SELF KNOWLEDGE
——AND——
GUIDE TO SEX INSTRUCTION
VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR ALL AGES

———
A Complete and Comprehensive Guide to Parents for the Proper
Instruction of Their Children, Concerning the Delicate
Questions of Life; Timely Help for the Boy and Girl,
at the Ages of Greatest Danger, with Warnings
of the Pitfalls which Lie Hidden in
Their Pathway,

TOGETHER WITH

Vital Information for the Marriageable; Safe, Sane, Scientific
Counsel for the Married of all Ages, including Knowledge
Vital to those in Middle Life and Declining
Years, with a Word of Warning Against the Prevailing
Ignorance of God’s Sacred Laws of
Sex and Heredity

BY
Professor T. W. SHANNON, A.M.

International Lecturer on Moral, Social and Reform Topics; Member of Advisory
Board World’s Purity Federation; also Author of Eight other Purity Books
———
With Special Chapters by Hon. Stanley Finch, Special Commissioner for
The Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, U. S. Department of Justice;
B. S. Steadwell, President World’s Purity Federation and
Charles W. Eliot, Former President Harvard University
———
INTRODUCED BY

B. S. STEADWELL

Publisher “The Light,” Official Organ of The World’s Purity Federation

PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY

THE S. A. MULLIKIN COMPANY
MARIETTA OHIO



Copyrighted, 1913, By
THE S. A. MULLIKIN CO.


Agents wanted in all English-speaking countries. Address publishers
at foot of title page.



Dedicated
TO   THE   GRANDFATHERS   AND   GRANDMOTHERS,
TO   THE   FATHERS   AND   MOTHERS,
TO   THE   HUSBANDS   AND   WIVES,
TO   THE   BACHELORS   AND   MAIDS,
TO   THE   YOUNG   MEN   AND   YOUNG   WOMEN,
TO   THE   BOYS   AND   GIRLS,
TO   THE   BABES   THAT   BE   AND   ARE   TO   BE,
THIS   BOOK   IS   AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED
BY   THE   AUTHOR.

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

This problem of human wreckage becomes more depressing when we consider that in the breast of every person there is an innate desire to live true, to win success. The day dreams of every boy and girl picture themselves as the hero or the heroine in the story which weaves into its plot their ideal men and women. Their ideals may be low, that is the fault of their environment and training, but their ideals always represent their own highest conceptions of manhood and womanhood. But sooner or later struggle comes, appetite craves, and passion cries out, and if they are unprepared for life’s real conflict, they go down, and another failure is recorded and another wreck left to float and endanger every other craft upon life’s seas, until human wreckage is becoming so enormous that it is a question in the minds of scientists and sociologists as to how long humanity can keep up its present pace and survive the centuries.

The causes of human wrecks are many, far too many to be tabulated or enumerated. In a sentence they result from the principle that it is easier to coast than to climb; so much easier to float than to struggle against the current. Like the weeds that kill out the crops, just so is humanity beset by enumerable temptations at every turn, social and economic customs force downward a great many who would otherwise rise to higher things, and, it is suspected, that in the very nature of man there is a strong tendency to evil which can be overcome only by divine grace. Appetite and passion are the two forces to which man’s higher aspirations most often give way. Intemperance and impurity, in their broader meaning, are the two bars upon which most human wrecks have stranded. Social impurity, or the abuse of the sex function and nature, is by far the most insidious, and with respect to the number and degradation of its victims, the greatest evil in the world to-day.

This book is one of the most valuable ever written because it treats fully and wisely this question of personal and social purity; it points out the reefs, the bars, the snags, the icebergs, the shallow and dangerous places where human wrecks are made; it guides those who accept it as their pilot into the deep waters of an unobstructed channel where the voyage of life will be ever safe, successful, glorious. Here will be found an incentive to climb rather than to coast, an inspiration to struggle even against the current if in the struggle may be won some of the more valuable prizes of life. Here is a book that holds high the single standard of morality, and demands that men shall be as pure as women; it stands boldly for the education of the young in sex hygiene, and proclaims a truth that ought long ago to have been universally known, that it is the right of every person to know every knowable fact pertaining to themselves, and that such knowledge ought to be imparted to them before the lack of it has brought injury to their lives. This is a book that will help to forever banish that false modesty and prurient thinking which has made the tremendous growth of public vice a reality, until every girl is in danger of enslavement and every boy threatened with its corruption.

This is not a pioneer book on these questions. Other most excellent works have preceded it, for which we should all be grateful, and have paved the way for this latest volume. The excellence of this work consists largely in its completeness. It is a book for the home, for every home, and for every member of the home. It tells exactly what ought to be known concerning the sex nature and life of the individual, and the normal relations of the family and society, and best of all it teaches parents how to impart this saving knowledge to their children. Any and every home that takes this book as a friend and counselor, and faithfully studies its pages, will fortify every person within the portals of that home against the baneful influences of impurity and vice.

The writer has known Prof. T. W. Shannon, the talented author of this book, for some years, and we have watched his efforts with interest and admiration. A voluminous writer, a wide traveler, he has probably reached more people with his uplifting message of purity through his books and upon the platform than any other living man of the same age. His methods are never sensational and he does not stoop to uncovering all the cesspools of sin and vice, but he leads people upward by directing their minds and hearts to the beauty and rewards of pure living and right thinking. Through the strength of his personality and the profound truth in his message, he has helped thousands of college students and other young men to avoid the pitfalls which have brought disaster to so many young lives. By education and experience Prof. Shannon is eminently fitted to prepare just such a book as this and his authorship should at once entitle it to a high place among the standard works of the day dealing with these problems.

As the volume has received my own endorsement, even so I trust it may be most cordially received into the homes of America, that our sons and our daughters may be fortified through the truth, presented in an attractive and safe and sane manner, against the temptations which constantly meet them; that human wrecks may be fewer, and that every life may have a fair chance to attain all for which it was created.

B. S. Steadwell.

La Crosse, Wisconsin,
December 18, 1912.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS