REPRODUCTION AND SEX 591 



inherently shameful or unclean. From history and literature it is 

 surely possible to suggest that control and chastity make marriages 

 happy and nations strong, while the corruptio optimi pessima is 

 already hell. 



(d) Much may be done through Nature Study (for younger 

 pupils) and Biological Studies (for senior pupils) to remove the 

 facts of sex and reproduction from an entirely human and personal 

 setting, to exhibit them as natural phenomena observable at many 

 different grades of evolution, to put an end to pruriency, and to 

 make the big facts concerning the continuance of life famihar in 

 the botanical and zoological fields — leaving it to ordinary intelli- 

 gence to see the human applications. 



{e) Beyond that it may be possible to go, in the way of more 

 definite sex-instruction in the senior classes in schools, for boys in 

 particular. It is probable that the instruction will be most successful 

 when it is linked on to, and arises naturally out of , studies in natural 

 history, biology, physiology, domestic science, hygiene, social 

 problems, and the like. 



It seems quite plain that girls require much gentler sex-education 

 than boys; and the difficulty cannot be ignored that, as things are 

 at present, a large proportion of the girls will not marry. Thus it 

 may be distinctly dangerous to bring to the focus of consciousness 

 instincts which often remain normally at a subconscious level. 



It seems also quite plain that when sex-instruction is given — 

 whether by the headmaster, the headmistress, the science teacher, 

 the school physician, or by lending booklets — caution must be 

 exercised not to anticipate interest, not to excite, not to deal with 

 the pathological, not to frighten, not to pretend that men. and 

 women are angels, and not to say too much ! 



CONCLUSIONS 



Perhaps we have given too much prominence to the problem of 

 sex-instruction, but that has been done deliberately in the con- 

 viction that the lack of sex-instruction is one of the great barriers 

 to eugenic progress. 



To return to the main theme of introducing the eugenic ideal in 

 school education, three definite suggestions have been made. We 

 may summon to our aid the witchery of art; we may begin an 

 apprenticeship in services which make towards racial invigoration ; 

 and we may appeal to the intelligence by making the big biological 

 ideas, e.g. of evolution, variation, heredity, selection, the web of 

 life, and the biological control of life — vividly living concepts, or, 

 in any case, seeds that will develop in the mind. 



But is there not something more needed to win any great measure 



