The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-14
Sex Truths
VERY significant phenomenon in boo
By DIR. FRANK CRANE
various authors giving instruction

"A dom is a number of small volumes various authors giving instruction children in the facts and laws of sex.
 The subject is delicate and dangerous. it's inflammable nature it ranks with religio1 And yet both religion and sex are issues life and death to the people, and it is hig& time that they who teach the young shoul find some way to give them that informat1oE absolutely necessary to their health and haI& piness without doing by their teaching mon harm than good.
 There is every reason in the world why child should know the truth about his body Ignorance is always and ever the mother disaster.
 And he ought to know the laws of reprd duction before that age when nature force the sex problems upon him.
 The person who should teach him these law is the parent, school teacher, or the duly ad credited physician-teacher.
 A child of eight or ten can learn sex trutha when they are imparted to him as colorlessl as the truths of botany or geology, without the least soiling his mind.
 About this subject all young human beingH are naturally curious. And it is upon sub2 jects in regard to which one is curious thai he needs instruction most, and 1t IS here nj retains information best
 The child gets sex facts in any case. Del nied due satisfaction for his inquiries D1 those elders to whom he first and most natl urally turns, he invariably gets 1t elsewhereI and usually gets wrong information and faisd theories, which are given him under condij tions of secrecy and glamour that work moral lesion in him. What he cannot find out trI the house or the schoolroom. from mother and teacher, he will discover from his playmates and among the latter it is the most vlciouA and morbid who are most eager to tell him.
 Reserve and decency are as desirable now in respect to certain things, as they werd in the days when Cicero remarked upon themI Indiscriminate writing or speaking upon thd sacredest functions of the body would be in1 tolerable. Our people would never stand for anything remotely approaching obscenityI particularly where it touches our children1 But indency is entirely a matter of place. time. and circumstance. What is proper in A physician's office would not be proper as A matter of talk at the dinner table. What is proper for a professor to say at hospital clinic would not be proper for preacher tc say to a Sunday congregation.
 Nothing is intrinsically uncean. Things are made unclean by perverted minds. Don't you think that what So-andSo said is in decent?" some one asked Samuel Johnson. "No," was the reply, "but your question is. '
 Let the children be taught, under right cir cumstances and by the right persons, the simple, plain, clean truth about that function 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 helpfulness fol which many time after they have reached adulthood they will arise and call you blessed
 The teaching of sex facts in the schools will be watched with interest. Meanwhile, how ever, the two people upon whom this respon sibility primarily rests are the father and mother and they may be sure that what sacred truth they conceal will be revealed twisted into levity and evil indictment by al the arts of the devil.