The sexual question

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVIIToC

THE SEXUAL QUESTION IN PEDAGOGY

Heredity and Education.—If we review the facts contained in Chapters IV, VI, VII and VIII, we must conclude that the sexual appetite, sensations and sentiments of every human being consist of two groups of elements: (1) phylogenetic or hereditary (hereditary mneme); and (2) elements acquired during life by the combined action of external agents and habit or custom.

The first lie dormant in the organism for a time, in the form of latent energies or dispositions, and form part of what is called character. Most of them do not disclose themselves till the age of puberty, and their development afterwards takes place under the influence of external stimuli, which are modified by the will of the individual, i.e., by his brain.

The second are the result of the influence excited by erotic excitations and habit on the first.

Pedagogy can in no way change the first, for they are predetermined, and constitute the soil to be cultivated by education. The task of the latter can, therefore, only be to guide the hereditary sexual dispositions into paths as healthy and useful as possible. In the case of perverse dispositions, such as homosexual appetites, sadism, etc., moral education can only act in a general way on the character, and combat that which excites the appetites. It cannot change the character of the latter; there must be no illusion on this point. Wherever hereditary dispositions present a normal average, education can do much to avoid pathological errors and habits, by guiding the sexual appetite in a healthy direction and by avoiding excess.

Sexual Education of Children.—Habit always diminishes the erotic effect of certain perceptions of the senses; and inversely, eroticism or sexual desire is especially excited by unaccustomed perceptions and images relating to the other sex. The adult, unfortunately, nearly always makes the same error in pedagogy; he unconsciously attributes his own adult sentiments to the child. What excites the sexual desire of an adult is quite indifferent to a child. It is, therefore, possible to speak plainly to children to a certain extent on sexual questions, without exciting them in the least; on the contrary, if the child becomes accustomed to consider sexual intercourse as something quite natural, this will excite his curiosity to a much less degree later on, because it has lost the spice of novelty.

If the child is accustomed to the sight of nudity in adults of his own sex, he will see nothing peculiar in his own sexual organs and pubic hairs when these develop. On the other hand, children brought up with strict prudery and in complete ignorance of sexual matters, often become greatly excited when their pubic hairs develop; they feel ashamed and at the same time erotic. When they are not prepared, girls become still more excited at the first appearance of menstruation, and boys at their first seminal emission. The mystery which is made of everything relating to sexual matters is not only a source of anxiety to children, but also excites their curiosity and the first signs of eroticism, so that they generally end by being instructed on the subject by other depraved children, by observing copulation among animals, or by obscene books, in a manner which is certainly not favorable to healthy development. What is still worse is that the child is generally instructed at the same time in masturbation, prostitution, and sometimes even sexual perversion.

The so-called innocence, or naïve ignorance, of an adolescent possesses quite a peculiar charm of attraction for libertines of both sexes, who find a refined erotic pleasure, a unique relish, in the seduction of the innocent, in the role of "initiator in the sexual art." Parents, unfortunately, seldom realize the evil consequences of their passiveness, I will even say cowardice, in making use of subterfuge, pretext and falsehood, to elude the naïve questions of their children concerning sexual matters. I will here quote the opinion of an enlightened mother of a family, Madame Schmid-Jager, an opinion with which I entirely agree:

In neglecting this duty our parents and teachers commit a veritable crime. Does a normal man ever marry without knowing what he is doing? Yet our young girls are kept by their mothers in insensate and often dangerous ignorance of their whole future. Whoever invented this absurd and mischievous idea that a young girl should remain ignorant of her natural functions till the moment when she has bound herself for life to fulfill them? The law punishes persons who cause others to enter into contracts, while intentionally concealing the true conditions. This might almost equally well apply to parents who allow their daughters to marry in ignorance. Some women reply to this that marriage would be too sad and would have little attraction if it were not preceded by any illusion. Certain illusions which are natural to youth may be healthy, but the fantastic dreams which are in evident contradiction with reality, and nearly always followed by disillusion, are bad. A young woman who has always lived in a state of transcendental idealism till her marriage, infallibly courts disappointment, deception and heart-break. A wiser education would often succeed in sparing young women from this sudden and cruel disillusion. The moral level of men would also be raised if their future wives were better instructed in sexual matters, and exacted that the past life of their future husbands should give a better guarantee for the future.

