Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-11-15
SEX TRUTH
By DR.. Frank Crane

a VERY significant phenomenon in book
u dom is a number of small volumes by
various authors giving instruction to
children in the facts and laws of sex.
The subject is delicate and dangerous. In
it's inhammable nature it ranks with rell-
gion. And yet both religion and sex are
issues Of life and death to the people, and
it is high time that they who teach the
young should find some way to give them
that information absolutely necessary to
their health and happiness without doing by
their teaching more harm than good.
There is every reason in the world why a
child should know the truth about his body.
Ignorance is always and ever the mother of
disaster.
And he ought to know the laws Of repro
duction before that age when nature forces
the sex problem upon him.
The person who should teach him these
laws is the parent, school teacher, or the
duly accredited Observation-Disclosures.
A child of eight ten can learn sex
truths when they impaired to him as
colorlessly as the truths of botany or geolo-
gy without in the least Soiling his mind.
About this subject all young human beings
are naturally curious. And it is upon sub
iects in regard to which one is curious that
he needs instruction most, and it is here he
retains information best.
The child gets sex facts in any case. De-
MED due satisfaction for his inquiries by
those elders to whom he first and most
naturally turns, he invariably gets it else
where, and usually gets wrong information
and false theories, which are given him UNI
der conditions of secrecy and glamour that
work moral lesion in him. What he cannot
find out in the house the schoolroom,
from mother and teacher, he will discover
from his playmates; and among the latter
it is the most vicious and morbid who are
most eager to tell him.
Reserve and decency are as desirable now,
in respect to certain things as they were in
the days when Cicero remarked upon them.
Indiscriminate writing or speaking upon the
sacredest functions of the body would be in
tolerabe Our people would never stand
for anything remotely approaching obscenlty,
particularly where it touches our children.
But indecency is entirely a matter of place,
time and circumstance. What is proper in
a physicians office would not be proper as a
matter of talk at the dinner table. What is
proper for a professor to say at a hospital
clinic would not be proper for preacher to
say to a Sunday congregation.
Nothing is intrinsically unclean Things
are made unclean by perverted minds.
Don't you think that what So-and-So said
is indecent" some one asked Samuel John
son. No." was the reply, "but your ques-
ton is"
Let the children be taught. under right
circumstances and by the right persons, the
simple plain, clean truth about that func-
ton of life which has most to do with their
earthly happiness and sanity, to say nothing
of their immortal souls, and you lay them
under an obligation they will remember all
their days, and you will do them a deed
OF helpfuness for which many a time after
they have reached aduthood they will arise
and call you blessed.
The teaching OF sex facts In the schools
will be watched with interest. Meanwhile,
however the two people upon whom this
esponsibilty primarily rests are the father
and mother; and they may be sure that
what sacred truth they conceal will be re-
vealed twisted into levity and evil Indictment
by all the arts of the devil.
(Copyright. 1920