HALIjJ SOCIAL HYGIENE 35 



allusions so remote that the speaker would probably be only 

 vaguely understood by the more intelligent and experienced of 

 his audience; while he would probably be grossly misunderstood 

 by the less intelligent and inexperienced. Let such an audi- 

 ence be segregated along sex lines, namely, the women and 

 girls in one audience and the men and boys in another. The 

 situation would be somewhat relieved, though not by any means 

 wholly corrected. One can talk more freely to a group of boys 

 when they are alone and get more free and frank response from 

 them when he has them alone, than he can in the presence of 

 the fathers. The same thing would be true, of course, in an 

 audience of mothers and daughters. Similarly one would dis- 

 cuss with an audience of fathers certain subjects which boys in 

 the early years of adolescence should not know; such problems 

 as those that concern the ethics of the home, for instance, be- 

 tween husband and wife, problems of maternity and paternity, 

 problems involving the social evils and prostitution. All such 

 matters may be discussed freely and frankly with an audience 

 of men, but, manifestly, youths below the age of seventeen or 

 eighteen should not be present in the audience. 



Concerning a division of the audience on age lines, the sexes 

 being mixed, audiences of the parents and then audiences of 

 young people — actual experience makes it clear to me that a 

 public speaker, particularly a physician, can talk much more 

 freely to an audience of mothers than to a mixed audience of 

 mothers and fathers. Before such an audience of mothers the 

 problems of maternity, paternity, adolescence of the son and 

 daughter, the mother's relation to adolescent youth, even refer- 

 ence to venereal diseases against which the mother should guard 

 her younger children through instruction in the use of any 

 public utensils, and against which she should warn her ado- 

 lescent daughter — all these subjects may be discussed freely 

 before an audience of mothers, women teachers and social work- 

 ers, by a physician. But before a mixed audience of fathers and 

 mothers he instinctively begins to deal in glittering generalities 

 that may mean much or little and that are easily misunderstood. 

 As to the teaching of the story of life to young people in 

 mixed high school or college classes, there seems to be some 

 difference of opinion among social workers as to how that should 

 proceed. There are in the country a few experienced high 

 school and college teachers of biology, who beginning with the 



