SECTION 21 PRECISE NA TURE OF PROBLEM TO BE INVESTIGA TED. 249 



in word and deed. Again, after they are married, infidelity in 

 any sense will be inconceivable to them. Indeed, chastity and 

 fidelity will signify to them respect for all that is implicit in 

 marriage and in human nature. 



(13) Culture being that ingredient in every human being which 

 stamps him as human, both sexes will regard each other pri- 

 marily as human, and not as sex, beings. 



(14) In conclusion. The truly typical human marriage is world 

 removed from the truly typical animal union without making 

 any aspersions on the latter, and the propagative instinct has 

 in man a limited and quite definite object to serve. Once this 

 is recognised and conceded, parents and teachers will not find 

 it difficult or embarrassing to introduce the children to the 

 manifold meaning of marriage. On the contrary, this task will 

 become a cardinal one for parent and teacher alike, and its 

 fulfilment will repay a hundredfold the efforts made. 



Having acquired a definite conception of the meaning of 

 marriage as a starting point, the problems of home and school 

 education in relation to sex may be approached with confidence, 

 since the physiological aspects have been justly relegated to the 

 background. Nevertheless, or rather just because of this, there 

 should not be the least hesitation in the parents describing to 

 the young the processes of conception, gestation, parturition, 

 recovery, and lactation, thus leaving only for later treatment 

 the stage immediately preceding conception. No young child 

 but would be grateful for such information, and be very much 

 the better for its possession. No parent could hesitate to impart 

 such knowledge. To the young child, it should be remembered, 

 all things are pure. 



Much mischief has Jbeen caused by assuming that at the age 

 of puberty the minds of the young are suddenly perturbed and 

 absorbed in matters of sex. Leaving aside sophistication through, 

 e.g., perverse companions and morbid literature, nothing seems 

 further from the truth. On the contrary, as we might expect, 

 the whole nature is opening out towards adulthood with its 

 innumerable phases. Cricket, football, the desire to be a sailor, 

 travel or hunting, keenness to become independent and prepare 

 for some vocation, notions of reforming the world, adventures 

 and new experiences generally, thoughts of maturity, such is 

 the adolescent's programme. Interest in the complementary sex 

 enters only later and, save for exceptional cases and causes, 

 scarcely captivates the mind of the semi-adolescent. The 

 adolescent desires to develop and assert the whole of his many 

 powers. In fact, if this were not so, the adolescent would reach 

 adulthood pitifully unprepared and entirely unfit for the tasks 

 of life and marriage. The alarmists those who hint that with 

 puberty should come satisfaction of the sex instinct, and those 

 others who contend that with the advent of puberty should 

 ensue a desperate struggle to curb and crush the rebellious sex 



