THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED PRIMARILY TO ALL SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF NATURE 

 IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



Vol. 6 February, 1910 No. 2 



SOCIAL HYGIENE: ITS PEDAGOGIC ASPECTS, AND ITS RELATION 

 TO GENERAL HYGIENE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 



By WINFIELD S. HALL, Ph.D., M.D., Professor of Physiology, Northwestern University 



Medical School, Chicago. 



The expression Social Hygiene, in its broadest sense ap- 

 plying to the maintenance of health in the body social, has been 

 in recent years applied particularly to that phase of social well- 

 being associated with sexual well-being on the part of the units 

 of the body social, that is, sexual right-living on the part of in- 

 dividuals, especially so far as this sexual right-living affects so- 

 ciety. 



The teaching of social hygiene must begin in early child- 

 hood, and its importance as a part of education should never 

 be lost sight of by parents or teachers until the individual is 

 well launched in the adolescent period. By the end of puberty, 

 the fifteenth years in girls, and the seventeenth year in boys, the 

 youth should possess sufficient knowledge on sexual matters to 

 protect him not only from the vices that are so likely to be- 

 come habitual during these years, but also from making mistakes 

 in the case of the sexual system, winch might lead to the under- 

 mining of the general health. 



The development of the sexual equipment and function, 

 and the knowledge of the same, has a double bearing upon de- 

 velopment and training of the mind. In the first place, a knowl- 

 edge of the function of reproduction and a proper attitude of 

 mind regarding it must be recognized by educators to be a nec- 

 essary part of the equipment of very young persons for life. In 

 the second place, parents and teachers are morally bound to 

 treat all questions of sex in the same, simple, straight-forward, 

 truthful way that other life problems are treated. In this way 

 only may we expect that a proper mental attitude toward Re- 

 production can be cultivated. 



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