organs naturally produce eggs or sperm. 
As a matter of fact the essential sex character resides in 
the sex cells, and the peculiar sex organs and the special 
male or female instincts of the parents are the outcome of 
these. The character of the body of the parent is deter- 
mined by the kind of offspring (i.e. sex cells) it is develop- 
ing within it; and the character of the body does not de- 
termine the kind of sex cells. 
2. The Differences between Male and Female in 
Humans. - In the early embryonic stages, human males 
and females are so much alike externally that the sex can- 
not be prophesied. This does not mean that the sex of 
the new individual is not already determined. Later, 
even before birth, however, the fundamental internal sex 
differences begin to stamp themselves on the body and 
the sexes can be distinguished by certain definite qualities 
and external organs. Still later in life, during adolescence, 
the internal sex organs further influence the bodies of both 
males and females so that they come to differ still more. 
We are all familiar with the more obvious of these bodily 
and mental differences between men and women. 
In man, as in other animals, the fundamental female 
organ is the ovary (in which the eggs develop); and the fun- 
damental male organ is the testis (in which the sperm cells 
develop). In connection with these internal differences, 
and because of them, there arise such well-known differ- 
ences between males and females as the following: the 
distinctive external male or female sexual organs in the 
pelvic region f, the smaller size and more delicate construc- 
tion of the female as contrasted with the greater size, mus- 
cular strength and activity of the male; the softness and 52 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
smoothness of the skin in females as compared with the 
rougher skin and greater tendency to develop hair on the 
face and body in the male; the broader pelvis of the fe- 
male; the greater development of the mammary glands; 
and the tendency to deposit fat beneath the skin especially 
about the breast and hips. 
One other special organ characterizes the female, and is 
connected with the fact that the human mother, as is true 
of other mammals also, cares for the developing embryo 
within her own body after fertilization. This organ, 
known as the uterus or womb, is one of the most wonderful 
devices found in all biology for the care of the young in 
the early, helpless stages of its growth. By means of it the 
young in its dependent stages is as safe as the mother 
herself. It receives here warmth, protection, food and 
oxygen from the mother. The possession of the uterus 
and the carrying of the young for so long a period power- 
fully modifies the activities and habits of the female, and 
is the biological foundation of a great deal of our human 
social and economic customs and behavior. See Figs. 9 
and 10. 
Similarly mental and spiritual differences between men 
and women are recognizable. These also arise not be- 
cause of some mystical tendency of maleness or femaleness 
but from the fundamental differences in the task of pro- 
ducing and caring for the two kinds of sexual cells and 
from the social education which accompanies these func- 
tions. We cannot always be sure just how much these 
mental differences are due to inheritance and how much 
to education; but we cannot study the mental and emo- 
tional differences between male and female birds, whose 
social education plays little part, and doubt that there RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
53 
are equally vital natural temperamental differences be- 
tween men and women. It is not intended here to make 
a careful analysis of these differences. In the female mind 
there seems naturally somewhat more of conservatism, 
more of reserve, more of emotion, less willingness to take 
chances; and her disposition is more patient and less 
vigorous. In the male, on the contrary, the impulses of 
sex, of adventure, of combat are more powerful and rad- 
ical; his mind is, perhaps, somewhat more judicial. There 
are numerous exceptions to these statements, and the 
primary physical and mental capabilities of the sexes are 
the same; yet we all recognize perfectly definite mental, 
emotional, esthetic and temperamental, as well as physi- 
cal, qualities which we describe by the words masculine 
and feminine, virile and effeminate. 
It is scarcely necessary to say that to the biologist there 
is no suggestion of inferiority or superiority in these terms. 
They merely express the specialization which accompanies 
sex, - and each type is specialized to do particular nec- 
essary tasks. This differentiation in bodily and mental 
qualities is based on the fundamental biological division 
of labor. Each is superior in its own specialized powers. 
3. The Relation of Sex to these Bodily and Mental 
Developments. - One of the most important things for 
human beings to realize is the vital and profound influence 
which reproduction and sex have on the whole of the 
developing personality. In order to make this clear it 
will again be best to illustrate from some of the higher 
animals. As is well known, a male horse, or cat, or chicken, 
if allowed to develop its testes until maturity, is wild, 
vigorous, active, fiercely combative of other males, easily 
aroused by the presence of the female, does not readily BIOLOGY OF SEX 
54 
take on fat, but is muscular and converts its food supply 
into action. This development involves its whole bodily 
and mental nature, its disposition and instincts as well as 
its structures. For example, in the case of the cock, the 
spurs, wattles, male plumage, the instinct to crow and to 
fight and other well-known "secondary" sexual features 
appear, if the sex glands develop properly. 
If any such male animals are taken when young, before 
they show these mental and physical effects of their sex, 
and the testes are completely removed by a surgical opera- 
tion, these qualities do not arise in full degree, if at all. 
The animal is sluggish, develops fat instead of muscle, is 
temperamentally torpid, takes no special notice of the 
female. 
The male of some varieties of fowl, so treated, may not 
develop the spurs, characteristic male plumage, and other 
male marks. If, however, a piece of the healthy testis of 
another fowl is later grafted successfully into the tissues 
of the castrated bird, the development of these ordinary 
male characters will occur practically as in a normal bird. 
Something similar to the above takes place in female 
animals whose ovaries are removed in early life. There is 
very little difference physically or temperamentally be- 
tween males and females when both have lost their essen- 
tial organs early in life. The developing ovaries and testes, 
in cooperation with certain other glands of the body, are 
responsible for the special sexual characteristics of the 
parent animal, and the removal of these internal organs 
makes male and female much alike by checking the special 
growths in which the sexes differ. Still more light is thrown 
on the problem by grafting healthy ovary or testis tissue 
into a castrated animal of the opposite sex. In the case RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
55 
of certain rodents (as rats and guinea-pigs) it is possible, 
by grafting ovarian tissues into a male castrated early in 
life, to cause the mammary glands to enlarge and to make 
the male show the normal feminine disposition and be- 
havior toward the young. It has been shown by biologists 
that certain glandular cells in the sex-organs, - ovaries 
and testes, - manufacture certain specific substances, 
which on being poured into the blood-current pass to the 
muscles, the brain, the skin, and other organs. These 
substances, by their presence, stimulate the particular 
growths that we have noticed as belonging to the various 
sex-organs. In other words, the natural, healthy condition 
of the internal sex-organs, through their direct action on 
the blood, modifies most profoundly the body, mind, and 
nature of the organism to which they belong. The secre- 
tions from the sex-organs are normally supplemented by 
secretions from other "ductless glands," in producing these 
effects. 
4. Relation of Sex to the Normal Development of the 
Human Male. - If the facts of the preceding paragraph 
were true of the higher animals only, they would still be 
interesting; but since they are just as true of human be- 
ings, they become of most far-reaching importance to us. 
It is well known that the boy changes in important ways 
as he becomes sexually mature. The body grows greatly; 
the muscles become firmer; the vocal cords increase in 
length, and the voice falls from the pitch of a woman to 
that of a man; beard develops on the face; the sex-organs 
increase in size; and the temperament, mental qualities, 
and ambitions gradually become those of the mature man. 
If, however, the testes are removed by disease or operation, 
these changes do not fully come, but the man tends to 56 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
keep the more feminine qualities of boyhood. In this 
way the voice remains a soprano, the muscles do not be- 
come vigorous and manly, fat is deposited in greater 
amount, the mental traits tend to lose in vigor and ad- 
venturousness; or if they retain their vigor they come to 
be dominated by subtlety and cunning rather than by 
openness and strength. The eunuchs of the orient are 
examples of this. 
From the human point of view, the practical conclusion 
of the whole matter is this: - In order to get a strong, 
normal, manly body and mind, the first essential is the 
full, sound development of the internal organs, - the testes. 
Conversely, anything that interferes with this full, sound 
development of the internal sex-organs will to that extent 
prevent the boy from developing into his full manhood. 
The effect of such knowledge as this upon the average boy 
in restraining him from lines of action that would be likely 
to interfere with manly development is clear; and the use 
we should make of these facts in the training of boys is 
equally apparent. Every boy should know to what extent 
manliness and vigor, ambition and enterprise, and the 
possibility of realizing these ideals in his own person de- 
pends on conserving these internal secretions. 
5. The Relation of Sex to Normal Development in the 
Human Female. - Without going into details, it will 
serve the present purpose to say that the same general 
laws hold for the development of women as are pictured 
above for men. The loss of the ovaries early in life, by 
disease or operation, prevents the normal development of 
the female body, and does not allow the mental and tem- 
peramental qualities to come to their proper maturity. 
Without these internal secretions the uterus does not de- RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
57 
velop normally, nor do the breasts. Child-bearing would 
be impossible, and the maternal instincts would not come 
to flower. As is true for other animals, each sex in humans 
tends to become more like the other, in the absence of the 
internal organs. Thus in women, the hips may not en- 
large, and the outlines of the body resemble those of men. 
The presence of healthy ovaries is necessary to produce 
the distinctive and attractive feminine characteristics both 
of body and mind. 
6. The Abnormal Aspects of Sex in Human Beings. - 
It has been our effort to suggest in the preceding paragraphs 
how profound and beneficial is the effect of healthy, normal 
sex development on bodily and mental development, both 
in men and women. The long series of attractive qualities 
which each sex admires in the other is dependent upon this 
healthy life and development of the sex and cooperating 
glands. These normal facts and relations of sex, as we 
have said, are the important and positive foundation of 
sex-education, as well as that on which human society is 
itself erected. These are the most important and valuable 
facts of sex. Home, family, love, and the numerous ideas 
to be associated with these words, rest upon it. 
But there is another side that cannot be ignored. This 
is the aspect of the abnormal, pathological, diseased, and 
perverse. This phase of sex is secondary but it is impor- 
tant, and must be met fairly and squarely by the teachers 
of boys and girls. It is equally important, however, that 
they shall not be allowed to think of the abnormal things as 
meaning more than the normal. It is not possible in these 
brief chapters to make a complete statement of the dif- 
ferent forms of abnormal sexual life, and of the perverse 
results in our general life, for which the parent and teacher 58 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
must be on the lookout. All that can be hoped is to sug- 
gest some of the main places where the outcome of ex- 
perience should be brought to the aid of young people, and 
so to interpret these in terms of their own happiness and 
success as to induce them to turn to the better use of sex. 
7. Special Abuses of Sex in Men. - We have seen that 
the removal of the testes makes men abnormal and imper- 
fectly developed in body and mind; but this is not all. 
Premature and excessive sexual indulgence interferes with 
sex development and thus with the whole development. 
Breeders of stock, who wish their males to come to their 
best, guard this point and do not allow too early or too 
frequent intercourse or excitement. From the standpoint 
of bodily and mental health the following things should be 
held in mind by teachers and impressed on boys: - 
(1) Total abstinence from sexual indulgence does not in 
any way retard or prevent perfect development of the sex 
qualities either in boys or girls. 
(2) Early or excessive or abnormal forms of indulgence 
do interfere with normal sex growth of body, mind, and 
emotions, and with the strong manly qualities which de- 
pend on these. 
(3) Promiscuous indulgence is sure, sooner or later, to 
bring infection by one or both of the venereal diseases, - 
gonorrhea and syphilis. These diseases arrest normal de- 
velopment, and may destroy the whole sex functions. They 
are not merely communicable from adult to adult, but 
the germs may penetrate to the ovaries and testes, and 
the eggs and sperm thus become infected. In this way 
unspeakable disease and misery are brought to the next 
generation, as well as to this. 
The highly complicated character of the sex glands and RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
59 
Fig. 8. A diagram of a sectional view of the essential sex organs of the male, 
seen from the right side. The section is supposed to pass through the middle plane 
of the body where the organs are single, and throughSone of the organs when they 
are paired. B, the bladder; P, the urethra passing through the penis; Sc, scrotum 
containing the testis, T; S.T., sperm tubules where sperm is formed; E, epididymis, 
a much-coiled tube which receives the sperm through tubes from all parts of the 
testis and conveys it to V. D. the vas deferens. This tube leads to a reservoir (5.7.) 
and finally to the outside world through the ejaculatory duct, D, and the ure- 
thra, P; G, the prostate gland. 
Each testis contains about 800 of the much coiled sperm-tubules. These delicate 
tubes average more than two feet each in length. They unite into about 20 tubes, 
each some 8 inches in length. All these communicate with the epididymis (E) which 
has a length of 20 feet when unravelled. The vas deferens takes a circuitous route 
of some two feet before it comes to its vesicle, 5.7., just beneath the bladder. The 
germ infections may penetrate to the most internal parts of this structure, and hence 
it is easy to see why complete cure is so difficult and uncertain. 60 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
the ducts connected with them makes infection of the 
male, by the germs of gonorrhea particularly, a most 
insidious and difficult trouble. The accompanying figure 
(Fig. 8), which is diagrammatic, will give the teacher an 
idea of this complexity. The whole series of tubes and 
organs may become diseased. 
(4) Naturally, the male has more powerful sex-desires 
than the female. Consequently his interest is always more 
acute about sex. This is associated with the more active 
male function of finding and pursuing and fertilizing the 
female. The selfish appetites and passions are at their 
highest with him. Because of this acute interest it is 
especially easy for the minds of boys to become poisoned 
and diseased by excitement through conversation, pictures, 
shows, and by early and excessive sexual indulgence of 
one kind or another. This disease of the mind is just as 
real a thing as the blood-poison of syphilis to the body, and 
even more deadly to personality. 
Because of these more intense passions of boys, and of 
other facts which bear so directly on their development, the 
pedagogical problems in rearing boys to clean, healthy 
maturity are ordinarily much more taxing than for girls. 
This makes it all the more necessary that boys and young 
men be given a chance to know the meaning of the right 
use of sex and the dangers of its abuse or neglect and be 
given positive incentives for sound choices. 
8. The Abnormal Aspects of Sex in Women. - In 
general sex feelings are less localized and more diffuse in 
women than in men. Hence the impulses towards sex-grat- 
ification are less powerful in the female than in the male, 
and in consequence her abnormalities tend less toward 
excesses and abuses. There is, however, enough of such RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
61 
tendency to make it necessary for mothers of daughters 
to see that they are not subjected to unnecessary temp- 
tation. If subjected to temptation they should see that 
the girls know the real nature of it and why it is not be to 
yielded to. While the appeal of mere physical sex indul- 
gence is doubtless less in girls than in boys, girls are prob- 
ably more sensitive to the emotional, esthetic, and spirit- 
ual elements in the situation. Their search for these sat- 
isfactions is quite liable to lead them into attitudes and 
conduct which result in disaster. 
Since women arouse sexual appetites in men, it is thus 
possible for them to increase, quite unconsciously, the 
dangers in which they stand. They should be taught how 
their dress or conduct may, without their intention, arouse 
impulses dangerous to themselves and others. It is prob- 
ably true that few normal women deliberately seek to 
produce these effects; but many girls and women do thus 
contribute to make the problems of both sexes more diffi- 
cult. Their knowledge therefore should include not merely 
their own sex psychology but enough of the male sex psy- 
chology to enable them to adjust the relations wholesomely. 
Since the female carries the developing embryo and 
nourishes it, her biological work in reproduction involves 
more of self-sacrifice than does that of the male, and less 
of gratification. While the woman is not so subject to 
the impulses and the consequent temptation to excesses, 
nevertheless the evils arising from abuses of sex seem to 
fall most heavily upon her. The communicable diseases 
are even more disastrous to women than to men. We are 
all too familiar with the cruel way in which society holds 
women more responsible for lack of virtue and restraint 
than it does men. Just how severe is public condemnation 62 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
and how destructive is over-indulgence and disease to 
women is shown by the social ostracism and the short life 
of public prostitutes. 
In general, then, the chief points of sex danger at which 
young girls need to be educated and guarded are these: - 
(1) In relation to forwardness and a lack of poise and 
reserve. - This is as positively a point of personal danger 
for girls as the overpowerful sex desires are the critical 
danger for boys. This does not at all mean that our girls 
are not to gain the fullest freedom for the expression of 
their normal intellectual and social energies. It does not 
mean that they are to be cramped or deprived in their full 
development. It means that, if women are to gain these 
things without disaster in a world so fully sexed as ours is, 
there must be a corresponding increase of poise and self- 
mastery to match. Restraint and reserve is a feminine 
trait very characteristic even among animals. It tends 
to control sex indulgence until suitable periods. It has 
even a much larger role among men than among animals 
because of our fuller consciousness. The very fact that 
physical sexual desires are not so acute in women as in 
men is doubtless the reason why girls often fail to realize 
that very small indiscretions on their part may lead to 
entirely unexpected disastrous consequences. Mere desire 
for companionship, novelty, entertainment and excite- 
ment may operate to create dangerous sex situations. 
(2) In relation to unwholesome, sex-inciting elements in 
our social surroundings. - Here are included all the sordid 
influences which operate for gain or for lust to debauch 
women to immoral uses. For subnormal, uninformed, in- 
experienced, over-sexed girls; and for those whose home 
conditions are bad, who are lonely and without normal RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
63 
associations with the other sex, who are unable to earn a 
full living, or who are thrown continuously and intimately 
into association with men of little sex control, no great con- 
sideration for women, and no high sex standards, - there 
is continual and often organized pressure toward prosti- 
tution in one form or another. Much of our commercialized 
amusements is definitely pitched to this purpose of prosti- 
tuting girls. No girl should be forced to meet these dangers 
without having every safeguard which knowledge and 
human inspiration can furnish. It would seem that there 
is no point at which decent men might more heartily unite 
with the great majority of women to remove the unwhole- 
some social conditions which produce so much of our sex 
abuses and degradation. 
(3) In relation to ill-health. - The normal secretions of 
such glands as the thyroid, the pituitary, and the adrenals 
- coupled with the secretions from the ovaries, - tend 
to produce the natural changes by which the girl passes 
to womanhood. If these secretions are deficient or ex- 
cessive the sex development will not be normal. The 
chief point at which any noticeable ill health may show 
itself is the uterus or womb itself and in the effects which 
any abnormal condition of the womb may produce in the 
general system, particularly the nervous system. There 
are physicians who hold that it only adds to the pathologi- 
cal effects of the sexual derangements in women to know 
about them. The writer does not believe that there is 
ever such a premium on ignorance. He believes that the 
facts are always better than ignorance. To be sure it is 
not necessary to drive women into hysteria by a continual 
over-emphasis on the possible feminine ailments; but it 
is quite a different and a desirable thing for women, as BIOLOGY OF SEX 
64 
well as men, to know enough of their anatomy and physi- 
ology to enable them to adjust their work and play and 
rest to their organic needs, and thus avoid some of the 
more preventable distresses which a sound hygiene would 
relieve. 
(a) Menstruation. - Menstruation is not an illness. It 
is due to a perfectly natural change in the inner wall of 
the womb produced by internal secretions which take place 
in the ovaries when eggs are ripened and freed. It is a 
preparation for attaching the egg to the wall of the uterus 
and of nourishing it there if it should be fertilized by a 
sperm cell. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a normal 
function and produces little change in the feelings of primi- 
tive women, our artificial civilization has brought about 
a state of affairs very far from normal. Menses may be 
painful, excessive, irregular, and accompanied by very 
marked nervous and emotional changes. If girls'are vigor- 
ous and are leading a normal life there may be no need 
to give any special attention to the period, except to 
avoid imprudences in respect to exposure to cold or to 
guide bodily exercise within reasonable limits. In people 
who do not have a comfortable period it may be neces- 
sary to give special care and protection to oneself for a 
day or so. Mothers of girls should help their daughters 
both to face menstruation with a pride that it means 
complete womanhood and with wholesome care that it 
may not be an unnecessary drain upon them. All practises 
of checking the appearance of the menses by cold appli- 
cations or otherwise in order to be free for social events 
are harmful as well as unworthy of womanhood. 
(Z>) Displacement of the uterus. In many cases the uterus 
tends to add to unhealthy bodily and mental states be- RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
65 
cause of its mere weight, which is greatly increased at 
the time of menstruation, and because of its unstable 
position. The organ is very liable to fall from its natural 
position (Fig. 9, U), and may fall in any direction: - back- 
Fig. g. A diagram of a mid-section through the female pelvic organs, to show 
the general position of the uterus. It may fall forward, backward, or sidewise. It 
will easily be seen why the "knee and chest position" is favorable for replace- 
ment; also how compressing the waist must force the organ downward. A, anal 
opening; B, bladder; I, intestine; R, rectum; S, spinal column; U, uterus; V, 
vagina. 
ward, which is most frequent; forward; or sidewise. In 
falling backward, for example, it may bend on itself in 
such a way that it is impossible for it to return unaided to 
its original position. In this position it may form ad- 
hesions and thus grow to adjacent organs. The bad results 
of such fallings are numerous. They include pain, ner- 66 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
vousness, and constipation because of pressure on the 
rectum, and inability to bear children. When such a con- 
dition is suspected because of dragging sensations in that 
region, painful menses, and the like, a girl should be taken 
to a reliable physician for examination and advice. Years 
Fig. io. Section of internal female organs, viewed from the ventral surface. 
V, section of vagina, which communicates with outside world; U1, muscular wall 
of uterus; U2, the vascular portion of the wall; Od, the oviduct, of which F is the 
inner opening; 0, the ovary; L, various ligaments supporting the womb. The 
eggs are formed in the ovary from which they escape into the body cavity; they 
are taken up by the fimbriated processes at the opening of the oviduct and pass 
down the latter to the cavity of the uterus. In the oviduct or uterus they may unite 
with the sperm which ascends from the vagina after copulation. The fertilized 
egg attaches itself to the vascular wall of the uterus and is nourished there. At 
birth the child is forced through the neck of the uterus by the muscles of this organ 
and passes to the outside world through the vagina. 
of imperfect physical and mental life may be avoided by 
care in this particular. This is not a matter to over-stress 
or to become morbid about. It should be treated in the 
same sensible, hygienic way that one would use to overcome 
weak lungs or poor digestion. 
Figures 9 and 10 will give the reader an idea of the 
general position and nature of these internal organs. A RELATION TO NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 
67 
knowledge of their relations and functions is necessary 
to the teacher in order to make a convincing presentation 
of the matter to the girl. 
9. Summary. - The discriminating teacher or parent 
will see that the argument in this chapter does not deal 
directly with the social and moral issues, but only with the 
biological. On these biological grounds we can go to our 
children, in the proper way and at the proper times, and 
say: - "Your development into the manly man or womanly 
woman that you should become, will depend, in very large 
degree, on the health and perfection of your sex-nature. 
This is true both of your mind and body. If your sex- 
development goes awry, the result will certainly show itself 
in your general qualities of body and mind. The things that 
are most likely to produce such a result and keep you from 
reaching your best are: - too early use of the sex-function, 
abnormal uses of it, displacement of organs, neglect to 
care for health at critical times, loss or injury of organs 
through disease or abuse. Even undue thinking of sex 
matters, or yielding to the sex impulses, brings a kind of 
morbid regard for them, and a mental weakness which is 
not healthy. On the other hand, total abstinence from 
sexual indulgence, if you can guide yourself in this ab- 
stinence by large, satisfying human motives, can have 
no ill effects on the development you are seeking. There- 
fore total abstinence in immaturity is wise for personal 
reasons, even if there were no social ones. The purpose 
of sex-knowledge is to enable you to let yourself develop 
normally without giving the matter any unnecessary 
thought or being drawn into behavior which will wreck 
your own happiness or that of others." CHAPTER VII 
THE MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
OF SEX 
1. The Relation of Sex to Mental Life. - It does not 
help us at all in our efforts to fight wrong sex attitudes to 
shut our eyes to the fact that matters of sex rightly have a 
large place in the feelings and mental life of all animals, 
including man. Sex fills even a larger place in the life of 
man than it does in that of the lower animals because, 
owing to the higher development in his case, of conscious- 
ness, memory and reflection, he gives more attention than 
they do to pleasures and pains. This increase which con- 
sciousness makes in all our appetites, is illustrated by the 
care and trouble we take to make our food especially 
tasteful and attractive. We deliberately increase the 
pleasures connected with eating by dwelling upon them, 
and thus make the act of food-taking more agreeable, and 
consequently we render ourselves more liable to overeating 
and to the abuse of the function. Just the same thing is 
true of the sex-life in man. Consciousness and memory 
greatly strengthen the hold of sex on the mental life of 
mankind, and at the same time increase the tendency to 
give it an unduly prominent sway over conduct. It is 
equally true that these feelings and mental states and re- 
lations, growing out of the contrasts and attractions be- 
tween the sexes, greatly refine and enrich our whole higher 
life if properly guided and used. 
68 MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
69 
The original meaning of the sex instincts is to insure 
reproduction. Now these sex impulses were strong enough 
to do all the work needed without this added strength 
that comes from human consciousness. The result is that 
we are twer-sexed, as compared with the crude animal 
condition. It is quite clear, therefore, that our reinforced 
impulses and instincts do not, as they do among animals, 
carry their own controls. With us they do not check 
themselves automatically. It is equally true that our 
human consciousness enables us to see and to appreciate 
the higher satisfactions which sex brings to us, - satisfac- 
tions which we cannot have if we merely follow our gross 
impulses. In this way our judgment and reason are brought 
into play in control of our desires and longings. No really 
human being can safely follow his appetites as an animal 
can, - in respect to eating or sex or anything else. If he 
follows his appetites unreasoningly he out-does the animal 
in grossness. If he controls his desires by way of his in- 
telligence in the interest of higher social motives and satis- 
factions he rises in the scale of being. 
While intelligence and reason are thus seen to be related 
to the normal development and use of sex among human 
beings, this does not tell the whole story. Sex influences 
even more those mental states which we sometimes refer 
to as emotions and feelings. The sense of the beautiful 
and standards of beauty in respect to nature or art or 
human qualities are closely related to the progress of sex 
and of love in the individual. Furthermore, when it comes 
to motives for accepting or rejecting gross uses of sex for 
one's self, our tastes, our likes and dislikes, our esthetic pref- 
erences or aversions are often more powerful mental factors 
than intelligence or reason. This does not mean that sex 70 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
knowledge and sound sex feelings of preference or aversion 
may not work together. It means that it is not enough 
to impart knowledge about sex; we must also educate 
the whole range of emotional attitudes in respect to it. 
2. Sex and Social Life. - Since reproduction and sex 
lie at the foundation of marriage, home, family, and the 
care and education of children, it is inevitable that they 
should profoundly color the whole of human society, both 
as to its ideals and as to its structure. We have seen that 
sex taken by itself is a very selfish thing, and that none 
of the human appetites is more merciless and destructive 
when allowed to run riot; but we have also seen that it is 
linked with reproduction, which is the very basis of human 
self-sacrifice and unselfish devotion. From this deep join- 
ing of self and society, appetite and sacrifice, it is inevitable 
as soon as the mind of man comes to dwell on the conflict 
that there must be a struggle to determine which attitudes 
will be supreme and rule his motives. Sex must be deeply 
imbedded in all our social affairs. Will it be allowed to 
dominate and prey upon social health or will it be forced 
to take a constructive place, stimulating and ministering 
to social health through being refined and developed on its 
higher and more emotional, esthetic, and spiritual levels? 
The foregoing is the theoretical statement of our social 
alternative in respect to sex; but we all know that it is 
equally true in practise. We know that the sex bond 
which brings men and women together as mates, may nor- 
mally ripen into the richest mental and spiritual compan- 
ionship and love. We are familiar with the inspiring 
history of this sound family relationship, extending back 
in various peoples beyond the very beginnings of recorded 
history. We know that this ideal bond between a man MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
71 
and a woman makes the home the most favorable place 
for the appearance, the support, and the social and spiritual 
education of children. Human ingenuity and resource 
have never found anything that can be successfully sub- 
stituted for it. It would be a pleasant task to enlarge 
on these normal bearings of sex on the social life of man- 
kind; but it is scarcely necessary. It would be possible 
to show that all social organization and standards are 
influenced in the most profound way by sex, and by the 
special way in which mating problems are met. There is 
no intention of implying that our monogamous human 
family life is perfect; and yet in spite of our half-hearted 
loyalty to monogamy and of the personal selfishness which 
we all bring into the home, there is no human institution 
which so nearly gives an example of service by the strong 
for the weak, of chivalry and devotion between the sexes, 
of brotherhood and the spirit of democracy, as our mo- 
nogamous family. When we seek out its faults it should 
be for the purpose of finding ways to improve it. Likely 
enough we need more intelligent laws and administration of 
laws of marriage and divorce based upon careful study 
of the problems. Without doubt we need to encourage 
suitable and to discourage unsuitable marriages. And 
we certainly need to educate our young men and women 
in respect to those aspects of personal character and in 
the special facts of sex, marriage and parenthood which 
will make for happy and successful family building. 
3. Abnormal Influences of Sex in Society. - It has been 
insisted throughout these studies that the normal effects of 
sex on the individual and on society are those with which 
we are most concerned. We are not merely trying to keep 
our children out of pitfalls; we want them to enter into the 72 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
purest and richest life possible to them. It is, however, 
necessary to guard against the pitfalls. 
It is not possible in such a brief survey to give any real 
notion of the horrible perversions of sex that exist, nor of 
their full destructive and anti-social effects. They are as 
low and terrible as the purity and fineness of love and home 
life are high and holy. These things should not be over- 
emphasized in the education of youth, but it is necessary 
to make them serve their part in holding youth upright. 
The social evils growing out of the abuse and wrong 
use of sex impulses may be enumerated as follows: - 
(1) The breaking up of homes. Unfaithfulness of mates 
is one of the common causes of the destruction of what 
might otherwise be normal homes, contributing to the 
health of society. There is nothing which so strikes down 
the home and all it stands for. Full faithfulness to the 
idea of the monogamous family and to the mate implies 
abstinence from illicit sex relations by both before mar- 
riage, entire faithfulness to the mate during marriage, and 
a temperate, considerate sex relation between mates in 
marriage. 
(2) Prostitution. In every town and city the lust of 
men creates a demand which results in the ruin of thou- 
sands of women, in the aggregate, and in condemning them 
to social ostracism, bodily disease, degeneration of mind 
and morals, and speedy death. These victims are recruited 
from young girls of every rank in society, who fall usually 
through ignorance or poverty or love of unworthy men. 
There is to-day no more terrible blot on our Christian 
civilization than this sacrifice of women, and the organized 
machinery by which girls are lured to this certain death. 
No words are strong enough to condemn the unrestrained MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
73 
men who create the demand nor the inhuman creatures, 
men and women, who draw women and exploit them in the 
traffic. Prostitution in all its aspects is revolting to nor- 
mally social minds, and whenever it is portrayed to young 
people, its cruel and unsocial character should be made so 
clear that they will never outgrow their first horror of its 
inhumanity. For this reason, the portrayal should be made 
to them at that impressionable age when youth is all alive 
with chivalrous feelings and is expanding into social en- 
thusiasm. 
This statement is not intended to deny that women 
are sometimes the active agents in their own fall; but 
broadly even such women are exploiting this lust of men 
for other than strictly sexual motives. They seek support, 
luxury, escape from unbearable surroundings, - or are 
subnormal or unbalanced mentally. 
(3) Venereal diseases. These so-called social diseases 
are spread through society largely through prostitution. 
They are extremely communicable and insidious, and men 
and women who lead irregular lives sexually are certain 
to be infected with them sooner or later. It is difficult to 
get statistics that are reliable, but even conservative physi- 
cians have estimated that fully one-eighth of all the disease 
which afflicts humanity comes from unclean sexual life. 
The two most'dangerous of these sex-diseases are gonorrhea 
and syphilis. These two diseases are the most prevalent 
and fatal diseases among human beings. 
Gonorrhea is caused by a germ which attacks the mucous 
membrane of the reproductive passages and may ascend to 
the very remotest organs, - the ovaries and testes. It 
may produce entire sterility. Diseased husbands thus in- 
fect their wives and may render them invalid and barren. 74 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
Children born of such mothers are readily infected, and 
the disease often produces blindness dating from birth. 
In many institutions for the blind it is known that no 
less than 50 per cent of the inmates have lost their sight 
through gonorrhea. It is uncertain whether this disease 
is ever completely curable, transmission to others often 
occurring long after patients have believed themselves 
cured. Less frequently gonorrhea gets into the blood and 
produces constitutional troubles. 
Syphilis, also caused by a micro-organism, is less preva- 
lent than gonorrhea, but is more dangerous in that it may 
be transmitted in more ways, and is furthermore capable 
of producing most disastrous consequences in descendents 
of syphilitic parents. It is not confined to the sex-organs, 
but becomes a "blood" disease, reaching the whole system. 
Because of this it may be communicated through any 
mucous membrane or any abrasion on the body. Aside 
from its loathsomeness and infectiousness, the children of 
syphilitic parents who may have recovered from the disease 
itself are liable to be weak and open to bodily and mental 
diseases. The parents themselves are peculiarly liable to 
paralysis and other permanent nervous troubles, if the 
disease is not arrested in its earlier stages. 
These diseases are more than individual matters; they 
are social evils. They break up families, they destroy or 
make innocent wives invalid or barren, they maim and 
weaken unborn children and put them as a burden on 
society, and thus in numerous ways strike at the health 
of the community. 
(4) Illegitimacy. Among the distressing social results 
of unbridled sex-indulgence is the large number of children 
born out of wedlock. In many instances the mothers of MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
75 
these children are mere girls who cannot possibly have 
known in full the results of their acts. Such mothers 
and children are not able to become normal members of 
society. The child has a great handicap and may become 
the ward of the public, and the mother is rarely given the 
chance to regain her place in society even if she so desires. 
Births out of wedlock are greatly on the increase. Illegiti- 
macy is so common that it is a social threat, and it is time 
that all who care for the future of the children of the land 
should use every effort to check it. Many people insist 
that society should be more humane in its treatment of 
unmarried mothers and their children. The difficulty is 
to do this in such a way as not to encourage promiscuous 
sex relations and illegitimacy. Certainly the fathers in 
these cases whenever they can be identified, should be 
held equally responsible with the mother for the care and 
support of the children. 