It must, moreover, be understood that blind and obstinate resistance to new ideas serves no purpose. Our manners and customs change in spite of us; our girls will no longer allow themselves to be led blindly, but will seek more and more freedom. Would it not be wiser to take things in time and warn them of the dangers ahead? With incredible carelessness parents send their daughters into service abroad, without considering that they may be at the mercy of the first Don Juan who comes across them, or even fall into the meshes of "white slavery," if they are left to go in ignorance of sexual affairs, as is often the case (vide Chapter X). Moreover, by no longer taking a false and artificial view of life, girls will be more capable of understanding and sympathizing with the misery which surrounds them—the troubles of unfortunate marriages, seduced and abandoned girls, etc. What they lose in illusion they will gain in more useful knowledge.

How are we to begin? We should certainly not wait till the eve of marriage, but begin in childhood. In theory, it is wrong to lie to children, if they are to maintain unshaken confidence in their parents, and remain truthful themselves. No doubt we cannot explain everything to a child at the age when it begins to ask its mother certain embarrassing questions, but we should endeavor as far as possible to tell it the truth in a manner suitable to its age. When this is impossible, every child who knows that no reasonable explanation is ever refused it will be satisfied with the answer: "You are too young now to understand that; I will tell you when you are older." Every child who speaks openly to its mother asks sooner or later how children come into the world. It is easier to reply to this when the child has had the opportunity of observing the same thing in animals. Why should the mother conceal the fact that it is nearly the same in man as in animals? The child never thinks of blushing or laughing at natural phenomena.

The initiation of children into the mechanism of reproduction is best obtained by the study of botany and zoölogy. If no mystery is made of these things in the case of plants and animals, why should not instruction be given in human reproduction? On this point Madame Schmid remarks as follows:

"The father or the master should instruct the boys in this subject, and the mother or mistress the girls. Parents will then be able more easily to abandon their old and absurd prejudices, which they preserve, not so much because they attach any great importance to them, but because they shrink from the difficulty of explaining themselves to their children. We often see mothers, who would never have touched on the question with a child still ignorant of sexual matters, abandon the reserve hitherto observed in their language in the presence of the child, as soon as they perceive that it has become more or less acquainted with sexual phenomena. This is quite characteristic, and what is more so is that these mothers, and often also the fathers, frequently make equivocal jokes on the subject with their children instead of seriously discussing it.

"It is regrettable that so few pedagogues take up these questions, and that the instruction of children on the sexual question is left to the most impure sources—domestic servants, depraved companions, pornographic books, etc. This results in a deplorable estrangement between the children and their parents or masters, which destroys mutual confidence.

"If we wish to contend with sexual perversions acquired at an early age, or the precocious development of an unhealthy sexual appetite, this is not to be effected by prudery or vague moral preaching, but by affection and frankness. In this case, evasive replies, combined with so-called strict morals, only lead to estrangement, dissimulation and hypocrisy, and the result is often irreparable."

Madame Schmid also insists on the necessity of making young girls work and learn some business, so as to render them capable of surviving in the struggle for existence without being obliged to throw themselves at the head of the first man who presents himself, or becoming the prey of prostitution. She also emphasizes the necessity of remunerating the wife for her work as mother and housekeeper, as the husband is remunerated for his work.

It is needless to add that it is quite as necessary to instruct boys as girls in sexual questions. They do not run the risk, like girls, of falling through ignorance into the abject dependence of a forced marriage, and have no pregnancies to fear; but they are more exposed to temptation. When their sexual appetite has been once excited by masturbation or in some other way, it becomes very difficult to put them on the right path; to say nothing of the danger of venereal disease.

I therefore appeal to all fathers and masters in the same way that Madame Schmid appeals to mothers and mistresses Take measures in time and do not wait till the boys are instructed by evil persons of either sex, or till they have already been seduced, thanks to their erotic curiosity. It is generally evil companions who seduce them, but sometimes erotic women.

