The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-07-12
SEX HYGIENE AND EUGENIcS

Chicago is to teach sex hygiene in her high schools This in
novation will be tried at the suggestion of Mrs Ella Flagg Young
superintendent. who will engage prominent physicians to give a
course of lectures, beginning next September, on all subjects per
tanning to sex. The question of instruction in the elementary
schools was raised, but it was finally decided to begin with the high
schools.
The Chicago experiment should prove valuable to other cities
There r. differences of opinion IS to the advisabiliy OF teaching
the secrets of sex in public schools. Success or failure of the ex-
pertinent will hinge on the method of instruction. There must be
delicscy, but the essentials should not be sighted.
Mrs. Young is right in saying the chief aim shonld be to pro-
mote personal purity. There is nothing to be gained through
purely academic instruction. Parents who object to submitting
their children to such instruction should remember that failue OF
the parent to instruct forces the task upon other people. The
schools may not be the best place for such instruction. but until
parents realize their responsibility it is better for the schools to
undertake the duty than that boys and girls learn under less favor
able circumstances.
Children cannot always be kept in ignorance. They should not
be enlightened by vice.-Oregon Journal.
Against Lectures On Social Hygiene
In prohibiting a course of lectures on sex hygiene in the pub
lie schools the Chicago Board of Education is only obeyiDg the
mandate of a large majority of the citizens who pay the school
taxes. The advocates of the proposed new policy argue that as
children are not properly instructed as to important facts of human
life at home, the free schools should repair the deficiency. The cit
liens who have been overwhelming the Board of Education with
protests by mail and telephone evidently think that the introduc-
ton of such subjects in the schools would make bad matter worse
We believe the citizens r right Lectures in the schools cannot
take the place of home training in this matter. Obviously, Chicago
citizens r now awake to the Importance of the subject, however,
and we may hope that more of them will realize their duty to their
children hereafter. The neglect of duty in regard to the moral and
hygienic training of children is one of the disheartening phenomena
of American civilization. The blame does not wholly rest with the
present generation or its immediate predecessors; false modesty,
inexcusable reticence in regard to physical matters, distinguished
our forefathers. But in the old days there was strict religious
training to offset the ignorance and indifference in homes
No worse plan could be devised. however, to set the rising gen.
GRAFTON on the right path than to make the facts of sex hygiene sub
iects of common talk among schoo]boys and school girls. The
recent widely published revelations touching the traffic in vice has
already had a demoralizing effect which helps to counterfeit any
good results accomplished. Ofcious meddlers of both sexes have
continued to get a great deal of selfadvertsement as moral leaders.
The barriers of polite reticence have been broken down and old
fashioned folks, whose early education was not defective, are fire.
quently shocked by the turns of dinner table conversation. A sort
of publicity has been given to evil subjects and inherited disease,
which, while it assuredly lowers the tone of social intercourse, quite
as surely will not tend to improve morals or the public health. So
ciety at large needs a new Chrysostom to correct its latest vagaries.
New York Times.