4. The Moral Bearings of Sex. - If sex influences 
personal character and social and racial welfare as has 
been suggested in the preceding paragraphs, it presents 
an ethical and moral issue of first importance. Indeed 
it runs the whole gamut of ethical and moral capability 
in its wonderful range of fineness and grossness. For 
example, who could doubt for a moment that the ideal, 
and the undertaking, of establishing a clean home and 
an honorable and complete marriage, of rearing healthy 
children as an offering to a sound society, and the devo- 
tion of the whole family in considerate mental sacrifice 
for these ends are high moral enterprises? Who will not 
say that morality in its most attractive and honorable form 
belongs to the young man who, in spite of all temptations, 
keeps himself as pure as he wants his wife to be for the 76 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
sake of this ideal? At the other extreme, we find in sex 
relations human grossness and exploitation of personality 
as heartlessly immoral and brutal as life shows at any 
point. Who will not brand alike the dishonorable and im- 
moral prosperous man who lures, for his own lust, the 
poorly paid working girl by the attraction of the comforts 
he can give her, and the prosperous man who pays the 
girl so poorly that she falls an easy victim to such lures? 
We instinctively condemn the unspeakable "cadet" who 
earns his livelihood by winning the affections and ruining 
the lives of unprotected girls in order to turn them over 
to a life of prostitution by the proceeds of which he is 
supported; but he is only a logical climax of the inhuman- 
ity which belongs to the unsocial degradation of this most 
social of all our endowments. 
There is no realm of social morals in which good and 
bad, high and low, are so possible and so inextricably mixed 
as in the sex relations. 
5. Human Standards to Protect Social Morals. - It is 
very clear that young and inexperienced people cannot 
always find within themselves the necessary strength and 
knowledge to guide wisely their sex-behavior amidst the 
complex temptations that society has thrown around them. 
Not all young people have normal home life. It is for 
these reasons that protecting standards and conventions, 
derived from the experience and observation and reasoning 
of the race, are valuable. 
The new generation is always disposed to resent such 
standards and to criticise them as artificial and unsound 
restraints. They are certainly right that one generation 
ought not to seek to impose its prejudices and opinions ar- 
bitrarily upon the next. It is also true that our standards MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
77 
and codes of morality are not perfect and final. Never- 
theless they are the results of actual racial experience. 
While they are not perfect, they are not mere prejudices. 
Unless we can devise ways to give the results of past ex- 
perience to the new generation, no progress is possible 
beyond what one generation can learn. 
A great responsibility rests upon all teachers at this 
point. It is not enough for us to insist upon our moral 
standards. We must find ways to make them appealing 
as the results of experience, and satisfying to the new 
generation, both for their own happiness and the progress 
of society. In doing this by democratic methods we are 
more likely to win our young people, and even more we 
ourselves will be more open minded to the further im- 
provement of these standards. 
For example, the monogamous family and its gradual 
improvement and the social safeguards that have been 
placed about it, - as compared with polygamy or other 
sex experiments which the race has tried, -has done more 
than anything else to build up sure foundations for society 
and social morals. All efforts to break it down should be 
resisted to the utmost. This does not mean that it may 
not change. We should join our children in the effort to 
improve as well as to protect it. In the same way the 
standards that respect and insist on faithfulness in the 
home are of vital importance and should be equally bind- 
ing on both sexes. The increasingly high standard held 
up for women has been the salvation of society. Society 
cannot endure with a double standard of sex morality for 
men and women. The jealousy of men has insisted on 
this standard of control for women. Unless we men join 
our women in this, they with their increasing independence 78 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
will come down to ours; and they are right. There 
cannot be two standards. There is no biological or psy- 
chological necessity for two. The double standard is 
doomed. The only open question is this: - Shall hu- 
manity climb up to and improve the standard which the 
best women hold, or shall we together default to that held 
by less controlled men? 
6. The Inner Personal Morals. - It is quite possible 
that some parent or teacher may ask: "If it is true that 
sex is normal and sex-desires are implanted in order that 
reproduction may occur, how can it be said that sex-in- 
dulgence can have anything immoral in it, - any more 
than eating or any other natural act?" This is a natural 
and legitimate question. 
If we were not different from the animals, no wrong would 
attach to sex-indulgence. There can be no purely biological 
argument against sex gratification in such moderation as 
is not physically injurious. However, the case for humans 
is not nearly so simple as this. Sex relations among us is 
not an individual matter merely. There is always the wel- 
fare of the other individual. No person has any right, 
social or personal, to exploit for his own uses any other 
person. We cannot escape the social element and make 
it merely a biological matter. Furthermore, society can- 
not play favorites. In a really social regime there must 
be no special privilege. If the door is thrown open it 
must be opened to all. If a young man seeks gratification 
for himself, he cannot rightly deny similar privileges to 
other men with the women closest to him, - his mother, 
sister, wife or daughter. This would mean promiscuous 
intercourse without restraint. The social effect of this would 
be to destroy any confidence in virtue and even ideals of MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
79 
virtue, to leave no place for the home and the emotions 
that belong to it, to make impossible the effective care of 
children, and to destroy completely the conception and 
sentiments of fatherhood. In a word it would thwart, so 
far as humans are concerned, all effective mating and care 
of offspring, and break up the most basal unit of human 
society, - the family. 
We have then in human society this dilemma: - Shall 
we indulge the sensuous gratifications of sex as animals 
do? Or shall we exercise self-control in the interest of 
the higher social values? It is always at this point that 
personal morals appear. As soon as it is clear that the 
choice lies between individual self-indulgence and self- 
restraint in the interest of a higher and more general good, 
the issue becomes a moral one. This is true even if the 
proposed act itself be otherwise natural and harmless. 
It did not take the voice of God, saying, "Thou shalt 
not commit adultery" to make irregular intercourse un- 
social and immoral. Neither do our laws nor our public 
opinion and social standards make it immoral. Its im- 
morality is much deeper than these, and these prohibitions 
have come out of that deeper thing. That thing is, that 
all human society and its fineness and inspirations and 
sacrifices are automatically destroyed by self-indulgence 
when the individual refuses to restrain this impulse in 
accordance with the welfare of the social group. Sex-in- 
dulgence is not merely a blow at the present form of society; 
it strikes at the foundation of all society based on home 
and family. 
7. Incentives Leading to Self-Control. - With a tre- 
mendous selfish impulse such as the sex-appetite, self-con- 
trol means what the psychologist calls an inhibition. An 80 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
inhibition means back-fires to check the impulse; it means 
bigger impulses to overwhelm the evil one; it means that 
the higher and more refined phases of an impulse shall 
hold the grosser in leash; it means a "will to do without, 
overcoming the desire to do." 
Now there are various incentives which may serve as 
inhibitions to the boy or girl coming up to face this ques- 
tion of personal sex behavior. Some of these are named 
below, and each should be used at the time and in the way 
which will bring the best result in immediate conduct and 
in permanent character: 
(1) "Thou shalt not" of human or Divine command. 
(2) Fear of injury and arrest of development. 
(3) Fear of disease. 
(4) Respect for public opinion. 
(5) Disgust at the grosser phases of sex abuses. 
(6) Desire and taste for the more refined, more per- 
manent, and more social satisfactions that may come 
from the impulses of sex. 
(7) Respect and consideration for other personality, 
passing in the case of boys into a chivalrous attitude 
toward women. 
(8) An interest in the future racial progress by elimina- 
tion of poor strains and encouraging sound ones. 
(9) Positive personal standards of judgment, ideals 
of conduct, and habits of action, whether animated by 
experience, love for humanity, philosophy, or religion. 
These are stated somewhat in the order in which they 
appeal to youth, beginning with the lowest. The first 
three are negative appeals, and are to be used sparingly 
in early life, and at critical points, and held permanently 
over those whose mental and moral growth does not advance MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
81 
them to the point where the higher motives can appeal. 
Disgust and aversion are somewhat more personal and 
lofty qualities than fear, and can often be inspired before 
a child can give all the grounds for its feelings. This 
feeling arises from the fundamental instincts of right and 
fairness, which many children possess in a degree much 
beyond their powers of reasoning: - "For of such is the 
Kingdom of Heaven"! 
Respect for public opinion and public conventions is 
somewhat higher and more complex and is very important. 
It should be worked into the nature of the child's thoughts 
of sex until it forms a kind of permanent background to its 
consciousness, so that the child can do no act without 
asking himself how this act will affect the feelings of those 
who love him best. The known demand of a family or 
community for chastity and purity is a great stimulus to 
right action in young people. Lax public ideas of modesty 
and restraint are a prelude to the breaking over of stronger 
barriers by the young. United demands on the part of 
young women of a community and their parents for clean 
lives in the young men will be to them one of the strongest 
possible inhibitions of loose living. 
A greater help still to a young man in enabling him to 
fight his worst impulses, is to have been trained in such 
real respect for the personality of a woman that he would 
realize how she would be wronged by his act, and in such 
consideration for women in general, that it would become 
a chivalrous desire to protect them from himself as well as 
from others. In this connection it ought to be recognized 
that pure love for a young woman is to most young men 
a clear call to chivalry; and ought to be used to appeal 
to self-control. It is a remarkable suggestion of Divine 82 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
wisdom that the same period of development in life that 
brings lust brings also chivalry, its most effective antidote. 
Probably the most normal and perfect means of guiding 
sex control on the physical plane is to make clear to boys 
and girls from the beginning the greater total personal 
satisfactions that can come to them from the use of sex 
only at the proper time and in social and humane ways. 
This is refining lust into love, chivalry, and devotion to 
the other sex. To be sure these higher satisfactions are 
further off; but they are more permanent and more broad 
and varied, in that they include mental, emotional, esthetic 
and social satisfactions along with the physical. They carry 
no regrets, no loss of self respect or respect of others, no 
degrading exploitation of others, no disease. On the con- 
trary they include clean companionship; honorable court- 
ship, love, marriage; exploring with one's mate the great 
adventure of living in a spirit of service, devotion, chiv- 
alry, cooperation; and producing, rearing and planning 
for children to carry on the race. The best chance of 
humanity is to sublimate the transient lust by way of the 
optimism of love. A man or woman may have either; 
but one cannot have both! 
In practise, any one of these incentives which will effec- 
tively do the work of checking the impulses to self-in- 
indulgence is as good as any other for the moment; but in 
personality it makes a world of difference. Our objective in 
education is to secure the internal standards and attitudes 
of right thinking and acting which will most safely inhibit 
wrong action. Hence the greatest emphasis should be put 
on those positive motives which lead not merely to control 
but to the highest personal and social uses. "Only nobler 
impulses and good ideals can inhibit the lusts of the flesh." MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL BEARING 
83 
Therefore, as teachers, we must secure these with our 
teaching. 
8. Sex and Religion. - It is well known to students of 
childhood that the nature undergoes profound changes 
during the period in which the sexual powers mature. 
This is not an accident. It is the result of the developing 
sex qualities. During this period the child is highly impres- 
sionable both by good and by bad. Love opens the way for 
the highest and the lowest. If the animal impulse tempts 
to abuse and indulgence, there are other instincts equally 
associated with the maturing sex nature, that lead to purity 
and to spiritual control. It has been shown by statistics 
that this is the general period of youth in which religion 
makes its strongest appeal. In early and again in later 
adolescence, more than at any other age, young people take 
their stand for religious life, and can be aroused to enthusi- 
astic work for individuals and for a regenerated social and 
economic order, which should always accompany religious 
profession. It is not an accident that love of God and love 
for mankind and the maturing of the reproductive impulses 
come together. They are all part of the fundamental 
unselfishness of the reproductive process. It is the privilege 
and duty of teachers to bind them together for the improve- 
ment of all. 
9. Summary. - The teacher who aspires to assist the 
child in sound sex-development must keep in mind the 
general path over which the wonderful impuse has come 
in evolution, and the contributions it has made to person- 
ality. It literally molds the physical nature; it gives 
peculiar quality to the mental life and to disposition and 
temperament; it lays the foundations for social instincts 
and conduct in mating, home-making, care of children, 84 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
and the like; it furnishes one of the most remarkable and 
trying arenas in which every life must fight out moral 
battles to determine whether self-indulgence or the higher 
things shall rule the life; it even heightens the sensitive- 
ness of the early life to the call of beauty, nature, truth and 
God in the individual soul. The teacher must remember 
also that at every step this great constructive factor 
threatens to become destructive, to take control of the 
nature, and to break down and destroy all that has been 
so laboriously built up. 
This is not what is to be taught the children; it is the 
kind of thing the parent and teacher must feel while they 
bring to the child the graded facts of his life and relations. 
And yet the youth should somehow get the sense of these 
big agencies which he may invoke in helping to make his 
knowledge practical, in forming ideals, and in establishing 
habits of action. CHAPTER VIII 
THE CENTRAL PLACE OF THE HOME AND 
FAMILY 
1. The Biological Foundations of the Home. - It is 
clear from earlier chapters that the home and family life 
are not determined at all primarily by comfort, protection 
from the elements, the storage of food, nor any other eco- 
nomic or physical fact. Homes are formed essentially 
because of the differences between men and women, by 
the impulses and the attractions of sex, and by the re- 
production and care and protection of offspring. Around 
these types of attraction, companionship, love, and devo- 
tion, this supremely vital human institution has originated 
and developed. Of course there have been added, as 
experience and intelligence have increased, many incen- 
tives of comfort, convenience, protection, artistry and 
culture. These have helped to refine and improve the 
home; but all these are secondary to sex and reproduction 
as factor in home and family life. 
2. Producing and Rearing Children the First Function 
of the Home. - While in point of time the sex attraction 
of mates precedes reproduction, it remains true that pro- 
ducing offspring and fitting them as effective individuals 
in society is the supreme object of this whole complex of 
sex and reproduction and of the instincts and behavior 
associated with them. If this fails, society fails. The 
individual satisfaction and happiness of the mates, impor- 
tant as this is for the well-beiner of mankind, is valuable 
85 86 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
chiefly in motivating parents, and in producing better 
home conditions for the right rearing of children. In all 
probability it was the long period of care necessary for 
the young of the higher animals and man, which has gradu- 
ally brought about longer and more faithful and devoted 
sex relations between the father and the mother. There 
has been no institution in the history of human evolution 
which has so made for progress in all the elements of 
personality and spirit as this lengthened family life. 
3. The Home the Basis of our Social Structure. - The 
family, arising by way of sex and reproduction and parental 
care, is not only the means of continuing and upbuilding 
the species; it furnishes, in its sacrifices and in the removal 
of the competitive motive, the only spirit by which a 
cooperative society can exist at all. This sacrificing impulse 
first arose about sex and reproduction. Furthermore, 
the home as a social unit is very largely responsible for 
the social organization, the economic interests, the laws 
and conventions and traditions that are developed within 
society. In the history of mankind the family life, whether 
monogamous or polygamous, patriarchal or matriarchal, 
permanent or transient, has largely colored the civilization 
of which it was a part. In our own civilization, which 
professes to be monogamous, we are having constant 
reminders that faithfulness or laxity, difficulty or ease of 
divorce, and other factors which affect the stability of 
the home are profoundly changing the texture of our social 
life and ideals. 
4. The Central Problem of Human Social Health. - 
Since society depends upon the home and its nature and 
spirit, and since the home is essentially an institution 
produced and maintained through sex, it comes about that THE HOME AND FAMILY 
87 
one of the most fundamental problems of social hygiene is 
to learn to use the sex endowment of mankind in such a way 
as to conserve and perfect the home and family life, and not 
to tear these down. Much of the sex emphasis and 
expression of today is destructive of the home and its in- 
fluence. We may look upon our progressing human civi- 
lization as a procession of homes and families, in which 
the spirit and purposes of a family should find their way 
into the children and then unfold in a fuller degree in the 
families which they in their turn form. Suppose each 
pair of parents tried not merely to live a fine married 
life with their children, but also could effectively interpret 
to these children their own best understanding of the mean- 
ing of these relations of husband and wife, of parents 
with children, and of brothers and sisters. Suppose they 
could use the full power and enthusiasm of this home to 
give the boys and girls a better appreciation of it than 
they themselves had at the outset. Suppose the children 
had their need of knowledge and understanding satisfied 
at every step of their own sex growth so that they could 
assimilate into their character the most wholesome ideals 
and attitudes and purposes of sex life. Suppose all this 
could be done without giving the children either an ex- 
aggerated or an under-estimate of sex; without complexes 
either of prudery or of vulgar coarseness. In these con- 
ditions, would not our sex-social health be conserved and 
insured more effectively than by any external codes, tradi- 
tions or laws which we can devise in support of the home? 
Unless the essential atmosphere of successful family life 
can be passed along from one home to its successor by way 
of the children, no other agency can possibly do this vital 
task. 88 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
5. The Early Home Drama in Education. - It is quite 
well agreed among psychologists that the first 8 or io 
years are the most fruitful years of life in the quantity of 
basic information a person gets. These years likewise 
give the set to the desires, emotions, impulses, prides and 
prejudices, tastes, attitudes, and habits of life. It is not 
that changes may not be worked afterward in these elements 
of character; but that they do have to be changed, if we 
get any improvement. These emotional states are much 
harder to change than to form at the outset. 
Along with other important interests the sex attitudes 
and ideals are equally fixed by these early home relations. 