Exclusiveness in Education. Punishment. Automatism of Parents. Wants of Children.—In the human brain, intelligence and sentiment are intimately connected with one another, and from their combination arise volitions, which in their turn, react more or less strongly on cerebral activity, according to their solidity and duration. It is thus a great mistake to think that we can treat separately, by the aid of theoretical dogmas, the three great domains of the human mind—intelligence, sentiment and will. It is a fundamental error to imagine that the intelligence can be educated only at school, leaving sentiment and will to the parents. But it is still more absurd to attempt to act on sentiment, especially on ethical sentiment, and on the conscience, which is derived directly from sympathy, by moral preaching and punishment. What false conceptions of the human mind lie in these moral sermons, in this theoretical moral teaching, in these punishments and anger! Is it credible that, by the aid of abstract and arid dogmas supported by punishment, conscience and altruistic sentiments can be impressed on the brain of a child, which is only accessible to concrete ideas, to sympathy, affection and amusement? We may see daily, in nearly every family, parents finding fault with their children, in a vexatious, irritated or sorrowful tone of voice, to which the children reply by inattention, or tears, or more often by a repetition of the same tone of irritation. These scoldings pass through the child's mind without leaving any trace of an effect. Such stereotyped scenes produce in the intelligent observer the painful impression of two barrel-organs whose tunes are automatic. If this is the kind of moral teaching which is supposed to act on the child's mind, it is not astonishing that it has futile and even harmful effects. The parents do not appreciate the fact that when scolding their children they are only giving vent to their own bad temper. But the children are well aware of this fact, consciously or not, and react accordingly. The most deplorable thing is that they copy all these bad habits, like monkeys.

True moral teaching, the true way of influencing children for good, lies in the manner of speaking to them, treating them and living with them. Affection, truth, persuasion and perseverance should be manifest in the acts and manners of parents, for these qualities only can awaken sympathy and confidence in the breasts of children. It is not cold moral speech, but warm altruistic feeling, which alone can act as a moral educator of children.

A savant who delivers excellent and erudite lectures to his pupils in a dry and wearisome manner teaches them nothing, or at any rate very little. The students yawn, and are quite right in saying they could learn these things just as well out of a book. A teacher, however, who speaks with animation and knows how to hold the attention of his audience impresses his remarks on their brain. In the former case there is intelligence without feeling, while in the latter case the audience is held by the suggestive and contagious power of enthusiasm. Dry science, at the most, fills the memory, but it leaves "the heart" empty. What does not come from the heart has difficulty in entering the head.

It is precisely in this way that the will must be exercised by perseverance. The child must be made eager for social work; he must be urged to all noble and disinterested actions, without stimulating his emulation by promises of reward, or by punishment.

New Schools.—The object we desire may be attained by a system of education such as that of the new schools (Landerziehungsheime), which were first founded by Reddie in England, afterwards by Lietz in Germany, by Frey and Zuberuübler in Switzerland, and by Contou in France. These institutes have finally realized the ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Owen and Froebel.

For the teacher who understands the psychology of children, it is a true pleasure to witness the teaching at these Landerziehungsheime. The children take a delight in their school and become the comrades of their master. Physical exercise, the development of the powers of reason and judgment, the education of the sentiments and will, are all harmoniously combined. The children are not given the dry text-books of our schools, but made familiar with the works of the great authors and men of genius. Instead of their existence becoming etiolated under the weight of domestic duties, and under the sword of Damocles of examinations, they thrive by living as far as possible among the things they ought to learn. They thus assimilate the object of instruction, which becomes a living and useful part of their personality, instead of becoming encysted in the brain in the form of dead erudition like a foreign body, and filling it with formulæ learnt by heart. Such formulæ are ill-understood by children, and later on it is difficult for them to clear their brains of this indigestible rubbish to make room for the realities of observation and induction. The only punishments at the Landerziehungsheime are those which naturally result from the fault committed.

The pupils and their masters bathe together in a state of nature. The sexual question is treated openly in these schools in a proper, natural and logical way. The open confidence which obtains between masters and pupils, combined with free intellectual and physical work and the absolute exclusion of alcoholic drinks, constitute the best preventive and curative remedy for masturbation, sexual precocity and all perversions which are not hereditary.

