REPRODUCTION AND SEX : 587 



true and deep ideas which are also clear. It can be made real in a 

 dozen ways, most convincingly from zoology and botany, from the 

 bird-show and the flower-show for instance. And everywhere 

 museums are springing up which are interpenetrated with the evolu- 

 tion idea, which show everything, from a word to a button-hole, 

 from a Gloire de Dijon rose to a fantail-pigeon, as the long result 

 of time. 



It is to the naturalist's mind difficult to think of anything more 

 useful in the education of the citizen than a well-thought-out, 

 \ividly interesting, yet not too easy, practical as well as didactic 

 course of instruction, which should lead to a firm grasp of the 

 general ideas of racial evolution and individual development, of the 

 characteristic Darwinian idea of the web of life or the inter-related- 

 ness of things at first sight far apart, and of the characteristic 

 Pasteurian idea of the biological control of life. These ideas form a 

 natural preparation for the eugenic ideal. 



SEX-INSTRUCTION AND EUGENICS 



Leaving the problem of the eugenic ideal, let us consider the 

 question of definite eugenic instruction, including sex-instruction in 

 schools. This is another extremely difficult question, another problem 

 whose solution must be found by experiment. An attempt to state 

 some of the pros and cons may be useful. 



There is no doubt that many phenomena of modern Hfe, especially 

 in cities, are not eugenic, but kakogenic. Now, it is the opinion of 

 many investigators who have paid special attention to the problems 

 centred in sex, that instruction, or more definite instruction, would 

 lessen "immorality", sexual vice, adolescence troubles, indecency, 

 and pruriency. Ignoring the subject is said to be in part to blame 

 for bad first impressions, discoloured views, morbid brooding, 

 obsessions of fear, and some forms of sexual vice. All this handicaps 

 eugenic progress. 



For young children the best instruction is, theoretically, that given 

 by the parents, especially by the mother. When this is given, it is 

 well, especially if care is taken to avoid anticipating interest and to 

 abstain from offering explanations which will be afterwards found 

 to be untrue. We may tell a child to wait for an answer, but we 

 must not give the child an untrue answer. Prof. Stanley Hall 

 emphasises the advantage of getting the right presentation first, 

 preoccupying the mind with a dignified wholesome view. 



But we have to face the actual facts. Few parents give any sex- 

 instruction at all. Few can do it well. Few, for instance, are able 

 to utihse the indirect, impersonal, biological approach. Most parents 

 are too shy. Moreover, the personal aspect of the case rises obtru- 