The home drama is a very quiet but persistent sex and 
character educator. Much of this education is entirely 
unconscious both to parents and child. By means of it 
the child gets in these early years many things which 
profoundly influence his whole sex character and life. 
In the normal child some of these are: Whether he shall 
have an attitude and habit of self-indulgence and self-will 
with regard to all his desires, or become self-controlled, 
adjustable, and cooperatively-minded in the family; 
whether his attitude toward his mother shall be one of 
selfish use and enslavement of her, or of admiration, love, 
protection and chivalry; whether he and his father shall be 
understanding partners in making the mother comfortable 
as well as effective, or whether the boy shall be filled with 
jealousy and misunderstanding toward the father. During 
this time he will get an adequate and true or a perverted 
conception of the meaning of the relation of husband and 
wife, father and son, mother and son, brothers and sisters, 
boys and girls, men and women; of the worth of the home 
as a place for real happiness; of democracy and mutual THE HOME AND FAMILY 
89 
service, or of autocracy and dominance by the strong, 
as the normal spirit of homes. It will be determined 
whether his inevitable curiosity about the sex phenomena, 
which he sees and about which he hears something, shall 
he wisely satisfied and guided, or shall be over-emphasized 
either by reticence and denial or by crude and exciting 
information. We have it in our power to make him either 
prudish or vulgar-minded or sane and normal, by our 
handling of these early years. We can thus early form 
his tastes and prejudices in favor of cleanness, fineness, 
consideration toward girls, chivalry toward women, and 
all like matters; or in favor of coarseness, discourtesy, 
smut, vulgar imagination and talk, and exploiting girls 
and women for his own gratification. 
Parents do not realize how their own poor adjustments 
of these intimate problems of married life mar the whole 
sex and emotional life of their children. For example, 
an unreasonable father who hectors and dominates a more 
passive mother may work either of several unwholesome 
sex results in the life of his boy. If the boy is fond of the 
mother and has a vigorous personality he will become 
the champion of the mother. Through fear of the father 
the child may be forced to repress the expression of these 
feelings. The result will be an extreme devotion to the 
mother, which may take abnormal and emotionally dis- 
astrous forms; and equally a growing sense of antagonism 
toward the father. In boys of self-assertive character 
this may result in running away from home or in actual 
attempts to do violence to the father. In boys of less cour- 
age it may produce a definite sense of subordination and 
inferiority which may seek to compensate itself in various 
ways, most of which are unwholesome. For example, he 90 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
may reassert himself by domineering over those weaker 
than himself, and thus repeat his father's mistakes when he 
has a home of his own. Or he may assume a more passive 
solution and himself become effeminate. Of course the 
special outcome of such a condition in any particular case 
will be very dependent both on the inherited elements of 
character in the child and on the relation between the 
child and his mother. But it will always produce an 
unwholesome result in the sex reactions and attitudes 
of the child as well as in other ways, and will be passed on 
in hurtful ways to his own family. 
When we stop to consider the various shades of the sex 
relation in a complete home, and the ways in which these 
react to mold the future sex standards and attitudes in 
the larger life, we begin to sense how inevitable is this 
unconscious influence of the home in the period of infancy 
and early childhood. These sex relations in the home are 
those of father and mother, of mother to son, of mother 
to daughter, of father to son, of father to daughter, of 
brother to sister, of brother to brother, of sister to sister! 
Each of these is as really a "sex-relation" as any other, 
each is different from the others, and each is highly educative 
for good or ill to the permanent sex-social life of the indi- 
vidual. 
6. The Home is at Stake in this Problem. - If the 
home is important in imparting a wholesome sex attitude 
and spirit to its members, it is no less true that the future 
of the home is dependent upon the sex standards and prac- 
tises acquired by these young people who in the next genera- 
tion make the new homes. The situation is a cycle; and 
the problem is whether it shall be a vicious or a benevolent 
one. Sex has made the home. Sound and restrained use THE HOME AND FAMILY 
91 
of sex has made for the gradual improvement of homes. 
Only the misuse of sex can permanently degrade and 
wreck the home. Of course, when we speak of "sex" 
in any such connection, the reader must realize that we 
are not talking merely of the physical aspects of sex. It 
is quite clear that it is the emotional, the intellectual, 
the esthetic, the social, the ethical elements in sex which 
make the difference between the gross and the fine, between 
the home and the brothel. If we would redeem the sex 
life of humanity we must improve the home. If we would 
perfect the home we must clarify and use most construc- 
tively the whole sex nature and attitudes of the young 
while they are young. 
7. Substitutes for Marriage and the Monogamous 
Home. - The writer does not believe or pretend that the 
monogamous home is now, or has ever been, perfect or a 
complete solution of the sex problems arising in the com- 
plex conditions of our organized life. However, the fact 
that groups and races have more and more adopted the 
monogamous idea, as they have advanced in their civi- 
lization, is very significant. While monogamous marriage 
is crudely conceived by many; while few are specifically 
prepared by their education to make the most of it; while 
many enter it with an actual history of license and of 
unfaithfulness to the idea and with reservations of un- 
faithfulness for the contract, - it remains true that no 
sex-relation which man has yet experimented with allows 
so much of happiness and development to the mates or 
so much and so effective care for offspring. Its weakness 
can be removed in large degree though education; its 
advantages cannot be duplicated by any other arrange- 
ment which human beings have yet conceived, 92 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
Perhaps the weakest points about permanent monoga- 
mous marriage arise out of the following facts: (i) There 
are always difficulties in the personal adjustments of two 
people who are thrown so intimately and continuously 
together as marriage demands, and many people refuse 
to make these adjustments; (2) There is still a strain, 
in males particularly, of unfaithfulness arising out of 
fickleness, out of desire for novelty and excitement, and 
out of love of conquest, which, coupled with the powerful 
sex impulses of man, makes for poly-erotic or polygamic 
tendencies; (3) our economic and social conditions make 
for late marriages and even discourage marriage altogether; 
(4) our general selfishness and unwillingness to adopt a 
social attitude results in many men and women refusing to 
accept the responsibilities of marriage and child rearing; 
(5) there has always been a large number of men who 
have liked to believe that there is a "sex necessity" resting 
upon men which is not true of women, and thus have claimed 
for themselves special privileges in respect to sex indul- 
gence; (6) the more advanced women of recent years are 
rightly denying that there is any sound ground for such a 
double standard of sex morality, and are claiming for 
themselves any privileges which may be claimed by their 
brothers. Out of these cross-currents of opinion and 
tradition have arisen many criticisms of marriage and 
suggested solutions of the sex problem outside of marriage. 
These suggestions include prostitution and promiscuity of 
all grades parallel with marriage, concubinage, "trial" 
marriages which may or may not lead to more permanent 
relations, greater ease in breaking marriages, "free 
love" with no contractual elements, privilege of mother- 
hood without prejudice for unmarried women, and the THE HOME AND FAMILY 
93 
like. It is rather significant that most of these sugges- 
tions recognize the permanent monogamous home as the 
ideal, and look upon the laxer relations as means of giving 
sex expression to those who by lack of character or for 
any reason do not find such permanent marriage acceptable 
or possible to them. 
8. The Weakness of the Substitutes. - The basic weak- 
ness of all these substitutes is that they put the emphasis 
and premium upon the secondary phenomenon of selfish 
sex satisfaction of adults rather than where it primarily 
belongs, - upon the production and maximum care of 
children for the good of society. All of them look in the 
direction of more promiscuous mating and reduced responsi- 
bility for the permanent welfare both of mates and children. 
We have evidence that a considerable percentage of human- 
ity, even with the inadequate past education they have 
had in the matter, have reached the place where they can 
restrain their wandering sex desires and erect a faithful 
home life, if backed by the opinion and demand of society 
itself. On the other hand we have no evidence that we have 
reached the plane where the average person would do this if 
there were at the same time held up before him an equally ap- 
proved alternative of reaping the indulgences of sex without 
assuming any social responsibilities for his conduct. There- 
fore if we are to preserve the monogamous home we cannot 
afford to put every selfish interest against it. We must 
give the home a chance. While the sex problems of those 
who cannot have the normal married life are admittedly 
difficult, the problems cannot be solved by regarding such 
life as the normal state and by putting the premiums of 
social approval upon relations which would diminish the 
success of responsible home and family life. BIOLOGY OF SEX 
94 
9. Where the Solution Lies. - The only constructive 
solution of these problems lies in the research, education 
and social adjustments which will tend to make family 
life more fine, more successful, more universal for all fit 
and normal people. Some of the outstanding elements 
in this solution seem to be: - 
(a) More consistent preparation of young people to un- 
derstand the meaning of sex and reproduction before 
marriage, to get the attitude of successful adjustment to 
marriage, and to make sanely the transition from the 
romantic love of courtship and early marriage to the 
mutual, democratic, cooperating companionship and sac- 
rifice of the home life; 
(fi) A more thoughtful selection of mates both from 
the point of view of eugenics and of ability of adjustment; 
(c) Social guidance and control of the conditions and 
laws of marriage, divorce, and the like on sound scientific 
grounds of knowledge and reason and not on the basis of our 
prejudices, taboos, and traditions merely; 
(d) The reorganization of our social and economic con- 
ditions so that early and permanent and general marriages 
shall be encouraged rather than discouraged as at present. CHAPTER IX 
EUGENICS 
1. The Problem of Human Improvement. - When we 
analyze the task of improving human beings we find that 
there are only three ways to go about it, just as in the case 
of the farm animals. 
(1) We may train and educate the individual in respect 
to any natural qualities or powers he may possess, bodily, 
intellectual, emotional, esthetic, ethical, social. While we 
do not know any fixed limit to what can thus be done for 
human individuals, we have no evidence that any part of 
such training can go over into the next generation. It is 
purely an individual matter, and hence must be done anew 
for each generation. 
(2) We may change the environment for individuals, 
for better or worse, so that this environment may encourage 
the desirable traits in the individual and discourage those 
traits and expressions we do not approve. Among human 
beings this includes of course the control of elements in 
the physical environment, as heat and cold, food and 
moisture, the germs which produce diseases, etc. Equally 
it includes our organized society and our civilization, with 
its laws, its government, its institutions, its machinery of 
education, and its conventions and codes, its public opinion 
and attitudes. This is a kind of social inheritance, and 
accumulates and presumably improves with time. 
95 96 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
(3). We may consciously control the mating and breeding 
of individuals on the basis of their inherited traits and 
then may select from the offspring of these, for mating 
in the next generation, such individuals as have the quali- 
ties to be perpetuated and strengthened. 
The application of the third method depends wholly 
upon inheritance. And such improvement of the human 
race through selective mating and better offspring is known 
as Eugenics. Making the most of the life of the individual 
after it is born, as is implied in the first and second methods 
above, is sometimes spoken of as Euthenics. Eugenics has 
to do with " blood ''rather than culture, with nature rather 
than with nurture. 
2. The Essential Contention of the Eugenist. - In 
approaching the problem of race improvement the eugenist 
argues somewhat as follows: 
"Biologically there is no reason why the human race 
may not be improved. We mean by this that we can, by 
proper methods of selective breeding increase or weaken any 
group of qualities which human beings possess. For ages 
we have believed that we could improve the race by train- 
ing the individual and that by mating this individual 
with another similarly trained, some of the result of this 
culture would be passed on by inheritance to the next 
generation. It is not nearly so easy as this would suggest. 
"We quite agree that children should be well educated, 
but we insist also that society should take steps to see 
that those who bring children into the world are naturally 
fit to do so. So far as eugenics is concerned, this 'fitness' 
is not a matter of training. It is a matter of stock, of 
blood, of inheritance. 
"Our human sentiments and our moral standards will EUGENICS 
97 
not allow us, when children have once been brought into 
the world, to subject the unfit to the rigors of competition 
which in the lower animals eliminate the weaklings and 
thus, by checking their mating and breeding, keep up the 
average of the stock. Without doubt the average quality 
of the human stock could be improved in this way. In- 
stead, in theory at least, we take even these defectives and 
apply our resources to give them as nearly a normal indi- 
vidual life as is possible. By allowing these to propagate, 
we subject the race to the handicap of continuing and 
supporting an unnatural number of defective strains. By 
artificial protection of the weak, we are actually increasing 
and pouring back into the stream of human life the unsound 
elements which nature eliminates in other species. As a 
species we lose ground by doing this sort of thing, but we 
know that the moral and altruistic qualities we cultivate 
in saving the weak more than compensate for the other 
losses. 
" This, however, is the mistake we make: when we admit 
this individual right to life (and consequently our obliga- 
tion to enrich this life), it should not carry with it the 
right to reproduce. Reproduction is not an individual 
right. It is primarily a social phenomenon and for the sake 
of the species. Human society, in the interest of its own 
advancement and soundness, has the right to deny the 
privilege of propagation to those who are for any reason 
unfit to reproduce. Only by doing this can we safely 
encourage our social tenderness without vicious results 
in evolution. 
"In addition to preventing the propagation of the 
grossly unfit, there are certain positive principles of selective 
mating which should be respected, in order to get the 98 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
best qualities in offspring. Individuals, who under proper 
conditions might marry and produce sound offspring with 
one mate, may not do so with another. We now know 
enough of heredity to be able to say that some individuals 
should not be allowed to reproduce at all. We are grad- 
ually gaining the kind of information that will enable us 
to say that certain particular matings should not take 
place, and that certain other matings are highly suitable. 
As our knowledge increases we shall be able to give more 
intelligent guidance to mating in the interest of better 
children and a better society." 
3. The Penalty of Poor Matings. - It is estimated that 
about one per cent of the total population of the United 
States is cared for by society in institutions for the insane, 
feeble-minded, epileptic, blind, deaf, paupers and criminals, 
etc., and probably twice as many should receive this care; 
that about ten per cent of the population is socially in- 
adequate in the sense that they are not equal to meet 
effectively their part of the tasks of social life. This means 
that they are a partial or complete charge on the com- 
munity or on their families or that they menace in some 
way present society or promise to produce such a percent- 
age of socially deficient offspring as to menace future 
society. In a merely material way the care and inef- 
ficiency of these people runs into the hundreds of millions 
each year. Certainly not all of these failures are due to 
poor inheritance. The inefficiency, injustices, and in- 
humanity of our present social order are responsible for a 
considerable proportion of the wreckage. On the other 
hand we know that some of the physical, mental, and 
emotional conditions back of insanity, feeble-mindedness, 
epilepsy, and even of laziness, poverty, and criminality EUGENICS 
99 
are transmissible by heredity. Rarely under good condi- 
tions do these qualities crop up from good stock. It is 
clearly a human obligation both to stop the bad blood and 
to furnish conditions in which all socially adequate strains 
shall realize the best that is in them. 
4. The Things that Influence Birth. - Fifteen years 
ago the above contention was somewhat new to our ears; 
but it is now a plea very familiar to all those who have 
kept in touch with discoveries about inheritance in recent 
years. We are learning as never before the facts about the 
inheritance of human traits. 
What are the chief elements that help to determine how 
a child may be "well born," - or whether prospective 
parents are fit to propagate their kind? Broadly speak- 
ing there are three elements or aspects of parental fitness or 
unfitness to add to the population: (i) such physical 
and mental and moral defects as make personal and social 
success impossible and are certainly transmissible to 
children through heredity; (2) qualities, such as infec- 
tion by the venereal and other diseases, which while 
not strictly heritable are yet capable of being trans- 
mitted to offspring at or even before birth; and (3) in- 
ability, personal or economic, to give children a chance 
to enter into the world's activities with a reasonable hope 
of normal success. Class (1) falls properly in the realm 
of eugenics. Class (3) is primarily a matter of social con- 
ditions and thus belongs to euthenics, but in all probability 
it will be found that some of this inability is a matter of 
hereditary structure belonging to (1) and not purely the 
results of the surroundings. Class (2) is more a question 
of pre-natal surroundings than of strict heredity and 
eugenics. Nevertheless it affects profoundly the efficiency 100 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
of offspring, and may operate for several generations. 
5. Hereditary Transmission of Taints. - There is much 
about heredity of which we are still ignorant. Our experi- 
mental knowledge of just what may or may not be inherited, 
and of the chances for the actual inheritance of any human 
quality is mostly the result of the work of the present 
generation of scientists. Our knowledge of the inheritance 
of the higher human qualities is particularly incomplete; 
but we do know that inheritance extends to mental, 
temperamental, and character qualities just as certainly 
as to physical. We know that epilepsy, feeble-mindedness, 
idiocy, insanity, shiftlessness, criminal tendencies - in- 
cluding those toward sexual indulgence - selfishness, 
laziness, and other similar weaknesses of mind and morals 
contain factors which are in the blood and can be inherited. 
Similarly we know by careful study of human statistics 
that poor resistance to tuberculosis, weak heart, poor quali- 
ties of blood and of the internal secretions, and many other 
weaknesses which serve as the foundation of diseases, 
are clearly transmissible. The children of inebriates are 
very liable to nervous weaknesses and instability, epilepsy, 
imbecility, etc. On the other hand it is fully demon- 
strated that traits of strength as well as taints are secured 
through heredity. General bodily strength, resistance 
to diseases, mechanical ability, memory, cheerfulness, 
musical and artistic and literary ability, and strong moral 
qualities, such as unselfishness, conscientiousness, etc., 
depend on factors which can be handed on from generation 
to generation. 