It is needless to say that such schools cannot cure a pathological sexual hereditary mneme, whether it consists in perversion, precocity or some other vice. Every boarding school has its drawbacks, on account of the possible influence of mischievous individuals. Nevertheless, no boarding school offers such excellent conditions as the Landerziehungsheime, for as soon as a boy gives evidence of any sexual perversion, this perversion soon becomes well known, thanks to the good sense which prevails in the whole school.[13]

Standard of Human Value in the Child.—Our pedagogy has hitherto not understood the true standard of human value. The social value of a man is composed of two groups of factors; mental and bodily hereditary dispositions, and faculties acquired by education and instruction. Without sufficient hereditary dispositions, all efforts expended in learning a certain subject will generally fail more or less. Without instruction and without exercise, the best hereditary dispositions will become atrophied, or will give indifferent results. But hereditary dispositions not only influence the different domains of knowledge, as the traditional pedagogues of our public schools seem to admit, they also act on all the domains of human life, especially on the mind. Good dispositions in the domains of will, sentiment, judgment, imagination, perseverance, duty, accuracy, self-control, the faculty of thinking logically and distinguishing the true from the false, the faculty of combining æsthetic thoughts and sensations, all constitute human values which are much superior to the faculty of rapid assimilation or receptivity, and a good memory for words and phrases.

Nevertheless these last faculties are almost the only ones which are taken into consideration in our examinations, which decide nearly everything in our schools and universities. Is it to be wondered at that, by the aid of such a false standard, mediocrities whose brains are only the echoes of their masters and those who bow to authority, climb to the highest official positions, and even to most of those positions which are not official?

With a good memory and the gift of rapid comprehension, one can obtain everything, even without the protection of the clergy, freemasonry or any other powerful association or personality (male or female)! If they do not possess these natural secondary gifts, the most capable men, even men of genius, are passed over or only obtain a situation by circuitous routes and great efforts, after much loss of time.

In the Landerziehungsheime, Dr. Hermann-Lietz uses a scale intended to estimate the psychological and social value of the pupils. First of all the results obtained from two standards are measured:

(a) Individual: Does the actual value of work performed by the pupil always correspond to his faculties?

(b) Objective: Is the work very good, good, mediocre or bad, compared with the normal human average?

After this the different domains of psychology and human activity are passed in review, a thing which is quite possible in a school of this kind whose object is to carry out the integral education of man.

1. Bodily results: Health, disease, weight of body, activity, walking, running, swimming, cycling, games, ski, gymnastics.

2. Conduct: Order, cleanliness, punctuality. Conduct outside, etc.

3. Moral and religious results: Conduct toward parents, masters, companions, self and others. Veracity, zeal and sentiment of duty; honesty in the administration of his personal property and that entrusted to him; sentiment of solidarity and disinterestedness. Is the pupil worthy of trust? Is he conscientious? Strength of moral sentiments, moral comprehension and moral will.

4. Intellectual results: Practical work; gardening, agriculture, carpentry, turning, locksmith's work, work in forge. Drawing, writing, elocution, music. Knowledge of literature and human nature, physics, mathematics and natural science.

5. General results: Strength of character, physique and intelligence; faculty of observation, imagination and judgment. Real value of practical work, artistic and scientific.

Measured by such a standard, the human value of a pupil takes quite another character to that judged by the results of examinations. By means of this standard, it is possible to predict with much more certainty what kind of man the child will become. There is no need to add that there are no examinations in these schools, for the whole life is a perpetual examination.

Samuel Smiles, in "Self Help" relates that Swift failed in his examinations, that James Watt (the discoverer of the motive power of steam), Stephenson and Newton were bad pupils, that an Edinburgh professor regarded Walter Scott as a dunce. [The same with Darwin, who says in his autobiography, "When I left the school I was, for my age, neither high nor low in it, and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect."] These examples of the way in which the school of tradition judges human mental value might be multiplied a hundredfold, but they will suffice, especially if we compare them with the future of the distinguished pupils of colleges in practical life. These facts are not due so much to later development, as to the disgust inspired by our system of education in reflective minds which refuse to be overloaded with a heap of dry things learnt by heart, undigested, often hardly comprehensible, or open to contradiction.

It is only on the basis of a just evaluation of man, from all points of view, that we can found a proper human selection.

Coeducation.—It is now beginning to be understood that the coeducation of the two sexes in schools, not only does no harm, but is very advantageous, both from the sexual and the moral points of view. In the universities it is already established. In children's schools and many primary schools it has always existed. It is especially the authorities of secondary schools who have raised opposition.

