The Irish standard., 1914-02-21
Elk : PRESIDENT TAFT
OPPOSES FAD.
New Haven Instructor in Letter tc
Editor Of Emmetshurg, Ia., Demo.
crat, Speaks of Schools in
That City.
Ex-President's Address on Subject Of
Sex-Hygiene in Schools Is Strongly
Endorsed.

There is another danger in our
present educational influences and en-
vironment. I refer to the spread OF
lubricity in literature, on the stage,
and indirectly in education, under the
plea that vice may be avoided by
teaching its awful consequences. By
dwelling on it's details and explaining
its penalties, sexual subjects are OBJ
truded into discussion between the
sexes, lectures are delivered on them,
and text books are written, and for
mer restraints of modesty are aban-
doned. The restrictions upon con-
versation in society, which are said to
have been inherited from the Victorian
era, are spoken of with contempt. This
change in the attitdue of society, or
of that part that treats it as desirable,
has only a small modicum of good, if
any, while much of it is bad in it's
tendency and effect. In the first place
wicked editors seize upon the fact to
sell their literary wares sby suggestive
stories treating of sex problems and
plcturing conditions as general in So
ciety, which, thank God, are the ex-
ceptions; and all this is under the pre-.
tense of carrying on social reform.
Moving pictures and plays are paraded
before the public to teach Il moral
lesson in which the pretended lesson
is formulated in words, but in which
the whole suggestion is prurient. The
sordid purpose of the promoters is to
make money out of stimulating las
civous ideas in those who otherwise
might not be encouraged in them.
Then the pursuit of education in
sex-hygiene is full of danger if car
ried on in general public schools. The
sharp, pointed, and summary advice
of mothers to daughters, of fathers to
sons, of a medical professor to stu
dents in college upon such a sub.
1ect is. OF course, wise, but any benefit
that may be derived from frightening
students by dwelling upon the details
of the dreadful punishment of vice is
too often Offset by awakening a curl
osity and interest that might not be
developed so early, and it is too like.
ly set the thoughts of those whose
benefit is at stake in n direction that
will neither elevate their conversation
MI Pn11o
clean their mental habit They will
learn all that is wise for them to
learn through the natural communica.
tions of their parents and their family
medical advisers. I deny that the so.
called prudishness and the avoidance
of nasty subjects in the last genera
tion have ever blinded any substantial
number of girls or boys to the wicked
ness Of vice or made them easier vic
Tins of temptation. 1t has generally
been possible for them to recognize sin
and to know that they ought to avoid
it without leading them into an atmos-
phere which they can hardly breathe
without polluted suggestions.
"The moving cause of this grotesque
and dangerous addition to the cur.
riculum in education is tile view that
the sins of the individual are not his,
but those of society, and that so.
ciety, by giving him knowledge of evil,
will give him or her panoply against
its temptations. l cannot think the
small amount of possible good can
make up for the great dangers of this
experiment. The wellknown lines OF
Pope are as true today as when he
wrote:
"Vice is monster of so frightful mien
AS to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her
face,
We first endure, then pity, then en-
BRACE"