Students of eugenics are now able to foretell with con- 
siderable exactness the probability of the inheritance of 
certain both of the strong and the weak qualities, if the EUGENICS 
101 
condition of the parents in respect to these qualities is known 
for several preceding generations. The principles underly- 
ing these conclusions are too complex to be stated here, 
but an illustration may be used. The following statements 
relate to imbecility, but they apply broadly to any of the 
traits that are subject to inheritance, both good and bad. 
(1) If both parents are normal and come from normal 
parents, all the offspring will be normal, so far as inherit- 
ance is concerned. 
(2) If both parents are mentally lacking in any quality 
and come from stocks or strains of the same kind, all the 
offspring will be without that quality. 
(3) Between these two extremes will be all sorts of pos- 
sibilities too complex to discuss at length here. For example, 
two parents having an undesirable quality may have 50 
per cent or all abnormal children, depending on the grand- 
parents; two normal parents, if they belong to strains 
having the same defects, may have approximately 25 
per cent abnormal children with these defects; if one of 
the parents be normal and of strong ancestry and the other 
defective, all the children may be normal, though some of 
these may have defective children if the mate also has come 
from a strain in which the defect occurs; or a normal person, 
with a defect in his ancestry and with a feeble-minded 
mate, may have 50 per cent of his children actually defective, 
and the remainder carrying the defect in a latent form. 
It will be seen that both the individuals concerned and 
their families must be considered in any question of mating; 
for no individual shows in his own body all the qualities 
which his germ cells may possess. Only a study of several 
generations will determine the latter. In a sense we marry 
the whole family of the person we select. 102 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
6. Congenital Infections. - It is known that syphilis 
and gonorrhea, if not inherited, at least affect at or before 
birth a very large percentage of the children of infected par- 
ents. In this way thousands of children are born blind, 
diseased, or so arrested or disordered in nervous develop- 
ment that they may grow up epileptic, imbecile, or insane. 
In a manner that is similar, but not to be considered 
hereditary, parents with tuberculosis and some other 
diseases of skin and mucous membranes, may infect their 
children at or after birth. This may give them little or 
no chance in life and render them a burden to society, 
as well as centers of infection for later generations. This 
is in addition to the known inheritance of weak organs that 
may predispose to these diseases. 
7. Social or Economic Incapacity. - This is a very 
complex thing and we do not yet know what elements 
enter into it in any case. Undoubtedly there are often ele- 
ments of physical, mental, or moral weakness not yet 
identified, which are inheritable. But apart from these 
transmissible weaknesses, a large per cent of humanity 
perfectly well able to produce healthy, normal children 
find themselves beset by such economic conditions that they 
could not properly care for them. Clearly society should 
not be deprived of these good strains. Still, many things 
besides hereditary qualities are necessary before such 
children can become helpful members of society. It would 
seem, therefore, that society has a duty here in furnishing 
such conditions that sound children shall always have a 
fair chance to come to efficient maturity. It is perfectly 
obvious, no matter how good the strain, that the size of the 
families should never be so large as to jeopardize the best 
development of those who are born. This is a point where EUGENICS 
103 
eugenics and euthenics must meet in the effort to determine 
what is the optimum, - the personal and social best. It 
cannot be safely left to cross currents of chance created 
by uncontrolled sex indulgence in marriage and of social 
and economic ignorance and despair. 
8. Relation of these Considerations to Human Mar- 
riage. - Growing out of these discoveries concerning 
heredity during the last twenty years are several conclusions 
for the improvement of the human race: - 
(1) Human reproduction is primarily a social and not 
an individual matter; hence human marriage should be 
guided, in large part at least, by scientific facts and in the 
interests of society. 
(2) Unfit individuals, who have themselves inherited 
taints such as those mentioned in Section 4 of this chapter 
should not be allowed to marry unless it can be shown by 
scientific investigation that their marriage is not likely to 
result in tainted offspring. If there is a probability that 
it will, these defectives should either be segregated during 
the reproductive period or be made sterile by operation. 
(3) Society should require all applicants for marriage 
licenses to produce a certificate of complete freedom from 
all venereal diseases, signed by a competent and reputable 
physician. In the meantime, parents should demand this 
freedom from disease on the part of the young men who 
would marry their daughters. 
(4) Young people should be trained in a thoughtful 
attitude toward the qualities of their mates and of the 
families to which they belong. They should be allowed 
the widest possible acquaintance with different kinds of 
suitable people in order that the range of their selection 
may be as wide and sane as possible. There is no desire to 104 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
replace love and congeniality with stern, emotionless 
scientific selection, even if we could know absolutely the 
results of unions; but there is no question that some knowl- 
edge of eugenics on the part of young people would tend 
to diminish the haphazard marriages of the present day, 
and give to the selection of mates at least a flavor of intel- 
ligence. 
(5) The size of families should be adjusted to produce 
the best results. Many parents well fitted both in heredi- 
tary qualities and in favoring conditions produce families 
harmfully small. Many families are larger than either the 
hereditary endowments or the means of support will warrant. 
Science, information, public opinion, and an increased 
regard for the welfare both of individuals and the race 
should adjust parenthood and birth to the best interests 
of society. 
9. Other Reforms made Necessary by these Facts. - 
It is not enough to prevent marriage and reproduction on 
the part of defective and habitually criminal individuals. 
It is incumbent on society, and our young people should 
be educated so as to understand that it is their duty to 
handle in a sane and scientific way the physical and moral 
plagues that cluster about sexual immorality and enter 
into our social environment to mar the best in our blood 
and in our training. The venereal diseases, which are 
strongly communicable, are much more harmful and 
dangerous to the human race than small-pox or scarlet 
fever. Strict measures should be adopted requiring physi- 
cians to report such cases to the health officers, who should 
isolate them, whether these prostitutes are men or women, 
just as in other infectious and communicable diseases. All 
this is demanded purely on hygienic grounds and has no EUGENICS 
105 
direct reference to moral necessities, although these latter 
may properly reinforce the former. This is very largely 
to be the work of our physicians and health officials. But 
they can go no faster than enlightened public knowledge 
and conscience support. 
Prostitution, whether amateur or professional, the white 
slave traffic, and their horrible accompaniments of im- 
morality and perversion, must be dealt with just as vigor- 
ously and scientifically; so must, for that matter, the 
social and economic conditions that minister to these 
things by making it difficult for girls to support themselves 
honestly in our cities. These reforms are in the hands of 
the students of social affairs, the makers and enforcers of 
our laws, and the prophets of a better social order. 
Thus the ideals of the advanced scientist and the dreams 
of the reformer point in the same direction: - to the elimi- 
nation of the individual transmission of hereditary taints 
wherever possible, to the elimination of the great centers 
and avenues of dissemination of the communicable and 
transmissible diseases; and to the elimination of economic 
conditions of life that make cleanness unnecessarily difficult. 
All this is for the double purpose of removing from the 
human stock physical and mental degeneracy due to 
birth, and of checking the moral disintegration of our 
young men and women through unnecessary and unnatural 
temptation. 
While the scientists are working out the facts on which 
eugenic progress depends, we as teachers and parents 
should be educating a generation of men and women who 
will appreciate them and will do their part in applying 
them to human betterment. CHAPTER X 
TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
1. Introductory. - Up to the present we have been 
making a statement of the problems confronting con- 
scientious parents and teachers, and have tried to give 
the subject the bigness and dignity to which it is entitled 
because of its biological importance and its pedagogical 
and moral possibilities. An effort has been made to furnish 
the point of view the teachers should have in their approach 
to the actual work of mastering the problem and of instruct- 
ing and inspiring youth, rather than to suggest just the in- 
formation which the pupil must have at the various stages 
of his development. This book thus far is an effort to 
supply the first of the pedagogical needs mentioned in 
Chapter III, Section 2, - the "Motivation of the Teacher." 
2. The Matter of Instruction. - It is undoubtedly true 
that the educational world is now awakening to the duty 
that rests upon it, and that the indifference and hostility 
of parents toward this more thorough instruction are grad- 
ually passing away. Our next need is to know what is to be 
taught, and when, and by whom. The remainder of the 
book seeks to give some suggestions about these things. 
These are more difficult pedagogical problems, and it is 
not pretended that they are completely or even reasonably 
worked out in what follows. What is put down here is 
merely tentative and suggestive. It is believed, however, 
that the general principles followed in the analysis are 
106 TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
107 
sound, and experience has shown some of the special 
suggestions are essentially correct. It is fully expected 
that we shall, with fuller facts derived from experience, 
be able to modify the program helpfully at many points. 
What is said as to age is made broad and elastic, purposely. 
There will be many individual exceptions to the most per- 
fect time schedule that can be arranged. Indeed the chief 
objection to proposing a scheme like this is that parents 
or teachers may take it as final, suspend the use of their 
own insight and common sense, and in consequence make 
a failure of the whole effort in cases with which they may 
be working. Education, in a complex realm like this, 
is as varied and uncertain a task as that in any emotional 
and moral matter that strikes down to the very center of 
personality. The program is not capable of being put in 
any simple formula which will meet all the cases; but 
must be made the subject of continuous study and readjust- 
ment by the parent or teacher who wishes to secure high 
character in children. 
3. The Spirit and Aim of Sex Education. - At the risk 
of repeating cautions that appear in earlier chapters, 
it seems wise to insist that we are not seeking to impart 
information, primarily. There are certain anatomical, 
physiological, pathological and social facts about sex 
and sex relations which a person might know and yet 
have nothing of that which we seek to gain in our education. 
The purpose of sex education is to give the individual the 
desires, emotions, pride, likes and dislikes, esthetic sense, 
ideals, attitudes and purposes that will enable him to use 
sex in the finest and most humane and social way possible. 
In a word we are trying to educate the character and person- 
ality of the child by way of his own sex nature and by 108 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
way of the wonderful sex facts and relations he finds about 
him at every step. He finds these most nearly normal in 
his own home; and in those impulses which make him 
want to build a new home some day. 
It must be clear that all this is much more a matter 
of mind and spirit than of body merely; more a matter 
of psychology than of biology or physiology. It is also 
more a matter of emotional psychology than of intellectual 
psychology; more of taste and aspirations and devotion, 
of honor and ideals and beauty than it is of facts; more 
a matter of interpretation of facts and of inspiration to 
ideals than of instruction alone. 
This does not mean that we can do what we seek with- 
out knowing and using the facts. It means merely that 
we are trying to get certain definite results in character 
by way of the facts we have rather than being content with 
revealing to the child step by step facts he has a right to 
know. 
If this is true the spirit in which the help is given be- 
comes very different. We become at once concerned with 
securing a certain altitude in the child about the subject. 
We become persuasive instead of dogmatic; we call out 
enthusiasm instead of demanding acceptance; we put 
in our personality, influence, and devotion instead of our 
superior age, rank, and knowledge. 
4. The Periods of the Child's Life as They Relate to 
Sex Instruction. - The division of the life of the child for 
the purpose of grading properly the instruction in sex 
depends on several things: first, and chiefly, on the progress 
of his own development intellectually and sexually; second, 
on his sophistication; third, on the transitions in his 
social life - from home to school, to high school, and TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
109 
the like; fourth, on the age, sex, and character of his 
companions; fifth, on his reading; and on other similar 
considerations. 
For the purposes of this chapter the following general 
divisions will be used: - 
A. The Early Stage. 
(1) From birth to 4 or 5 years (Infantile, Home Period). 
(2) From 4 to 6 or 7 years (Kindergarten Period). 
B. The Early Adolescent Stage. 
(1) Prepubertal Stage: from 7 to 11 or 12 (Period 
of the Early Grades). 
(2) Pubertal Stage: from 11 or 12 to 14 or 15 (Period 
of the Junior High School). 
C. Late Adolescent or Post-pubertal Stage: from 15 to 
22 or 24 {Period of High School, and after). 
It is not intended to make the time limits of the terms 
used above accord exactly with their meaning in standard 
works on adolescence. The terms are applied to describe 
the most dominant facts of the periods; and the periods 
themselves are somewhat adjusted to the school divisions 
because the school must always be one of the chief agencies 
of sex education in the broad sense in which we have defined 
it. 
5. The Early Stage: from birth to 4 or 5 years. - 
(a) The teacher: Without any doubt this will be the 
mother chiefly; but every member of the family will take 
a conscious or an unconscious part. 
(Z>) Spirit and purpose for the period: The great thing to 
be done is anticipatory, protective, and formative of good 
habits, attitudes and emotional complexes. 
(c) Contents and matter: Cleanliness and care of genitals; 
regular and prompt attending to the bodily functions; 110 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
habits of keeping hands and attention off the organs; no 
over emphasis or under emphasis or differentiation of 
sex matters from other matters; use of proper scientific 
names and not vulgar nicknames for the pelvic organs and 
processes; frank expression by the child of his emotional 
states so that the parents may know and understand. These 
expressions need not be objectionable in order to be free. 
(d) Remarks: Any unnecessary sense of shame or 
embarrassment or fear about such matters should be 
avoided. This does not mean that the child is to be en- 
couraged to talk freely of these things to strangers. They 
are family matters to be treated with great freedom among 
the family but not mentioned to strangers, because they 
are private affairs. 
The child should preferably sleep alone, should rise 
promptly on awaking, should not be dressed too warmly 
nor with tight-fitting garments nor in such a way as to 
favor putting the hands in the region of the organs, and 
should have plenty of active play and interests. 
For sound sex character as for all other aspects of 
character, it is important that there should be no forcible 
repression of the early impulses. The control should be 
gained from within as early as possible. 
6. The Early Stage: from 4 to 6 or 7 years. - 
(a) The teacher: The mother and father, and other 
members of the immediate family, supplemented by kinder- 
garten or primary teacher. 
(&) The spirit and purpose: A frank meeting of the 
natural questions of the curious child in such a way as to 
avoid a sense of shame or levity or a cessation of confidence 
in his teachers; to arouse a sense of reverent wonder for the 
mysteries of life, and a feeling of the sacredness of the TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
111 
body; and to secure the finest, most mutual and social 
attitudes toward other members of the family. 
(c) Contents and matter'. Continuation of everything 
begun in the former period; also the general facts of repro- 
duction in the animals best known to the child, - as 
chickens, mammal pets, man; where the baby animals and 
baby human beings come from; the mother's part in family 
life. 
(d) Remarks as to manner, etc.'. The questions of the 
child should be answered frankly, meeting the intellectual 
needs of the child just so far as they are felt; the informa- 
tion about reproduction should not be merely abstract 
generalizations, but should be related to the child - as 
his chickens, his kittens, babies of his own acquaintance. 
Broad general statements of principles are not usually 
necessary. If this period is properly dealt with, much of 
the vicious information which comes from the street may 
be anticipated and rendered less harmful. A sense of 
partnership with his parents in this knowledge is valuable. 
The average child learns more during these years than at 
any other period of equal length in his life. More is done 
also to give him his permanent emotional set and disposition 
than at any other period. Much will be gained if the sex 
facts can take their place normally and without shock in 
this growing knowledge, and without feelings of repression 
which do so much to build up harmful complexes. 
7. The Prepubertal Stage: from 7 to 11 or 12. 
(u) The teachers: Parents, and all the teachers. The 
parent is still in the best position to do the work, if possessed 
of the necessary knowledge; but all possible agencies need 
to be used during this and the next period, - often unob- 
trusively. 112 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
(&) Spirit and purpose: To secure good habits, as in 
preceding periods; watchfulness, on the part of all, that 
the child be kept well nourished and be well supplied with 
physical exercise in which he is interested, - be kept busy 
and the surplus physical energy be used up and the interests 
guided and greatly enlarged. Keep vacant time full of 
good books, good play and good companions. Ideals of 
strong, healthy bodies should be formed. 
(c) Contents and matter: Somewhat as in former period, 
but may be extended. The direct sex teaching is at its 
minimum in this stage. Most of the teaching should be 
indirect and connected with health of body, with nature 
study, plant breeding, and other similar topics that come 
up in school. In the case of especially precocious children 
some of the precautionary teaching of the next stage may 
be given. It is a time for the setting up of a desire for 
manliness or womanliness. These ideas should continue 
to grow all through youth, and thus gain increasing content. 
(d) Remarks as to manner, etc.: Children of this age, 
who have been taught properly in the earlier period, will 
have had their curiosity satisfied with respect to the first 
mysteries that have raised questions in their minds. If 
this has been done properly and not evasively, it will tend 
to keep their minds off matters of sex. They are not yet 
stirred up by their own sex-development, and normally 
at this age they are little concerned with its questions. 
Boys are interested chiefly in playing with other boys. They 
want to be big men. They are not usually much attracted 
to the girls. The manner of approaching them should be 
through these physical ambitions. Boys of this age should 
be taught of the fine bodily and mental traits of 
strong men; and girls of the normal and vitally constructive TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
113 
traits of womanhood. All of this should be quite indirect 
and incidental, letting them discover, and imitate such 
things under the spur of their own ambitions and admira- 
tions. Yet there should be present continually an ele- 
ment of fine interpretation of the meaning of these things 
to life and happiness. A series of measurements of a 
boy's chest, and thigh, and biceps during these years, 
with suggestions that he is above normal here or not 
up to standard there, and how to remedy such matters, 
will lay the foundations of pride in his own bodily future 
that may keep him from various dissipations later. The 
relation of normal sex-development to normal manly 
strength and vigor may be suggested. Though the boy 
does not yet know what is coming to him in development, 
the teacher does; and every incidental opportunity in any 
subject of study or conversation should be used quietly to 
appeal to the manly, self-respecting and other-respecting 
qualities which will serve as wholesome inhibitions later. 