In the secondary schools in Holland and Italy, as well as in some Swiss gymnasiums, coeducation has been introduced without the least inconvenience; on the contrary, it has led to the best results.

A native of Finland, Miss Maikki Friberg, has lately made an appeal in favor of coeducation based on the excellent results obtained in her country. Some feared that sexual excitement would result; but this is an error, for the custom of daily co-existence of the sexes diminishes the sexual appetite. The forbidden fruit loses its charm as soon as it appears no longer to be forbidden!

It is unnecessary to say that it is not intended that girls and boys should sleep in the same dormitories, nor bathe together in the costume of Adam and Eve! Our remarks do not apply to boarding-schools, but to coeducation in public schools.

When we speak of coeducation, we generally meet with the argument that the nature and vocation of women differ from those of men, and that consequently their education ought to differ. To this I reply as follows: The external objects of the world, the branches of human knowledge, in fact the subjects for study and instruction, are the same for both sexes. It is, therefore, both a useless waste of forces and an injustice to organize an inferior education for women.

Instruction in Coeducation.—A course of instruction as interesting as possible should be organized for each subject, without distinction of sex. This rule should also apply to things which are generally considered as the special province of women; such as sewing, dressmaking, cooking, household work, etc. It will then be the business of each sex to choose the subject most suited to its abilities.

Part of the course of instruction should be obligatory for all, while another part intended for ulterior individual development should be optional, according to individual taste and talent. In the obligatory part of instruction certain subjects might be made obligatory for one sex and optional for the other; sewing and algebra, for instance. In this way each sex could choose the most suitable subjects, as is the case now in universities only.

Danger of Sexual Perversions.—A very important point, unfortunately little understood in sexual pedagogy, is that of congenital sexual perversions. Tradition regards every sexual anomaly as an acquired vice, which should be treated by indignation and punishment. The effects of this manner of looking at the question are disastrous. It gives entirely wrong ideas to youth, and shuts the eyes of parents and teachers to the truth.

It is not without a serious motive that I have described at length the repugnant phenomena of sexual pathology (Chapter VIII). Teachers and parents should be thoroughly acquainted with this subject. But this is not enough, for these phenomena commence in infancy. It is a long time before the child whose sexual appetite is perverted has the least idea that his inclinations and desires are considered by others as abnormal. The psychic irradiations of his abnormal appetite usually constitute the sanctuary of his ideal aspirations and sentiments, the object of obscure hopes and struggles which are opposed to nature and the inclinations of his comrades. This is why he neither understands the world nor himself in this respect. His amorous exaltations are ridiculed, or else they inspire disgust. Anxiety and shame alternate more and more with the perverse aspirations of his mind, which slowly increase. It is only when he arrives at the age of puberty that the pervert understands his exceptional position; he then feels that he is exiled from society, abandoned and without a future. He sees his ideal aspirations mocked by men and regarded as a ridiculous caricature or even as a culpable monstrosity. He is obliged to hide his passions like a criminal. As his character is often weak and impulsive, and is combined with a strong and precocious sexual appetite, he is very easily led astray, especially if he discovers suitable objects for his appetite, or perverted companions like himself.

In this way, in secondary schools, we often find groups of young inverts who succeed by cunning in seducing their friends. The mention of these phenomena, which from time to time give rise to school scandals, should be enough to make any one who is unprejudiced understand the urgency for instructing children betimes in sexual questions. This is a duty which is necessary in the name of hygiene and morality.

It is evident that if parents and masters exchange ideas on this subject with children, freely but decently, they will soon bring to light the sexual nature of the latter. They will discover which girls are cold and indifferent, and which are precociously erotic.

It is needless to say that one should speak and act differently in the two cases. There is no risk in instructing the first on the whole sexual question, but prudence is required with the latter, who should be guarded against anything which stimulates their appetite, by warning them of the dangers of venereal disease, illegitimate children and seduction.

We sometimes meet with young girls of hysterical nature with inverted inclinations, who become enamored of other girls and have a sexual repugnance for men. Occasionally a sadist is discovered.

