SEX-EDUCATION 167 



clinics, and in words of counsel, must include 

 attention to the sex-life of the adolescent. 

 Some headmasters have straight talks with 

 their boys, warning them against the dangers 

 of adolescence; others lend books or tracts 

 of good advice ; in many cases, as it seems to 

 us, the most effective counsel will be that of 

 the school-physician, who can speak with most 

 authority and without embarrassment. 



CAUTIONS. It appears to us that with sex- 

 education in school we shall do well to hasten 

 slowly, (a) Society does not move en bloc, 

 and a frankness which seems quite natural 

 in some communities will be keenly resented 

 in others. Whatever direct instruction is 

 given, it must be carefully differentiated. In 

 some of the shameful conditions of life that 

 still obtain in our midst, the children have 

 nothing to learn of the seamy side of sex; 

 what must be done is to show them that there 

 is another side. 



(b) Another point is that while parents can 

 do what they like in the way of sex-instruction 

 which is usually nothing school teachers 

 must move cautiously. They must make sure 

 that they are carrying the parents with them, 

 and in some cases this has been done with the 

 happiest results. As in regard to religion, so 

 in regard to sex, there are some who deny 

 that the education authorities are justified 

 in intruding into what ought to be a parental 

 responsibility. 



(c) It seems quite plain that girls require 

 much gentler sex-education than boys. By 

 nature and by tradition they have a deeper 

 reserve, and the difficulty cannot be ignored 