8. The Pubertal Stage: from 11 or 12 to 14 or 15.- 
(a) Teachers: For the girls: the mother, or some close 
woman teacher (school or Sunday-school). For the boys: 
the father or mature personal friend, teacher, athletic 
director, etc. 
Teachers at this age need to be very intimate and close 
personally, and capable of giving exact and reliable infor- 
mation and the necessary interpretation without arousing 
embarrassment or antagonism, and without over-emphasis. 
(Z>) Purpose and spirit: To secure mental preparation for 
the sexual changes that come to the body, intellect, tastes 
and emotions; to guard against the temptations to dwell 
on licentious mental pictures and ideas, or to indulge in 
experiments with the organs and in masturbation; to 114 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
refine and spiritualize the tremendous impulses of sex, and 
to transform them into sound ideals and habits of self- 
controlled sex-conduct; to combine the constructive ideas 
and emotions of sex with the other interests and impulses 
that are appearing, - as friendship, companionship, honor, 
chivalry, pride of family, and many others. For the boy 
who has coupled the sense of fair dealing and the sex ideas 
all through youth, there would be a strong inhibition work- 
ing against exploiting a girl. 
(c) Content and matter: The elementary facts of repro- 
duction and sex in organisms, and the changes that come 
in human beings at puberty; the internal secretions which 
produce these changes; the facts concerning seminal 
emissions, menstruation, etc., - their naturalness, their 
meaning, and the methods of self-care that are necessary 
to prevent unnaturalness and harm from them; the bodily 
value of sex health in later life; the mental and passional 
characteristics of this period quite as much as those of the 
body; the meaning of the changes in temperament and of 
the sex longings and appetites; definite warnings, with 
sound reasons (but not overstressed) against masturbation; 
the physiological connection of all these conditions and 
changes with genuine, fine manhood and womanhood; 
examples of chivalrous attitude of men toward women and 
the meaning of it (preparatory to the next stage where this 
sense of chivalry must function to strengthen self-restraint 
in young men); formation of ideals and standards of the 
gentleman in relation to girls, and impressing the reasons 
why these standards are sound for human beings; nature- 
study, biology, physiology, and religion as these bear upon 
sex and character. Among girls ideals of modesty in 
behavior, need of avoidance of loudness and forwardness, TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
115 
and the beauty of clean attractive womanliness should 
be made as appealing as possible. 
(</) Remarks as to manner, etc.: A division of labor is 
called for in this period. Some of the above instruction can 
best come from the parent or close friend. Other parts of it 
can be given better in the schoolroom, in the Sunday- 
school class, in the gymnasium talk, or elsewhere. Some- 
times very direct teaching is called for, sometimes it ought 
to be incidental to the general teaching. A little examina- 
tion of the above list of topics, in the light of this suggestion, 
will readily reveal the general division of the work that will 
usually meet the needs best. The school courses in nature- 
study, physiology, biology and the social studies ought 
to furnish the big foundation in information and the general 
background. These teachings are authoritative, and in 
large degree impersonal. For this reason they strengthen 
greatly the more individual work of the parents and per- 
sonal advisers. The work should not stop here however. 
The more intimate teachers of character should help to 
interpret these facts which the schools give and to apply 
them to life. This is a tremendously important age, and 
the sex yearnings are not to be ignored or suppressed, but 
are to be organized and directed so that their energy may 
be used to drive the child into sound attitudes and courses 
of activity. One or two talks by physicians to boys and 
girls, separately, may be valuable, especially if they do 
not exaggerate the perverse and morbid aspects of sex. 
9. Post-pubertal or Late Adolescent Stage: from 15 
to 22 or 24. 
(a) Teachers: High school and college teachers, parents 
and ministers if well informed, physicians, athletic directors, 
the older friend, the fraternity brother, and books. 116 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
(Z>) Attitude and purpose: To fill the life with high 
purposes, ideals, and ambitions which will absorb the 
thoughts, strength and efforts; to give the beginning, 
at least, of personal vision as to how these ambitions 
are to be carried out and a conception of the personal 
qualities which alone will bring full success; to develop 
further the finer sense of respect for self and for others 
which will tend to inhibit low actions; to enlarge the sense 
of chivalry in boys, and their admiration for chastity in 
girls; to stimulate interest in life, its possibilities, its work, 
its opportunities; to make very clear the effects on all con- 
cerned of improper sex-relations both upon individual 
character and happiness and on social welfare; to convince 
of the futility of the weakling in the struggle for any sort 
of success that counts; to utilize the love motive, which 
is large in most youths of this age, in order to inhibit im- 
proper sex-conduct; to form and to appeal to religious 
ideals and motives for the same purpose, but always in a 
persuasive and developing rather than in a repressive way. 
(c) Content and matter: Meaning of love, marriage, and 
the home, and the progress made in human history in the 
perfection of these; the racial value of this as compared with 
general indulgence; the facts of prostitution and of the 
venereal diseases as they bear on health and personality; 
the value of control and self-respect as a personal asset to 
the individual; the obligation of faithfulness and cleanness 
assumed by young men and young women alike in marriage; 
the iniquity of the " double standard," and the role which 
young women may play in insisting that men shall have 
the same standard of sex-conduct which women practise; 
eugenics, and its biological foundations. 
(d) Remarks as to manner, etc.: This is the first period TIME AND MANNER OF INSTRUCTION 
117 
in which, in anything like normal conditions, there is much 
danger of young men indulging in illicit sexual intercourse. 
A wholesome fear to propose such a thing will ordinarily 
deter them from soliciting this in the earlier years. To 
inspire this fear is one of the functions of public opinion. 
The danger, however, lies chiefly in an ignorant forwardness 
on the part of otherwise normal girls which will destroy 
this natural fear on the part of companions of their own 
age, and may also subject them to the advances of older 
men. 
The manner of imparting the information and ideals 
suggested above should be such as to leave no possible 
ground for a girl exposing herself to danger by breaking the 
bounds of ladylike conduct; and should make it exceedingly 
difficult for a young man to take advantage of such a lapse. 
After all is said, assuming that information respecting 
sex and sex-relations is wholesome and accurate, the writer 
believes that high standards of modesty and womanly 
virtue in girls, and chivalrous respect for such in women 
on the part of young men, will do more to bring self-control 
to men than fear of disease or of any of the abnormal 
outgrowths of sex-indulgence. My own observation is that 
a chivalrous wish to protect women and to keep them 
wholesome together with the feeling of obligation to be 
just as clean and controlled as he wishes his sister or his 
wife to be, will do more than any other thing to tide a 
young man safely over this period of life. 
If this can be coupled with, and intensified by, strong 
personal moral and religious convictions, it is the crown- 
ing of a very strong line of teaching. 
10. Summary. - A little attention to the foregoing 
suggestions will reveal the fact that the course of instruc- 118 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
tion is progressive toward higher and higher types of knowl- 
edge, and the motives to which appeal is made are of a 
more and more lofty sort. It should be remembered by 
teachers that it is often possible to use in small degree 
qualities and motives before the period in which they function 
most fully. For example, the religious motive seems to 
reach its climax in late adolescence, but it may be used in 
some degree before this time. It is important, however, 
that we should not prematurely stress these higher motives 
in our treatment of the child. This is often disastrous, 
both to the quality of the religion (or other influence) and 
to its effects in furnishing sex control. The point to be 
kept in mind at every step is that the instruction should 
be graded as completely as possible to the child's mental 
capabilities, to his emotional development, and to his sex 
need, - both individual and social. At all stages the mo- 
tives, and the returns flowing from right conduct, should be 
convincing and satisfying to the child. They should not 
involve fear and repressions, but happiness in right adjust- 
ment. CHAPTER XI 
GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS IN SEX 
EDUCATION 
1. Sex Problems and How to Use Them. - For too 
long a time we, as parents and teachers, have been para- 
lyzed by the sex problems that arise in the life of the youth. 
These arise because of the natural inner sex development 
and its effects on the body and emotional life of the child, 
because of the many sex phenomena which he naturally 
observes in the family and elsewhere, because of the reti- 
cence and insincerity of older people, because of the par- 
tial information and vulgar attitude of young companions, 
because both of the natural curiosity which so pervasive 
an impulse begets and the morbid curiosity which our 
foolish handling of it fosters. All this has made it seem 
unnaturally difficult to meet these problems as they arise. 
As a matter of fact, as soon as we adults can strip ourselves 
of the morbid complexes into which we have come about 
sex, we shall see that every stage in the normal sex devel- 
opment of the child, every question which he needs to 
raise, every new sex phenomenon in the family or the 
community which comes to his attention, every sex need 
or difficulty of his life becomes an educational asset, and 
an opportunity for us to build up his character, his atti- 
tudes, and his right adjustment by way of his sex interests 
and imoulses. It is our orivilese to use these incidents so 
119 120 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
that they will build up his life rather than tear it down. 
When so used these outstanding opportunities and steps 
seem all too few, rather than distressingly numerous. 
In reality there are not a great many of these critical 
problems. Furthermore they are much more easy to meet 
than they seem on the surface. The young child is open- 
minded and quite innocently desirous to know; he has 
none of the embarrassment which older people have allowed 
themselves to acquire; we only need therefore to be quite 
natural and sympathetic in order to get a sympathetic 
hearing from the young child. The parent should meet 
each situation that arises in such a way that the child will 
feel that he may go to the parent freely when he desires 
to know anything about this or related subjects. 
This result is perhaps one of the clearest ways by which 
we can measure our success. 
2. "Projects" and their Grading. - These sex prob- 
lems and occasions should be met as definite projects in 
character education. We should try beforehand to de- 
cide about what we want to get in the way of knowledge, 
taste, desires, ideals, habits, or attitudes, by means of each 
of these incidents or stages, and then use the situation 
with the best spirit and intelligence we have to produce 
these particular results. In this way we shall soon leave 
behind the idea that we merely want to give the child a 
certain piece of information. We shall cease to think of 
unloading something from our conscience upon the child, 
and come to have a definite and positive objective in the 
finer life of our child. This is highly important. 
If we adopt this attitude it becomes increasingly clear 
that we must grade the projects very closely to the child's 
development, needs, and character. This may mean that GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
121 
we will take a year or a decade, instead of an afternoon, on 
some one of these projects. It is as important to avoid 
going too fast as it is to avoid going too slow. (See also 
Chapter III). 
3. A List of Such Problems and Projects. - While 
proper grading of such efforts to educate must be done, it 
cannot be done fully by any one except the parent or 
teacher who can study and know the particular child. The 
following list of problems is not complete; and while an 
effort has been made to suggest an order in which they 
may come forward, this cannot be regarded as more than 
a suggestion. Many of them, located at a certain period of 
life, run through the whole of youth. 
A. Projects for the Early Stage (i to 7 or 8 years) 
(1) To get and keep a normal, unembarrassed atti- 
tude about sex on the part of the child. 
(2) To prevent undue or morbid curiosity on the 
subject. 
(3) To secure a suitable vocabulary for the organs 
and functions of the body, including all those of 
the pelvic region. 
(4) To use most effectively the sex differences be- 
tween males and females; - concretely, the dif- 
ferences between the father and mother, the 
brothers and sisters. 
(5) To use the simple, general facts of the beginnings 
of life and reproduction in plants and animals. 
(6) To use the particular facts about his own origin 
and birth. The mother's part in reproduction. 
(7) To get in the child a democratic, mutually-minded 
attitude in the home and elsewhere, as the only 
basis for right sex interpretation of the home. BIOLOGY OF SEX 
122 
(8) To use the father's part in his origin, and in the 
home and family life. 
(9) To develop and crystallize his appreciation of, 
and loyalty to, the home and family. 
(10) To develop the play impulses in such a way as to 
refine the sex-social qualities, as well as furnish 
outlets for action. 
B. Projects for the Prepubertal Stage (6 to 12 years) 
(n) To establish standards and habits of health and 
fitness, including something of sex health. 
(12) Further to utilize the play and recreational in- 
terests educatively for personal development and 
social adjustment. 
(13) To develop soundly and to guide the attitude of 
curiosity, experimentation, and "trial and error" 
in all relations, including sex. 
(14) To establish on sound lines the early ideas, ideals, 
and desire for manliness or womanliness. 
(15) To make a girl glad she is a girl. 
(16) To use positively but sanely the aspirations and 
purposes for life as these appear; no matter how 
partial or transient they may be. 
(It will readily be seen that many of these projects 
are somewhat indirectly related to sex. But there 
is not one of them which is not rather powerfully 
related to it.) 
C. Projects for the Stage of Puberty (the Junior High 
School Period, 12 to 14 or 15 years). 
(17) To use the differences between them and the 
larger boys or girls. 
(18) To use the facts of present individual sex de- 
velopment:- internal secretions, erections, semi- GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
123 
nal emissions, menstruation; the emotional and 
social changes. 
(19) The perverse uses of sex: day-dreaming, mas- 
turbation, etc. 
(20) To use the fickleness and changeableness of 
the interest in youth in order to get breadth of 
interest and power of discrimination of values. 
(21) To use the "gang" (homo-sexual) as transi- 
tional from an individual, to a full social, attitude. 
(22) To use the "gang" as a basis for wholesome 
sex-social attitudes. 
(23) To use physical exercise, growth and measure- 
ments educatively. 
(24) To use the girl's wish to be attractive. 
(25) To use the boy's wish to be manly. 
(26) To build up a taste and preference for cleanness, 
as against vulgarity, in respect to sex phenomena. 
D. Projects for the Period of Adolescence (14 years, 
onward). 
(27) To use for permanent character the first love 
of a boy or girl. 
(28) To use the facts about the development of the 
other sex in an inspiring way. 
(29) To prevent sex becoming "funny," or a vulgar 
joke. 
(30) To build up and use effectively the attitudes 
of chivalry, honor, the square deal, democracy. 
(31) To build standards and ideals of self-control 
and guidance, tastes and likings for the finer 
aspects of sex companionship, and attitudes of 
abstinence before marriage for the sake of his 
future wife and family. 124 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
(32) To develop a pride in self-respect, in his family 
- past and future, in his adjustment to the most 
humane sex and other conclusions and aspira- 
tions which human experience, observation and 
reason have reached. 
4. Examples of Project-Education in Sex. - It is quite 
impossible in this book to treat in detail all these projects. 
For the sake of illustration, however, some of these will 
be selected to give a better idea of what is meant. Most 
of these will be taken from the earlier period of childhood, 
because parents are already partially aroused about them, 
and because, if these problems are not met at the right time 
and in the best way, all the later instruction is made both 
different and more difficult. On the other hand, if the 
best training is given in these early home years the re- 
mainder is much more hopeful. 
I. The Problems of Early Childhood. 
Project 1. To use effectively the Differences between 
Boys and Girls. - Probably the first question which 
parents have practical trouble in answering to their own 
satisfaction relates to the differences, and the reasons 
for the differences, between the father and mother and 
brothers and sisters of the family. When the question 
is first raised it will not be necessary to go to the founda- 
tions of these differences, but gradually the matter must 
be cleared up to the child's satisfaction. At this stage 
the problem is not that of imparting to the child the whole 
mass of information in an exact way, but rather of making 
him feel that it is a well-known matter about which he 
may talk freely to his mother, and that she will tell him 
all that he wants to know as fast as he can understand it. 
Now, how can these differences be given and interpreted GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
125 
so as most satisfactorily to build up the character of the child? 
In addition to satisfying curiosity wisely, we want the 
child to begin to understand motherhood and fatherhood, 
the part both play in making home life good and happy, 
and to appreciate his own place in the home circle. 
This process of early education will be easier and less 
attended by abnormal curiosity and embarrassment if 
there is a good deal of openness and freedom in dressing, 
bathing and romping together by all the members of the 
family, in the early years when children of both sexes in 
a family are of nearly the same age. In this way the more 
conspicuous differences will be obvious enough and come 
to be taken for granted. Artificial secrecy and too early 
separation of the children in the nursery and bath makes 
the problem of satisfying curiosity much more difficult, 
than if free natural companionship were allowed. Further- 
more, the particular form of modesty that secrecy strives 
for is often apparent rather than real. 
In actual instruction we have two avenues open to us. 
In the first place we can help keep any feeling of "queer- 
ness" out of the human facts by explaining some of the 
conditions among the animals. By means of pictures, 
by actual study of any animals he knows, and by de- 
scribing them, the parents can show that there are two 
kinds among all the higher animals, - as dogs, cats, 
horses, cows, deer, sheep, robins, peafowl, chickens. Fur- 
ther he will see that these differences are often very great, - 
including size, form, color, courage, habits, disposition, 
voice, and the like, as well as in external sex organs. 
The human differences will thus be absorbed along with 
these of animals, and will not seem so special and 
emphatic. 126 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
In the second place, instead of having the mere physical 
sex differences between the mother and father stand out 
in his consciousness, we want his imagination to linger 
rather about the fine human differences between fathers and 
mothers. We can do this by calling attention to the fact that 
one is called "mother," "woman," "she," and the other 
is named "father," "man," "he," and that all men and 
boys differ from all women and girls. They dress differ- 
ently, they wear their hair differently, their voices differ, 
they differ in temperament, they differ in their work and 
in the care they give the children and in the keeping up 
of the home. Here is the place to exalt the work of both 
and to begin to build up a conscious loyalty to both. There 
is thus a gain in bringing all the common differences into 
view at once. This includes and swamps, so to speak, 
the special physical differences without obscuring or 
ignoring them; but best of all it makes a constructive 
and worthy use of what might otherwise be a difficult 
situation. 
Project 2. The Origin of the new Baby. - One of the 
earliest questions to come into the child mind is of the 
origin of the new baby in the home. The feverish haste 
with which impossible explanations are devised is at once 
a proof of the persistence of the question and of our per- 
verted ingenuity in evading it. Possibly something of 
the same wonder has arisen in the child's mind in its 
efforts to account for its own origin; but this curiosity is 
sure to become acute in the child of from 4 to 6 years of 
age, if a baby is born in the circle of its acquaintance. 
As has been said before, when the parent is satisfied that 
the question is clearly present in the child's mind it should 
be met even if the child should hesitate to ask the question GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
127 
without encouragement. Some children are more diffident 
than others about asking questions. 
Two special things should be aimed at in answering 
this question: first, to give the information in such a way 
as to prevent a morbid dwelling on the subject; and, 
second, by means of this information to give the child a 
fuller conception of motherhood and the beginnings of 
a fine and reverent outlook on life and on the nature of 
the home. This revelation should take the form of the 
most intimate and informal confidences. If it were merely 
information, the child would sooner or later stumble upon 
it in some way. We are seeking to use information to 
develop wholesome attitudes and respect for life. Both 
the mother and the father should take active part in this 
project. 
If the child lives in the country, and knows something 
of chickens and birds and the eggs that they produce, and 
perhaps also, something of young mammals, such as pigs 
and calves and colts, it is quite possible to lead him to 
understand the steps in reproduction by showing him first 
the eggs in the body of a hen dressed for table, and then 
eggs after they are laid, such as he has been in the habit 
of seeing and from which, as he knows, young chickens are 
hatched. He may be told that all animals come from 
such eggs; and all eggs are formed in the body of the 
mother. From this he may be led to understand that, 
in the case of hogs and cows and dogs, the eggs remain 
in the body of the mother and grow and "hatch" there, 
instead of hatching in a nest outside, as in birds. It can 
be shown that the little mammal is much safer within the 
body of its mother and is both nourished and kept warm 
there, and that it finally comes to the outside world in 128 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
somewhat the same way as the large eggs of the birds, - 
but through a separate opening, - the vagina. The 
position of this organ can be shown the child in these 
animals without any occasion for embarrassment whatever, 
at this early stage. See Figs. 9 and 10. It can then be ex- 
plained that the human mother produces just such eggs 
and carries the little child in her body in just the same 
way until it is strong enough to live outside and breathe 
and take its nourishment as the other mammals do. The 
very fact that this is true of so many other animals will 
help to make the knowledge seem less personal. 
The best possible staging for this information is when 
the mother is going to have another baby. Early in the 
pregnancy she should begin her revelation. In addition 
to the above facts she should explain how the mother 
feels about it all, in simple and not too sentimental terms. 
After this information is given to the child by the mother, 
the father should take up the story. He should repeat 
the main facts of motherhood from the husband's point 
of view. He should, without too much emphasis, tell of 
the difficult and dangerous task which the mother per- 
forms in carrying and supporting the baby; should indi- 
cate the discomfort and weariness and even sickness it 
often involves; should refer to the pains that accompany 
birth; and should show how all this prepares her to love 
and care for her baby; and most of all he should let the 
child see how a true husband and father feels about the 
mother. Then the father should raise the question of 
what the two of them could do during these months, to 
make matters a bit easier and more comfortable for mother. 
The father and child, whether boy or girl, can on the 
strength of this private understanding enter upon a con- GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
129 
spiracy of thoughtfulness for the mother which may mean 
the most beautiful things in the character of the child and 
with no trace of morbidness or grossness. Of course the 
project mustn't be made burdensome to the child; and 
the pleasure of both father and mother in whatever he 
does must continually reward the child. We have no 
right to demand the impossible. Such a treatment can 
make for fine permanent ideals and attitudes and habits 
in any normal child. 
Project 3. To Use the Father's Part in Reproduction. - 
A third question, the dread of which often makes parents 
hesitate to answer the earlier ones, relates to the part the 
father plays in the reproductive process. Ordinarily, this 
question will occur to the child some years later than the 
first two mentioned. There is danger, however, that older 
children may seek to impart the information prematurely, 
and if this is done, the knowledge often comes with an 
exaggerated emphasis, and in such a way as to stimulate 
a morbid interest and to encourage secrecy rather than 
the frankness we are seeking. By withholding instruction 
on this point, parents thus lose the opportunity to keep 
wholesome the idea of the father's part by connecting 
it with the finer facts of family structure and life, and 
lose, also, the confidence of the child and the chance to 
bind the child to them in the bonds of this common family 
knowledge. We have here again a much bigger task 
than the giving of information. It is, indeed, that of using 
a delicate piece of information further to cement the family 
bonds, and of making the facts of sex and reproduction 
contribute to the child's admiration and respect for human 
life and its intimate relations and thus spiritualizing them, 
rather than to allow the whole phenomenon to become 130 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
a mere by-word and subject for suggestive and vulgar 
reference. 
In starting this project it is well for the parents to review 
the steps taken and the illustrations used in projects 
i and 2. In prac- 
tice it is again much 
easier to give this 
information to the 
country child, in an 
incidental way, than 
to the child unac- 
quainted with ani- 
mal life. It is quite 
possible however, 
anywhere, to show 
the child, by a series 
of gradual steps, the 
parts played by the 
male and female in 
reproduction, and to 
do this in such a 
way that the mind 
will come to the 
main facts in human 
life without shock.1 
For example, any 
flower of which the 
child is fond may be taken. The lily is a good illustration, 
because it is a large flower and its parts are conspicuous. 
Fig. ii. The flower of the lily. E is the egg, 
which is developed in a cavity inside the pistil (P); 
5 is the stamen which produces the powdery pollen. 
This falls on the pisti (P) and produces a male 
cell that fertilizes E. (See next figure.) 
1 There are now available to parents numerous booklets dealing with 
this phase of the subject and couched in simple terms. Plant and Animal 
Children by Ellen Torelle, published by D. C. Heath & Co.; and Repro- 
duction by T. W. Galloway, published by John G. Coulter, Bloomington, Ill. GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
131 
Or we may use the oak or chestnut in which the male 
and female elements are in different flowers. While what 
we actually see in 
the lily is not, in a 
strict scientific sense, 
exactly parallel to 
fertilization in ani- 
mals, it is sufficiently 
so for our present 
purpose. Deep with- 
in the tissues of the 
flower occurs a proc- 
ess exactly similar 
to that which we 
seek to explain. 
The accompany- 
ing diagrams (Figs. 
ii and 12) will help 
the reader to follow 
the process. The 
pistil (/>) in which 
the seeds, or young 
plants, develop con- 
tains the mother or- 
gans. The pollen, or 
powdery material 
produced by the 
stamens (5), sup- 
plies the father-ele- 
ments. It can be 
shown that the seeds will not be developed if the male, 
or father-element, is not added. This is known as fertiliza- 
Fig. 12. Fertilization in the lily (much enlarged) 
E, the egg cell, to be fertilized, lying in the embryo- 
sac (S); P, the pollen, which has fallen on the top 
of the pistil, sending down a tube (T). This tube 
penetrates the tissues and finally grows into contact 
with the egg or female cell. In the tube occur one 
or more male (sperm) nuclei (N) one of which enters 
the egg and fertilizes it. In this way a new embryo 
starts, made up of a male and a female reproductive 
body (gamete). This is essentially what takes place 
in all the higher animals and plants, including man. 132 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
tion. This process of fertilization is necessary also in all 
the animals the child knows. The character of the process 
may be followed in Fig. 12. See also Fig. 7. 
Next show how this is done in animals and show how 
the two kinds of animals both have an important part. The 
mother-fish swims along and lays numerous small eggs 
in little hollows in the sand, or in similar places. The 
father-fish then swims over the eggs, and pours out from 
his body other bodies much smaller than the eggs, and 
similar to those produced by the pollen in the lily. These 
must unite with the eggs in order to make them develop 
into "baby" fish. 
In chickens, these cells of the father must be placed in 
the mother because they must unite with the young egg 
before the hard shell is formed about it. Because of this 
shell, chickens cannot behave like fish in fertilizing the 
egg- 
For still another reason, the same is true of mammals, - 
as horses and cats and hogs and "humans." The young 
in these animals, as we have seen, are kept in the mother's 
body, and therefore the eggs must be fertilized within 
just as in the birds, although they do not have a thick 
shell such as birds have. 
In the country the child is quite sure at an early age to 
see copulation among animals. This is the act whereby 
the sperm or male cells are brought into the region of the 
egg-cells so that fertilization may take place. It is in 
connection with this act that all the wonderful and power- 
ful instincts and impulses of sex are developed. This act 
of copulating is sure to interest and excite the curiosity of 
the child whenever he sees it. It should not make the 
act any more objectionable or dangerous to the mind of GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
133 
the child if he is made to understand that this is the process 
whereby all new lives are begun. Indeed it is much more 
wholesome so than that he should come to see in it a vulgar 
incident to be thought of as a secret, suggestive, and 
indelicate jest. 
Personally, the writer feels that it is not at all necessary 
to begin back with flowers or fish. He feels that it is 
probably both easier and better to begin with birds or 
mammals. In this case do not start the story with the 
act of fertilization. Rather begin with the work of the 
father robin, say, in helping build the nest, in singing to 
and feeding the mother while nesting, in helping with the 
feeding of the young. Emphasize the courage and power 
and devotion to the mother and the young on the part of 
some of the fathers among the larger mammals. Review 
the work and spirit of the fine type of human father in 
this connection. Then go back to the flowers and lower 
animals and bring the child up to the mammals and man in 
fertilization. In this way this function will not stand 
forth in a hurtful degree, but will be surrounded by the 
various social aspects of fatherhood. 
Possibly it is well to emphasize, in summary, three 
things in connection with all this: (i) The scientific and 
not the vulgar names should be given to all these processes 
and to the organs involved; (2) The family, and private, 
nature of the information should be stressed in such a 
way as to make the child feel that these matters are just 
as pure and open as any other, within the family, but are 
not any more suitable for public discussion than are other 
family affairs; (3) Some little suggestion of the wrongness 
and tragedy of fatherhood or motherhood among humans 
without marriage may very properly crown this teaching, 134 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
in such a way as to exalt marriage and responsible father- 
hood. 
II. Special Problems of Adolescent Boys. 
Project 4. To Get Early and Growing Ideas, Ideals, 
Desires, and Attitudes of Manliness. - No service we can 
render a boy in respect to sex character is more significant 
than to inspire in him a desire, a taste, a standard, and a 
habit of manliness. Of course this must come gradually 
and in accordance with nature. Our task is to keep the 
boy from being a prig by way of precocious standards or 
a rowdy because of delayed standards of manliness. We 
want to make very attractive to him at every stage just 
that part of the ideal which is most tonic and appropriate 
to his development then, with an ambition to keep right up to 
date in being a man. There are at least three steps in this 
project that we should keep in mind: -First, we must 
create and continually keep alive a desire for manliness. 
This is to be done by contact with and admiration for men. 
Father, older brothers, uncles, and other male heroes stimu- 
late this desire in the heart of the average boy without 
any trouble; Second, a taste and standard of manliness, 
appropriate to his development. This is more difficult; 
but here again it is the task of the men the boy admires 
to exalt to him the kinds of manly traits and powers and 
expressions that he can strive for at his age. This enter- 
prise begins in having health and strength, in activity 
and bodily skill, and in courage and energy and initiative. 
It passes on into sane guidance and mastery and use of 
these powers; and then into generous cooperation and 
team work. Gradually this standard of manliness takes 
into itself considerateness, fairness, honor, justice, square 
dealing, dependableness, unwillingness to take advantage GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
135 
especially of those whom one ought for any reason to help 
or protect. It crowns itself finally with democracy, chiv- 
alry, devotion to ideals, service and love; Third, a habit 
of manliness. This can come only by practice of manliness, 
fully rewarded by the approval of the men and women 
he admires most. Our real task for the young boy is to 
multiply these occasions of manliness, give him the very 
best and most constructive incentives to meet these occa- 
sions in the manly way, and then to find such means of 
approving his behavior as will perpetually fortify his 
determination to continue his growth toward these 
standards. 
Project 5. How to Use Most Effectively the Facts of 
the Normal Internal Sex Development. - In this matter 
of growing up to be men and women there are some under- 
lying facts which may be made very valuable to both boys 
and girls as puberty approaches. In very recent years 
we have been learning that certain internal organs, - 
ductless glands, so called, - very largely control health, 
development, and life itself. These glands pour their 
secretions into the blood and thus may influence all the 
tissues to which the blood goes. The internal sex organs, 
testes and ovaries, aside from their normal work of pro- 
ducing the sex cells, produce secretions of the kind men- 
tioned. These secretions from the sex "glands" have 
the most profound influence on the development of body, 
mind, and temperament. For example, it is because of 
these secretions that a human baby before birth develops 
the external organs by which we can tell that it is a boy or 
a girl when it is born. All through the early life of boys and 
girls these organs continue to influence their growth and 
to make them more and more different until they become 136 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
mature men and women. It is not the sperm cells or the 
ova or even the use of the sex functions which develop the 
normal male and female perfection of bodily qualities. 
It is rather these internal secretions. 
The rooster or cat whose testes have been removed in 
early life will not grow up a normal male. Instead of 
being strong and male-spirited he will become soft and 
fat and lazy and cowardly. Much the same thing happens if 
a boy loses his testes through disease or injury or operation. 
Eunuchs, made so early in life, are not strong, open, virile 
men such as the normal boy wants to become, with a 
man's appearance and voice and manners; but are instead 
fat, soft, cunning, often lazy, beardless, effeminate beings 
whose voices have not changed to the man's range. This 
is not just an unfortunate accident. It is merely the direct 
result of destroying the testes, and thus interfering with 
the work these internal secretions naturally do for boys 
if the sex processes are not in any way abused. 
It is worth something to the boy to know that he can 
count on this great contribution to his manly life if he 
will just let nature take its course. He doesn't have to use 
his sex organs to get this full development. The best 
service he can render himself is just to know the facts, 
keep his organs clean and free from irritation, practise 
the proper rules for health, protect the genitals from acci- 
dent and injury, refuse to indulge in lewd imaginings or 
in unnecessary stimulation of the organs, and let them 
make a man of him. If he will only develop the fine tastes 
and attitudes that match such a body, he will come to 
the best sex and manly development of which he is capable. 
Project 6. - How to Use the Tendency to Masturbation, 
for Development of Character. - For the first time we are GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
137 
dealing in this project with a phase of sex interest and 
expression which is fairly to be thought of as unnatural and 
even perverse. The interest and curiosity of childhood 
about the sex phenomena is in no sense perverse or im- 
modest. It is only our unwise treatment of it which can 
make it so. We are now learning that our treatment of 
masturbation has been no wiser. If parents and teachers 
are ever to use this common tendency and practice of 
boys for positive educational purposes, the first thing we 
must do is to try to understand it. We have used the 
extreme case of the chronic masturbator to frighten the 
average boy, who probably does not masturbate enough 
to work any permanent injury either of body or mind. 
We have condemned the practice as vile and sinful, have 
pictured sure physical weakness and disintegration, have 
threatened mental deterioration and loss of self-respect, 
if not actual collapse and insanity. Most physicians 
and teachers of boys have seen cases in which many of 
these things are suffered; but many of the most careful 
students of the subject, from the mental and nervous 
point of view, are now saying that these ill effects do not 
come at all from the act itself but from the fear and dread 
and worry that arise from the youth's exaggeration of its 
evil effects. There doubtless is much of truth in what 
these scientists say. But, put this boldly, their case seems 
to the writer scarcely no more conclusive or helpful 
than that of those who have tried to repress masturbation 
by heaping condemnation upon it. The truth is, as usual, 
probably somewhere between the two extreme views. 
We may very well admit that the amount of masturbation 
practised by the average healthy, active boy (and nearly 
all boys do practice it more or less) does him no harm, 138 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
except through some shame and worry and loss of confidence 
in hjmself, due to what he has been told is the general 
estimate of the matter. 
The following, in the opinion of the writer, must be 
considered as pretty close to the facts: - the practice, 
while common, is neither a natural one nor physiologically 
necessary to the normal boy; it comes about not merely 
from actual sexual desire but from early, even infantile, 
habits of getting pleasure from playing with the genitals, 
from irritations, from experimenting, from accident, and 
from coaching by others; owing to the solitary character 
of the indulgence and the ease with which it can be grati- 
fied the tendency of weak or erotic, self-indulgent, imagina- 
tive, inactive, highly nervous individuals is toward excess; 
excessive indulgence is certainly in some degree a physio- 
logical waste and a drain on the nervous energy of a grow- 
ing boy; it tends to increase the irritability of the sex 
organs and of the nervous mechanism controlling it, which 
makes the habit more certain and difficult to control; 
no one can quite escape the feeling that the practice is in 
itself a nasty one, and most boys of fair instincts would 
have at least a momentary revulsion of feeling at the 
close of the act, even without exaggerated cautions; this 
and other facts tend to make an excessive masturbator 
self-conscious and suffer serious loss of self-confidence 
and of self-respect. Furthermore there are several vicious 
circles in masturbation and its causes and results. In the 
first place, any unusual sensitiveness and irritation of 
the genitals (as in the case of the urethra, for example) 
is increased by masturbation, and in turn the irritation 
incites to further masturbation. In the second place, 
even when there is no abnormal irritation, the whole GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
139 
genital area is highly sensitive and the reflexes which 
produce erections and consciousness are easily set off. 
All this incites and rewards handling and experimenta- 
tion. In turn the manipulation makes the nervous reac- 
tions more sure and habitual. In a word, sensitiveness 
leads to the practice and practice tends to increase sensi- 
tiveness. Again, as we have seen, there is apparently 
a normal emotional reaction after the act away from the 
enthusiasm which precedes the act. This ranges all the 
way from the weak disgust of satiety to active remorse, 
depending on a number of things, including education. 
This operation of "conscience" in the mental conflict 
which goes on, if it does not check the habit (as it usually 
fails to do), leaves a residue of dissatisfaction and worry, 
and even of despair and neurasthenia in sensitive boys. 
It makes them more secretive, more solitary and thus 
more exposed to the temptation. That is to say, aside 
from the desire for the pleasure involved in the act, the 
very state of mind generated by the various reactions 
makes control more difficult. Of course this result is even 
more sure when the youth has been scared by the awful 
pictures of the degrading effects of masturbation. Ex- 
cessive masturbation generates worry and conflict, and 
these in turn ultimately act to reinforce the practice by 
diminishing self-respect and self-control. 
So far as cure of habitual masturbation is concerned, 
it can come only through breaking up these vicious circles,- 
by medical treatment that will remove the local irritation, 
or by removing the secrecy and worry and inner mental 
conflicts which have grown out of morbid fears. This is 
a task for experts. 
For educative purposes it is pretty clear that arousing BIOLOGY OF SEX 
140 
fears, issuing commands against the practice, and preach- 
ing self-control do not reach the mark. The best education 
must come of course before the habit is fixed; it must be 
prophylactic. The child should be given the chance to 
approach the subject without fear or morbidness; should 
understand that the normal boy by living an active life 
full of personal and social interests can keep the practice 
within narrow limits; should accept therefore active and 
wholesome ideals for his own sex life; should be encouraged 
to go in for sports, for study, for hobbies, for personal 
physical perfection, for social worth and adjustment, 
for service and usefulness; should have brought to his 
attention the wonderful natural work which the secretions 
from his testes are doing for his manly development of 
body, mind and ambitions, if he will only give them a 
full chance; should realize that everything he does to 
disturb or mar the work of these secretions, even if it may 
not vitally injure him, may prevent his highest realization 
of growth, confidence, and happiness. In a word the 
most effective way to educate against masturbation is 
to give the facts intelligently and without over-emphasis, 
to inspire full and constructive attitudes toward the use 
of the sex endowment as well as all other endowments, 
and to keep the boy's life so full of interesting and vigorous 
opportunities for acquisition and for expression, that the 
curbing of masturbation will be quite incidental to the 
general progress of development in his manly ambitions. 
For the boy who has fallen into the practice without hav- 
ing become a chronic or uncontrolled masturbator, an 
understanding teacher can put these fundamental facts 
in a sane way and remove the fear and worry that may 
exist, and can often secure a gradual reduction, if not a GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
141 
complete elimination, of the habit. Here a trusted friend, 
somewhat older than himself, can greatly strengthen his 
purpose and furnish backing and confidence, always with- 
out encouraging depressing fears as to the outcome. He 
needs the positive look ahead to serve as an incentive. 
Project 7. To Use the Phenomenon of Seminal Emissions 
Wholesomely. - The escape of the products of the testes 
and of the various glands which produce the seminal fluids 
is inevitable, since whatever absorption takes place in these 
organs is less than is normally produced. This escape may 
be quiet and gradual, or with a violent orgasm and in con- 
siderable quantities. The latter condition accompanies 
normal intercourse or the complete act of masturbation. 
It may also occur as the result of merely nervous or men- 
tal excitement, - as in voluptuous thoughts or in dreams. 
The term "seminal emission" is usually limited to these 
latter instances. Probably all normally robust and healthy 
youths and men occasionally, and somewhat periodically, 
experience these emissions in sleep. The constructive use 
to be made of this fact is chiefly to explain to the adolescent 
boy that this proves he is developing normally toward 
conplete physical manhood; that he has the capacities and 
powers, as well as the impulses of the husband and father; 
that his mature responsibilities of making the most of his 
manhood are upon him; that the whole situation there- 
fore is quite normal and is ground for satisfaction and not 
for uneasiness. Incidentally this positive information has 
a precautionary value. In the past, more than now, quacks 
have seized upon the fact of such seminal emissions as a 
means of frightening young men who are ignorant of the 
facts, and have convinced many that they are in danger 
of losing their manly endowment by way of such emissions. 142 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that occasional 
emissions mark anything more than vitality or that they 
injure health or development in the least, except through 
these baseless fears. 
However, while such occasional emissions are a natural 
means of relief under healthy conditions, it remains true 
that in certain cases the emissions become so frequent 
as to be ground for concern and action. There are a num- 
ber of conditions which may increase the tendency, and 
the family physician should be consulted if there is reason 
to believe that they occur too frequently, or if there is any 
disposition to worry. Since seminal emissions during sleep 
are the outcome of internal stimulation rather than external, 
anything which incites the nervous centers, as voluptuous 
thoughts, imaginings and day dreams; or which directly 
excites the genitals, as irritating secretions or the habit of 
handling them whether in sleep or awake; or which pro- 
duces a chronically irritated urethra, native or arising 
from masturbation, or a particularly sensitive set of nervous 
reflexes, - may contribute to its increase. Even the worry 
about its frequency may act in the same way. The most 
effective cure for this state is just the regimen which will 
make him into the most effective man. If he is interested 
in vigorous manliness of body and mind, seminal emissions 
will be kept in normal limits by the active exercise, limited 
diet, not too warm or luxurious bed, cool and well venti- 
lated sleeping apartments, wholesome mental interests, 
and general self-control by which the man comes to himself. 
Project 8. To Use First Love Effectively for Character. - 
Most boys early in life fall in love with a girl or an older 
woman. Usually any sign that a boy is becoming inter- 
ested in a girl is made the occasion for teasing, ridicule, GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
143 
and ironical remarks by parents and the older brothers and 
sisters. Such a course inevitably does two unwholesome 
things: - it makes the boy think that his parents hold this 
highest of the sex emotions as funny; and it at once and 
automatically raises a barrier between the older people 
and the boy at a time when they could be of most help to 
him. These are fatal blunders from any educational point 
of view. 
On the other hand here is great work for both the father 
and mother of the boy passing into puberty and early 
adolescence. The father ought now to be a boy again! 
If he can confess to his son something of his first love, how 
he felt about the girl, how fiercely he would have protected 
her from wrong approaches from any boy including him- 
self, how there was nothing gross or coarse in his attitude 
toward her; if the father can find some fine things to say 
about the girl, can make the boy see that he is now his 
best and real self, can explain how the feelings the father 
has for the boy's mother are just this same thing ripened 
by life and experience; if the father can thus gradually 
call out in the boy all the courtesy and gentleness and chiv- 
alry of the gentleman toward the girl and toward his 
mother and toward women, and stamp these with his ap- 
proval and admiration, he will make this experience do a 
service to the boy which few incidents in his life can give. 
He can thus hold the boy's confidence in his father and 
can get a permanent attitude toward love and marriage 
in the spirit of the boy which is just the purpose of sex 
education. Of course the father may need to suggest that 
first loves do not always last; but he needn't insist that 
such a thing is impossible. The point is that the boy 
should come to every sweetheart in this fine spirit. 144 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
At such a time the mother, too, can add another to the 
great steps of sex understanding in her boy. Probably 
the boy will never have any other chance, until he is mar- 
ried, to have these vital things interpreted to him by a 
true woman; and his spirit will never be so fit at any 
other time. The mother should let the boy know how 
she feels about the devotion of a clean man, and should 
let him see what is taking place in the mind and heart of 
the real girl who is keeping herself for this man of her 
choice. She should show him how and why every genuine 
man prizes this faithfulness and devotion in his sweetheart 
or wife, and how all home happiness depends on such char- 
acter and confidence in both. Incidentally the mother 
should explain to him what is taking place in the develop- 
ment of the body of the girl of his age, parallel to his own 
development, and how this bears on love and life. 
There is no need of preaching'. We need only to reveal 
and interpret the occasion, instead of ridicule it. 
III. Special Problems of Adolescent Girls. 
There is no reason why these problems should present 
any great difficulty to the intelligent mother. The kind 
of mutual confidence which will make it easy for the mother 
to instruct her daughter effectively certainly ought to be 
the normal outcome of well-conducted home life. It is, 
however, very apparent that a large percentage of mothers 
do not render this necessary service to their daughters. 
The special problems which confront a mother at this time 
are chiefly: matters of the special developments at puberty 
and early adolescence; questions of health of body and of 
mental attitudes; and social attitudes, especially toward 
men. 
Project 9. To Use the Critical Pubertal Developments GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
145 
Educatively. - Before the changes of puberty come, the 
mother ought to make clear to the daughter the nature 
of these changes so as to avoid any shock of fear or em- 
barrassment which might ensue if they found her un- 
prepared. They ought to be shown to be perfectly natural, 
and as her fine badge of womanhood. These include the 
onset of menstruation and the well-known changes in body 
and in emotional and social attitudes which precede and 
accompany it. In a rough way we may think of menstrua- 
tion, in the case of the girl, as being somewhat parallel in 
its indication of development with seminal emissions in 
the boy. The internal secretions from the ovaries are 
doing for the girl just the same sort of service to body, 
emotions, temperament and ambitions as the secretions 
from the testes are doing for her brother. See Project 5. 
For exactly similar reasons, and in the same spirit as is 
indicated in Project 7, the mother should explain to her 
daughter the naturalness of menstruation and what it 
means in her progress toward womanhood. It presents 
the opportunity not merely to give the physiological 
facts of development of the ovaries, the production of 
eggs, the preparation of the uterus to receive the egg if 
it is fertilized, and the nature of fertilization and preg- 
nancy in humans; but also to put the very most womanly 
and social interpretation to these steps. It is an oppor- 
tunity to develop the attitudes of the sweetheart, the wife, 
and the mother, - which are as far from prudery and 
false modesty as from unwomanly boldness. 
Some reference has already been made to the physical 
sex health of girls in Chapter VI. It is necessary here 
only to emphasize that menstruation in the artificial con- 
ditions of civilized society may be abnormal in many ways. 146 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
It may be irregular, unnecessarily painful, delayed, profuse 
and consequently an unnecessary drain on vitality. Any 
of these departures may have hurtful effects upon general 
health and upon the nervous states. Carelessness in diet, 
in respect to constipation, in exposure to chill, in over- 
exercise when the uterus is congested and heavy, may 
easily aggravate abnormalities in menstruation. The 
mother can probably, by her method of using the occasion, 
determine in large part whether the daughter will take a 
careless and reckless attitude toward the period; or a 
hysterical and over fearful attitude; or will approach it 
with careful common sense and appreciation. It is as 
much a counsel of imbecility to neglect to give a girl a 
right understanding of these things as to frighten and 
coddle her. 
Project 10. To Utilize the GirVs Interest in being Attrac- 
tive. - One of the results of our human handling of the 
whole sex-social situation is that girls generally have a 
definite desire to appear, and to be, attractive. Doubt- 
less this is partly a matter of natural sex impulse and partly 
of social training. At any rate the desire furnishes parents 
and teachers both a problem and an educational oppor- 
tunity. The interest in this particular thing is often so 
strong in the early adolescent girl that one can scarcely 
arouse an abiding interest in anything else. Why not 
make this stage of sex emotional development the means 
of definite education in the ground-work of human attrac- 
tiveness and thus make a contribution to character by 
way of the interest? An effective and tactful mother or 
teacher could begin with the hair and finger-nails and 
clothes, of which the girl is thinking so much. After ex- 
hausting these as means of attractiveness and helping the GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
147 
girl in their care, she could go on to skin, teeth, complexion, 
cleanliness, which are somewhat more vital; then to health 
in relation to attractiveness, and the means of health that 
are within our control. Sooner or later these questions 
quite naturally rise: To and for whom do we seek to become 
attractive? Why do we wish to seem attractive to other 
girls? To boys? Is there any difference between seeming 
attractive and being attractive? What part has expression 
of face, and the state of the muscles about the face to do 
with attractiveness? How are voice and conversation re- 
lated to it? What determines smiles or giggles or frowns? 
What determines pleasant and disagreeable tones and 
speeches? What part do intelligence and kindliness and 
good-will have to do with the matter? If we once attract 
people, can we necessarily hold them? Does it make any 
difference to us what sort of people we attract? Is it 
equally important and wonderful to attract a young man 
for a lark, or as a momentary lover, or as a sweetheart, or 
as a life long friend and associate, or as a husband? 
In some such way and starting from these points a 
mother and daughter might explore together, without 
any preaching, the various avenues of pleasure and friend- 
liness and association based on sex, to their most intimate 
and permanent meanings, and the mother can get over 
in the most democratic way her best interpretation of life 
for the permanent benefit of her daugher. 
Project 11. The Task of Getting Right Emotional Atti- 
tudes about Sex. - This is a pretty general statement of 
an important purpose in all sex education from the cradle 
to maturity. It is not the purpose to discuss it at length 
here. In fact all that has gone before is merely a part of 
this. There is a very special sense, however, in which 148 
BIOLOGY OF SEX 
parents may, with the very best motives, give to their 
daughters not merely a false idea of the whole sex situation, 
but actually a perverse and emotionally diseased attitude. 
It has been a part of our social policy, I think rightly, to 
give to our women an attitude of high appreciation for self- 
respect, of regard for womanly purity, of poise and even 
reserve and modesty, of admiration for the role of the 
faithful wife and mother, and of continence. But we have 
not always been intelligent in securing these emotional 
attitudes. There has not been in our method enough of 
fine, free, reasoned conviction on the part of the girls and 
women of the great and positive personal and social gifts 
of sex. There has been rather an effort to repress their 
natural sex understanding, development and expression 
and to taboo the whole subject as unclean and perverse. 
Too often the result of our effort has been not a sane appre- 
ciation and use of sex for the finest development; but 
rather a shuddering fear and distaste for the very idea. 
In large degree the sex impulses of women have been hurt- 
fully repressed in order to get their physical restraint 
and their spiritual emphasis. The modern psychologists 
are showing us that this method of repression has pro- 
duced unnecessary complexes, hysteria, psychoses, in- 
sanities, and maladjustments and unhappiness both in 
single and married life. If these students are right, it 
means that we must find constructive, instead of repres- 
sive, ways to develop the womanliness of women. Such 
education does not seek looseness of life as the solution. 
It seeks greater naturalness and freedom and democracy 
in the education for poise, modesty, faithfulness, and 
continence. 
5. Summary. - In all that has been said in this and GRADED PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 
149 
preceding chapters, the meaning of the writer is this: - 
If parents and teachers can arrive at the point at which 
they can use sympathetically all the best, which they as 
teachers know, to cooperate with nature in the upbuilding 
of their children, they may greatly increase the number of 
those who maybe regarded as successful in converting sound 
knowledge into right sex-conduct without building up in 
them complexes which injure and limit character. Nature's 
task is the making of sound, complete men and women 
able to reproduce their kind. She has an ordered and 
effective way of accomplishing this from infancy to maturity. 
Each of her steps adds something vital and worth while 
to the product. It is to the interest of all that we should 
understand each of these natural steps and its contribution. 
We need to know this, both that we may allow it to make 
its positive contribution, and at the same time not permit 
it to linger on in abnormal strength, inhibiting the next 
step. In order to do this effectively we elders must be in 
a position both to give and persuasively to interpret the 
facts in terms both of the happiness and usefulness of the 
individual and of the welfare of human society. The 
proper development of the sex-function, impulses, and the 
relations which grow out of them is the first biological 
necessity; to develop through them the mental, social, and 
moral control of them is to-day one of the prime human 
necessities. Plant and Animal Children 
HOW THEY GROW 
By Ellen Torelle 
Cloth, 12 mo. vi+230 pages $1.00 
HIS book presents in clear and simple lan- 
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D. C. HEATH & COMPANY, Publishers 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
ATLANTA LONDON SAN FRANCISCO HYGIENE FOR GIRLS 
By FLORENCE HARVEY RICHARDS, M.D. 
book is founded on a series of lectures 
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D. C. HEATH & COMPANY 
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