Among boys we observe analogous differences in the intensity and precocity of the sexual appetite. An attentive observer will frequently discover homosexual appetites in boys, for these are comparatively common. Other perversions, such as sadism, masochism, fetichism and exhibitionism, etc., are more rarely met with. Masturbation is common in both sexes.

The great advantage of such discoveries is that children affected with sexual perversions can be put under special supervision, and above all things kept away from boarding schools, where they are subject to great temptations. An invert in a boarding-school is in reality almost in the same position as a young man who sleeps in the same room as young girls, and no one thinks of the danger.

When perversion is recognized, the subject should not be treated as a criminal, nor even as a vicious individual, but as a patient afflicted with a nervous affection who is thereby dangerous to himself and others. He should be treated and prevented from becoming a center of infection for his surroundings. Inverts should be specially supervised and taken care of till adult age. When they come of age, in my opinion, it would be an innocent idea to allow them to marry persons of their own sex, as they so much desire to do. Normal adults can very well protect themselves against their attentions, when they are warned by sufficient instruction in sexual questions.

The child, on the other hand, has the right to be protected against all contamination by perversion, as against all sexual assault of whatever nature, and it is the duty of society to organize its protection. But this cannot be done unless society is itself instructed on the question, and in a position to give a rational education to youth such as we have sketched above.

If dangerous congenital perversions are discovered, such as sadism and pederosis, energetic measures of protection should be taken; in grave cases, the operations we have spoken of, or permanent internment.

Apart from suggestion, there is no better remedy against masturbation than a system of education such as that in force in the Landerziehungsheime, especially continuous physical labor combined with useful and attractive intellectual occupation. When such a system of education is put in force at an early age, the sexual appetite develops more slowly and more moderately, and has the most favorable influence on the whole sexual life of man.

In speaking of masturbation in Chapter VIII we have seen that it may be the expression of very different conditions, and we should act accordingly.

Eroticism in Childhood.—By giving children betimes the requisite instruction on the sexual question, they are tranquilized. Many boys and girls give themselves up to despair because of the erroneous and terrifying ideas they have of sexual affairs. On the one hand, they hear pornographic remarks which disgust them, while their parents envelop the subject in mystery; on the other hand, their sexual appetites evoke desire and call for satisfaction. When a young man in this state of mind has an emission, either spontaneously or as the result of artificial excitation, he is seized with anxiety and shame, often also with phantoms of disease and moral depravity. He then requires almost heroic resolution to unburden his mind to a doctor or to his father. With nervous subjects, inclined to be melancholic or hypochondriacal, such a state of mind sometimes leads to suicide.

Another advantage in the instruction of children in sexual matters is that the questions of heredity, alcohol and venereal disease can be explained to them at the same time. In giving these explanations it is important not to awaken eroticism in the child by dwelling more than necessary on sexual topics. Instruction in this subject should not be given too frequently; on the contrary, the attention of youth should, as far as possible, be drawn away from sexual questions to other subjects, till the age of maturity.

With the same object, erotic and pornographic literature should be condemned. Unfortunately, many novels and dramas which meet with the approbation of society, thanks to their fashionable or even decent form of presentation, are often full of half-veiled eroticism, which is much more exciting to the sexual appetite than the brutal and realistic descriptions of Zola or Brieux, or even the erotic art of de Maupassant.

A doctor once told me that in his country the country children, who observed copulation among animals, often made similar attempts themselves, while bathing or otherwise. Yet these country-people are no more corrupt or degenerate than the townspeople. Here again, proper instruction and warnings would be the best remedy, especially in the case of girls.

What is to be said, on the contrary, of certain Austrian judges who punish by imprisonment urchins of fourteen, who have copulated with girls of the same age or made them pregnant? Have they punished the real culprit? Do they imagine that they have done anything that will improve these children?

The confession of Catholics plays a deplorable pedagogic part in the sexual domain. We may admit that some high-minded priests may be capable of modifying their interpretation of the prescriptions of Liguori and others which we have cited, and do little or no harm to young people of either sex. It must, however, be recognized—and the most devout Catholic cannot deny it—that priests are only human, and have not all the noble spirit nor the tact to fulfill the ideal required of them in their behavior toward women. This is enough to make the confessional, in many cases, a depraved institution from the sexual point of view. On this subject, I refer the reader to what has already been said in Chapter XII on the experiences of the Canadian reformer, father Chiniqui.

The following instance is very characteristic. A very prudish man, observing children of both sexes bathing together, exclaimed to them indignantly, that this was improper. Thereupon a little boy replied naively: "We do not know which is a boy nor which is a girl, because we have no clothes." This charming reply shows how certain moral intentions are more likely to attract the attention of young people to erotic subjects.

Corporal Punishment and Sadism.—An important fact has recently attracted the attention of the whole world, concerning certain terrible crimes. There is no longer any doubt that in some cases perverted masters and teachers find satisfaction for their sadist sexual appetite in the corporal punishment of children. This was the case with the German teacher, Dippold, who, to satisfy his perverted appetite flogged two children confided to him by their parents, till one of them died.

The Arbeiter Zeitung, of Vienna, a very conscientious journal, published the case of a prince of a small German state, who, whenever a schoolmaster ordered corporal punishment to a pupil, offered to execute it himself. The journal in question attributes with good reason this fantasy to sadism.

Again, many children were at one time belabored with blows for several years by a person who pretended to be a police agent, and who threatened them with prosecution if they complained. One boy more courageous than the others finally gave information, and the affair then ended.

We thus see that sadism does not always manifest itself by assassination. Its less dangerous forms in which pleasure is obtained by blows or some other form of bodily or mental ill-treatment, are no doubt much more common. They constitute a kind of complement to sexual desire in pathological individuals whose appetite is only partly perverted. This fact, which has hitherto not received sufficient attention, gives one more reason for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, for the art of dissimulation and refinement of torture are unlimited in the sexually perverted. A thousand hypocritical pretexts serve to conceal their morbid appetite, and it has been proved by experience that they can succeed for a long time in deceiving even experts in this subject. This was the case with Dippold and many others.

Corporal punishment of schoolboys is only useless and harmful brutality. It is a disgrace to civilization that it is still maintained at a time when the bastinado has been suppressed among convicts.

Protection of Childhood. Child Martyrs.—Children, especially when illegitimate or of another marriage, are often exposed to atrocious treatment in which alcohol and sexual passion, inconvenienced by the presence of the child, play a great part.

I here refer the reader to the last work of Lydia von Wolfring.[14] This author, who has made a special study of the judicial protection of children, makes the following propositions directed against parents and tutors who commit misdemeanors against children or pupils confided to them, or who incite the latter to commit misdemeanors, or who show themselves incapable of protecting them against others who abuse them in the manner indicated (this last condition applies especially to concubines, widows, etc.).

(1). Withdrawal of paternal, maternal or tutelary authority and nomination of another tutor.

(2). Complete withdrawal of children in grave cases.

(3). Nomination of a "co-tutor" in all cases where a husband who survives his wife and has children who are minors, contracts a second marriage or lives in concubinage.

(4). Withdrawal of paternal and sometimes maternal authority from all parents who leave the education of their children to public or private charity, unless compelled to do so by poverty.

Without having a direct bearing on our subject the above propositions contain the elements of an efficacious, though indirect, protection against the abuses committed toward children; for example, when parents urge their children to prostitution. As regards proposition 4, I refer to what I have said in Chapter XIII. While authority over their children is withdrawn, unnatural parents of this kind should be obliged to work for their children's maintenance.

Future Possibilities.—Unfortunately we must admit that the programme of a sexual pedagogy for the future, such as we have sketched here, is very far from being realized. The Landerziehungsheime, which should serve as examples for future state schools are still sparsely distributed, and it seems impossible to carry out universally a rational sexual education, till the state and the public are better informed on the subject and have got rid of their prejudices. This hope appears to be only the reflection of a distant future. In the meantime every one must do his best. Parents, and some masters, can do much by free initiative. It is above all things necessary that young people who are interested in social reforms should not be satisfied with empty phrases, nor "play to the gallery." They should set the example in their own sexual relations, in condemning old customs which are opposed to true natural human ethics; they should show their adherence to sexual reforms by action and example, by raising objections to marriage for money, to the tyranny and formality of marriage, to prostitution, etc.; and they should attempt to put in force a healthy selection and a rational education such as we have indicated above.

FOOTNOTES: