The important question will present itself to everyone who realizes the gravity of the dangers which we have now exposed: What practical steps can be taken to secure the truer standard of morality which will remodel the education of youth? This weighty question can only gradually receive a complete answer, as the intelligence of our age awakens to the fact that the attainment of true sexual morality is the fundamental principle of national growth. The first indispensable basis of all efforts for practical reform is the acceptance of a true principle of action. The great guiding principle now laid down is this: that Vice—that is, the illegitimate exercise of the sexual faculty, regardless of religious conscience and the welfare of others—is not essential to the constitution of the human being, but is the result of removable conditions. The importance of this truth is immense. Its acceptance or denial produces two diametrically opposite courses of action—action in education, in society, and in legislation. It is one of those abstract truths which are stronger than all facts, being eternal instead of temporary, moulding practical action instead of depending on it. The belief or denial of this truth may express itself in varying forms, according to the age or country, according to the more or less logical workings of a nation’s mind; but whether clearly recognised in all its bearings, or blindly acted on in a confused and near-sighted way, the results will always follow in the same direction. The acceptance of this truth will always tend to diminish and gradually destroy evil; its denial must inevitably intensify and extend evil.

It is the essential nature of truth or falsehood to express itself in practical action. This tendency is overlooked by the majority of human beings engaged in the eager pursuits of daily life, in business, in household duties, in amusements, and the logical results of false theories are, in practical life, often modified by the happy instincts which blindly turn aside the inevitable tendencies of logical error; but the truth or falsehood always remains as a great permanent force at work from age to age. In considering the means of attaining to a truer practice of morality, therefore, the spread of truth is a first indispensable necessity and condition of future improvement. The great truth to be recognised is the fact that male as well as female purity is a necessary foundation of progressive human society. This important subject must no longer be ignored. The time has come for its acceptance by all experienced men and women. The necessity of upholding one moral standard as the aim to be striven for, must become a fundamental article of religious faith. Above all, Parents must realize the tremendous responsibility which rests upon them to provide for the healthy growth of the principles of sex in their children.

It will be seen, the more closely this subject is investigated, that the thought and action of women as well as men, is indispensable to social regeneration. On women of all classes rests a full measure of responsibility for the present evil condition of sexual relations. No class can throw off this responsibility. Women are equally responsible with men for the deep corruptions of society. This is pre-eminently a parents’ question, affecting the vital interests of the family and the future of children in every relation of life; woman, from her central position in the family as wife and mother, must know how to use her immense influence wisely. To be wise, knowledge of truth is essential, and the adult woman, the centre of home influence, must acquire correct knowledge on every subject that concerns family life. The nature and requirements of men and women is a subject on which a woman needs correct knowledge, not only as a guide to the education of the young child, but as a guide in the various duties of life. A woman is mother always, not only of the infant, but of the growing and grown man. A mother who has been able to secure the friendship of her son as well as her daughter, can exercise a beneficial influence from youth onwards which will be recognised with ceaseless gratitude in later life.[38] The higher influence which women are intended to infuse into sex makes the subject a holy one to the wise mother. She can approach it in moments of sacred confidence with her children with a delicacy and tender earnestness that wounds no natural reserve, but excites a grateful reverence in the youth’s mind. The first falsehood, therefore, that must disappear is the belief that the higher classes of women—the cultivated, the refined, the virtuous—have nothing to do with sexual vice; that they must remain ignorant of facts, and see nothing but what it is pleasant to see. It is on this class of women, perhaps, more than on any other one class of society that its future welfare depends.[39] They are capable of broad views of truth, of insight, of ceaseless devotion to the highest welfare of the race, to God, when once they have learned to know what truth is; when they have realized the actual facts of every-day life and observed the effects of prevalent customs upon women as well as upon men. The task of regenerating society by securing the healthy growth of the faculty of sex in their children being, therefore, laid upon both parents, the indispensable co-operation of the mother in this work is seen more clearly, as the causes of sexual precocity and the triumph of the material nature over love are studied more deeply.

The fact being established that the human being is not designed by Providence to be the slave of passion, what are the causes which produce that disease of licentiousness—as truly disease as drunkenness or opium-eating—which we find to be more completely organized and more audaciously justifying itself than at any previous time, the dangerous peculiarity of the present age being that customs and habits, formerly blindly followed, are now defended or legalized?

We shall find, on considering the influence at work on the human being from childhood upward (laying aside for the moment the question of heredity), obvious sources of corruption that help us to the solution of this difficult problem. ‘The temptations of life’ to which our youth succumb are no fixed things essential to human nature. They vary in every age and country. They are changeable facts, removable evils, perversions of natural tastes. The human race can grow out of license into order, out of prostitution into marriage, out of lust into love, as certainly as typhoid fever can be exterminated by pure water and pure air. It is from childhood that the strong man is moulded gradually into the hero—or the criminal. If the superior standard of morality which is still to be found amongst us, be compared with the customs widely diffused in many other countries, it will be seen how variable the standard of morality is, and how dependent it is on social circumstance—i.e., on removable conditions.[40] These corrupting circumstances of life surround the individual at every stage of growth from youth onwards. They are found in early habits and influences; in mischievous school companions and studies; in vile literature, books, advertisements, pictures; in indecent theatre, ballet, public amusements; in opportunity and temptation; in drink and dissipated companions; in perverted social sentiment, false medical advice, delayed or unhappy marriage—these are the snares which meet the human being, and which may gradually pervert the nature. Now, there is not one of these facts that is an essential part of human nature. There is not one that cannot be changed to good. Each one of the evils above named is an evil to be attacked and vanquished, and the wise method of doing this, is a distinct command and work of practical religion.

The following points bearing on the moral education of childhood and youth must be considered by all parents who are convinced of the saving value of sexual morality—viz., observation of the child during infancy, acquirement of the child’s confidence, selection of young companions, care in the choice of a school and of studies which will not injure the mind, the formation of tastes, outdoor exercise, companionship of brothers and sisters, the choice of physician, social intercourse, and amusements. These various points require careful consideration.

The earliest duty of the parent is to watch over the infant child. Few parents are aware how very early evil habits may be formed, nor how injurious the influence of the nurse often is to the child.[41] The mother’s eye, full of tenderness and respect, must always watch over her children. Self-respect cannot be too early inculcated. The keynote of moral education is respect for the human body. The mother should caution the child plainly not to touch or meddle with himself more than is necessary; that his body is a wonderful and sacred thing, intended for important and noble ends; that it must not be played or trifled with, or in any way injured. Every thoughtless breach of delicacy should be checked with a gentle gravity which will not repel or abash, but impress the child.

This watchfulness over the young child, by day and night, is the first duty to be universally inculcated. Two things are necessary in order to fulfil it—viz., a clear knowledge of the evils to which the child may be exposed, and tact to interpret the faintest indication of danger and to guard from it without allowing the child to be aware of the danger. Evils should never be presented to the young child’s mind. Habits must be formed from earliest infancy, but reasons for those habits should only be given much later. It is the parent’s intelligence which must act for the child during very early life. This unavoidable necessity is, at the same time, a cause of frequent failure in education, for the reason that parents, through ignorance or egotism, fail to see that they must study the nature of the child. The strong adult too often fails in insight, and imposes its own methods and conclusions upon a nature not susceptible of those methods and often not adapted to those conclusions. This is really spiritual tyranny, and destroys the providential relation which should exist between child and adult. The parent should become the first and truest friend of the child. This possibility and duty is a great parents’ privilege, too often unknown, and yet it affects the whole future of the child. It is through the love and confidence that exist between them that durable influence is exerted. If the child naturally confides its little joys and sorrows to the ever-ready and intelligent sympathy of the mother, if it grows up in the habit of turning to this warm and helpful influence, the youth will come as naturally with his experiences and plans to the parent as did the little child; the evils of life, which must be gradually known, will then be encountered with the aid of experience. The form of the relation between parent and child changes, not its essence. The essence of the relationship is trust: the fact that the parent’s presence will always be welcomed by the child; that in work or in play, in infancy or youth, the parent shall be the first natural friend. It is only then that wise, permanent influence can be exerted. It is not dogmatism, nor rigid laws, nor formal instruction, that is needed, but the formative power of loving insight and sympathy. It is only when this providential relation exists that the parent can understand the life of the child and exercise influence without harshness. With every step in life the child’s horizon enlarges, and opportunities of good or temptations to evil increase. The experiences of school-life, the companions selected, the studies pursued, and the books read, introduce the child into the wide world of practical life in miniature. All the circumstances of school-life are of serious importance—an importance not sufficiently realized in their bearing upon character, and in the responsibility which rests with parents themselves, to mould those circumstances. The child’s entrance upon school-life is his first plunge into the great world beyond the family circle, his first serious contact with new thoughts, customs, and standards—with a new code of morality; not the formal morality of his professors, but the confused practical morality of his school companions. Here he may meet with every kind of evil, of which he had previously no conception, carried on in a crude, practical form by those whom he naturally looks up to—his elder companions, who are perhaps rich and clever, and whom he regards as ‘men.’ How is the child strengthened to meet this grand new life, as it seems to him, which entrances him with its novelty, its variety, and its vigour, and which very often produces a feeling of kindly contempt for the narrow home life?

Full confidence between parent and child is necessary in order that all the child is learning may be known. This school world, unlike the larger world, is directly under the possibility of parental control. What parents, as a body, require, the teacher will endeavour to provide. The material arrangements and regulations, as well as the moral tone of any school to which a child is sent, must be considered. It being remembered that the great vices of self-abuse and fornication are the curse of our schools and colleges, all the direct and indirect means must be sought for by which these vices can be as rigidly excluded from our educational establishments as the vice of thieving. School and college sentiment should be trained to regard them as equally dishonourable and unmanly. They must be overcome chiefly by moral means in connection with hygienic arrangements. The views of the principal on the subject of sexual training, the character of assistant-teachers, the water-closet and sleeping arrangements, the amount of outdoor exercise secured, should all be studied by the conscientious parent.

Some direct hygienic instruction and warning, suited to the age of the child, should be given. It is a false and cruel delicacy which ignores the great danger of schools, and sends an innocent child utterly unprepared into a school society where corruption exists. ‘I believe,’ writes an experienced teacher of lads, ‘that ninety-nine hundredths of the immorality that prevails amongst young men originates primarily in ignorance and perverted curiosity.’ He therefore lays down the following practical rules for the hygienic instruction which he deems indispensable: First, that the physiology of sex should be carefully subordinated to general physiology and hygiene, and that it should always be treated comparatively. Secondly, that all instruction and examination should be oral and in class, no text-books being given to the pupils, the utmost simplicity and plainness of speech being employed, and only outline diagrams used as pictorial illustrations.[42]

The rational view of education—viz., the formation of character and the establishment of well-balanced health, as fundamental objects to which other things should be added—require such a revision of our school system as will secure correct physical habits, and, above all, mental purity. This sound basis of education must be insured in all places where children congregate together. Careful arrangements to promote these ends are equally necessary in boys’ and girls’ schools. They promote alike true manliness and true womanliness.

The nature of the studies given to the young and the way in which classical literature is taught require to be considered by parents. The corrupt literature of antiquity tends to corrupt the youthful mind as unavoidably as licentious modern literature. Its bearing on the healthy growth of youth must be considered. The advantages of classical education should be secured without employing works whose tendency is to degrade the young mind. The contrary opinion is the prejudice of custom. Our Catholic brethren have fully recognised the suicidal policy of imbuing unformed minds with licentious literature, and the Church has held more than one General Conference on the subject. No one can doubt the excellence of their scholarship, and it is much to be desired that a careful study of their methods in this respect should be required from all instructors of youth. The impulse to such a change should come from parents.

The dangers arising from vicious literature of any kind cannot be overestimated by parents. Whether sensuality be taught by police reports, or by Greek and Latin literature, by novels, plays, songs, penny papers, or any species of the corrupt literature now sent forth broadcast, and which finds its way into the hands of the young of all classes and both sexes, the danger is equally real. It is storing the susceptible mind of youth with words, images, and suggestions of vice which remain permanently in the mind, springing up day and night in unguarded moments, weakening the power of resistance, and accustoming the thoughts to an atmosphere of vice. No amount of simple caution given by parents or instructors suffices to guard the young mind from the influence of evil literature. It must be remembered that hatred of evil will never be learned by intellectual warning. The permanent and incalculable injury which is done to the young mind by vicious reading is proved by all that we now know about the structure and methods of growth of the human mind. Physiological inquiry is constantly throwing more light upon our mental as well as physical organization. We learn that nutritive changes take place in the human brain by the effect of objects which produce ideas; that permanent traces of these changes continue through life, so that states or changes connected with certain ideas remain stored up in the brain, capable of recall, or presenting themselves in the most unexpected way. We see the importance of the last impressions made on the brain at night, indicating the activity and fixity of the cerebral changes of nutrition during the quiescence of sleep. All that we observe of these processes shows us that different physical changes are produced in the brain by different classes of ideas, and that the moral sense itself may be affected by the constant exercise of the brain in one direction or another, so that the actual individual standard of what is right or what is wrong will be quite changed, according to whether low or high ideas have been constantly recorded in the retentive substance of the brain.

These important facts have a wide and constant bearing on education, showing the really poisonous character of all licentious literature, whether ancient or modern, and its destructive effect on the quality of the brain. It is necessary, therefore, to prepare the young mind to shrink repelled from the debasing literature with which society is flooded, and which is one of the greatest dangers to be encountered. The great help towards this object is the cultivation of strong intellectual and moral tastes in children, the preoccupation of the mind with what is good. Truth should be in the field before falsehood. All children and youth are fascinated by narratives of adventure, endurance, heroism, and noble deeds. The home library should be selected in order to brace the mind and character, and enlist the interest of the child or youth in what is manly and true. Every child also has some special taste or tendency which can be found out, if carefully looked for. It may be for art, for science, for construction, for investigation, adventure, or beneficence; but whatever it be, it may be made the means of intellectual and moral growth. The special youthful tendency is of extreme value, as indicating the direction in which a taste, even if slightly marked, may be cultivated into a serious interest and become a powerful help in the formation of character. The study of natural science and of all pursuits which develop a love and observation of Nature are of great value in education. Such pursuits have the additional advantage of promoting life in the open air. The weighty testimony in favour of the beneficial influence of outdoor exercises and amusements has already been noted. All experience shows us that the calling of the great muscular apparatus of the human body into constant vigorous life is an indispensable means for securing the healthy, well-balanced growth of the frame, and for preventing the premature development of the sexual faculty. It is a subject worthy of the especial study of parents in relation to the education of both sexes. Abundant exercise in the fresh air, with total abstinence from alcoholic drink, may be considered the two great physical aids to morality in youth.

The companions chosen by the child at school or the youth at college are of extreme importance to the growth of character, and the exercise of influence over this choice, without interfering with the freedom of the child, is one of the greatest aids that a parent can render it. The intimacy between those who are entering upon life together, and who have the same future before them, must necessarily increase and become a great fact in the young life; but it is essential that the parent should know who these companions are, and the character of the influence that will be exerted. If the parent be the friend of his child, he can also be the friend of his friend. Tact and sympathy are of the utmost value in welcoming and attracting the youthful friends, and the wise parental care thus exercised towards offspring, extends necessarily beyond the individual home.

The attention of the parent must always be ready to observe the signs of growing sex in sons as well as daughters. Numberless indications, which none but the mother can note, warn her of that approaching crisis of early manhood, now so fatal to our youth. No wise mother observes this change without a deepening of respect and tenderness, and of infinite maternal yearning to strengthen, guide, and ennoble her man-child. At this epoch is often thrown upon her an immense responsibility—a responsibility so grave that it may involve the ruin or salvation of her son—viz., the choice of his physician. The importance of this choice cannot be over-estimated by the parent. The young are easily alarmed about their health; they are at the same time utterly unable to judge of their own condition; they have no knowledge to guide them, no experience by which to measure their symptoms. They place absolute confidence in their medical adviser; his opinion and advice outweigh all other considerations and supersede all other counsel. The parent must therefore realize that when a physician is selected for the growing lad, an authority is placed over him which may become stronger than the parental influence, and be henceforth the most powerful support or antagonist in the moral as well as physical guidance of the son.

If medical science were a positive science, as is mathematics, and its professors able to apply its principles to daily life with the certainty of geometrical propositions, it would be folly to do otherwise than accept any medical opinion of established authority with entire confidence. This, however, is not the case, and the members of the medical profession would themselves be the last persons to lay claim to the possession of absolute truth. As centuries roll on, one medical school of opinion succeeds another, and theory after theory is exploded by accumulating facts. It is therefore no new thing and no subject of reproach to the self-sacrificing members of a noble profession, that different opinions should exist amongst them, in relation to subjects which affect that complex problem—human life. Indeed, it would be an exception to a general rule did not such difference exist. But we are now considering a subject so fundamental in human welfare, so much wider than any class interest, that any variety of opinion respecting it, is of vital importance to be noted, and must be recognised by all intelligent persons. It must therefore be thoroughly understood by all parents that there are now two distinct classes of medical opinion existing amongst physicians. Each class embraces men of high medical repute, but men who hold diametrically opposite views in relation to the guidance of the sexual powers, the one class considering Virtue, the other Vice, a necessity. Each class of physicians is honest in opinion, clear-sighted, wishing well to society; but the one class is far-sighted, the other near-sighted; the one knows the omnipotence of Good, the other sees the triumph of Evil. This diversity of opinion cannot remain as an abstract proposition, but, like all opinion, it expresses itself in action. In medical advice given to a youth, the slightest bias in one or another direction at the starting-point of life will set him on one of two paths constantly diverging to the right or wrong. One path leads to self-control, enlarged mental and physical hygiene, chastity; the other to doubt, yielding, fornication.

At this period of life, no uncertain advice should be given by the physician. Support and guidance are required from him, and his counsel must be strong, positive, and clear. The patient must be taught that chastity, properly understood, is health. He must learn that the indications of sex in early manhood are a notice that the new faculties must be restrained—not exercised; that they give a warning to guard against self-abuse and abuse of the other sex; that the great danger to be dreaded is stimulation; that everything that can excite, whether external or internal, must be studiously avoided. The vital fact must be announced and powerfully brought home to him—that if he will keep the mind pure, Nature will keep the body healthy. This mental strength is his one great concern, to be secured in every possible way. There must be no doubt in medical advice; it must ring like the words of true science spoken by our distinguished surgeon to his students:[43] ‘Many of your patients will ask you about sexual intercourse, and some will expect you to prescribe fornication. I would just as soon prescribe theft or lying or anything else that God has forbidden.... Chastity does no harm to mind or body; its discipline is excellent; marriage can be safely waited for, and among the many nervous and hypochondriacal patients who have talked to me about fornication, I have never heard one say that he was better or happier for it.’[44] The radical importance of the medical advice given to youth will therefore be evident to all parents who perceive the full bearing of the truths contained in the preceding pages. No lesser consideration, no false feeling of reserve, should ever prevent the parent from knowing to which class of physicians the medical guidance of his son be intrusted.

An invaluable provision for the education of the principle of sex, exists in the companionship of brothers and sisters. This companionship, established by Nature, should be carefully promoted, not thwarted. It is one of those provisions which make family life the type of wider relationships, the true germ of society from which national purity and strength should grow. Indeed, the more we study the capabilities of the family in each of its varied aspects, the more potent we perceive its influence to be, the greater the national importance of maintaining the family in its proper power and dignity. This natural grouping of boys and girls is Nature’s indication of the right method of education, and the time will undoubtedly come when the present monastic system of general education may be given up without incurring grave disadvantages. That the familiar intercourse of boys and girls in the kindly presence of their elders is of very great advantage is an observation based upon wide experience. Isolation, mystery, obstacles, produce craving curiosity, excitement—in fact, morbid stimulus—instead of matter-of-fact acquaintance and natural familiarity. Two opposite extremes tend to produce the precocity and morbid condition of sentiment which now prevail—viz., either throwing youth into the companionship of the vicious or rigidly separating the sexes. Each extreme is against Nature, each is injurious to the individual. The former practice is based upon the theory that sex is an uncontrollable instinct which must run riot. The latter practice proceeds from the theory that sex is a great evil, a temptation of the devil, and as far as possible to be destroyed. The true principle, however, consists in a recognition of the nobility of sex, and the necessity—1st, of its slow development; 2nd, of its honourable satisfaction.

Now, in the young and growing nature, sex may be richly satisfied by spiritual refreshment and refined companionship. Conjugal relations are not necessary to the very young in attaining true delight in sex. On the contrary, false relations are an outrage. They violently destroy the gradual unfolding of mental and physical joys, which alone produces exquisite and lasting delight. A large amount of honourable companionship between young men and women is of the utmost advantage in strengthening and ennobling young manhood and womanhood. This valuable result is only possible, however, as springing from the practice of chastity; in connection with fornication it is impossible. Parents are now justly afraid of the influences that may be brought to bear on their children. Nevertheless, abundant honourable companionship between the sexes is an important principle of future reform. Provide the necessary condition of adult sympathy and influence, and the wider the range of acquaintance can be made between boys and girls, between uncorrupted young men and women, the better, the more valuable, will be the results of such acquaintance. The possibility and practice of natural familiar acquaintance between unmarried young men and women in any society may be considered a test of the healthy human condition of such society. Any society where it is considered necessary to keep young people rigidly apart is a corrupt society, based upon principles of national degeneracy instead of natural development.

The companionship of brothers and sisters is now early falsified by the failure of parents to perceive its inestimable value, by separation in studies and amusements, by false theories or corrupt habits, through the influence of which the tie is weakened or perverted. The friendship and affection, however, of these natural associates should be sedulously promoted by companionship in studies, in music, in outdoor pursuits and amusements. Into a family circle where brothers and sisters were friends and companions, other boys and girls, other young men and women, would naturally enter, the ennobling educational influence would extend indefinitely, and those genuine sympathies which should lead to marriage union, would gradually display themselves.

There is peculiar value in the influence of sisters. It is a special mission of young women to make virtue lovely. As the mother realizes all that such a high calling implies, as she fully understands the meaning of Virtue—as distinguished from Innocence—and the methods of clothing it in loveliness, the more she will perceive the noble character of a daughter’s influence and its vital importance. In this aspect small things become great through their uses. The principles of dress become worthy of study; health, grace, liveliness and serenity, sympathy, intelligence, conversational ability, accomplishments, receive a new meaning—a consecration to the welfare of the human race. To make brothers love virtue, to make all men love purity, through its incarnation in virtuous daughters, is a grand work to accomplish! The failure of young women in any country, to embody the beauty and strength of virtue is one of the most serious evils that can befall a State. The necessity of cultivating mental purity and respect for the principle of sex exists as strongly in relation to girls as to boys, and it is only by securing this mental purity that young women will unconsciously address themselves to the higher rather than to the lower instincts of their male companions.

The family home, carrying on its proper work, is no narrow circle of selfish exclusiveness, but a living centre, attracting to itself and widely radiating healthy social life. The moral influence of parents, and particularly of the mother, as the centre of the household, extends itself in two opposite directions—viz., in intercourse with the poorer classes, through servants, tradespeople, benevolence, etc.; with the richer, through social intercourse with equals. In both directions, her influence will exert a direct bearing upon the moral education of the young. The first and most important connection with the poorer classes is through domestic servants. It is essential, from the outset of family life, to select servants who will not injure the atmosphere of home. The difficulty of doing this should be a warning voice to every parent, and compel a careful search into the cause of this great and growing difficulty. What does it mean—a widespread corruption through the foundation of society, through the ranks of working women, so that virtue, truth, fidelity, are hard to find? If so, what are the causes, and what will be the influence exerted on the children of the family, both at home and when they go out into the world, and are thrown into unavoidable intercourse with this class of women? The more carefully this problem is considered, the more intimate will the relations of rich and poor be seen to be, the more vital their relations in respect to the great question of morality, the more imperative the duty of every mother to take a personal interest in her servants, to exert an ennobling influence upon them, and to consider the children of her poorer neighbours as well as her own, if only for the sake of her own children. The family is a centre of affection, and every servant should share in this life. It is wrong to retain a young servant in a household without entering into her joys and sorrows, being acquainted with her family and friends, providing her with honourable amusements, and helping her to grow. In connection with this branch of our subject there are two important principles that should be acted on by intelligent women. The first is the necessity of educating the sentiment of sex in girls into a self-controlling force, conscious of the weighty responsibility which its great influence involves. The second principle is the resolute abolition of an outcast class of women. Christian civilization can acknowledge no pariah class, but only erring individuals of either sex to be helped to a nobler life.

Equally important is the influence exerted by parents as members of society on their own class, thus helping to form public opinion, which is the foundation of law as well as custom. The moral tone of general society at present is a source of great injury to the young. The wilful ignoring of right and wrong in sex; the theory that it is a subject not to be considered; the custom of allowing riches, talents, agreeable manners, to atone for any amount of moral corruption; the arrangement of marriage on a commercial basis, material, not spiritual, considerations being of chief importance; and the deplorable delay of marriage in men until the period of maximum physical vigour is past—all contribute inevitably to the formation of a corrupt social atmosphere, equally injurious to the moral health of men and women. The purest family influence contends with difficulty against this general corruption. After the period of childhood, society becomes a powerful educator of young men and women. The seductions exercised by women and by men bear upon our youth of both sexes in various ways, under widely different aspects, but always with the same degrading tendencies, with the same unequal contest between inexperienced innocence and practised vice. Seeing how the highest aims of parental education are constantly shipwrecked by the influence of society, it becomes a necessity on the part of parents to change the tone of society. In this great work women quite as much as men must think and act. Two fundamental principles must be steadily held in view in this great aim: First, the discouragement of licentiousness; second, the promotion of early marriage. The methods of discouraging licentiousness in society require the gravest consideration of all parents, and emphatically of all married women. It is a subject so delicate, and yet so vital, that it must be treated with equal care and firmness, and the problem can only be solved by combined action. To admit men or women of licentious lives or impure inclinations to the home circle, or to receive them with welcome honour or cordiality in society, is a direct encouragement to vice and an equal discouragement to virtue.[45] Confirmed Vice must not be brought into intimate relations with young Virtue. It is a crime, a stupidity, to do so. On the other hand, no inquisitorial investigation of private life is desirable or permissible. A great duty also exists towards the erring and the vicious, towards all those who have oftentimes fallen into vice rather than voluntarily chosen it, who are the victims of circumstances, of gradual unforeseen deterioration. These fellow-beings demand the tenderest pity, the strongest sympathy, the wisest help. Clever or frivolous, unstable or hardened, charming or repellent, they are still precious human creatures, and the insight of large sympathy—that most powerful influence which Providence has intrusted to us—should be extended to all; but such sympathy can only be exerted by the experienced, the strong, and the right way of doing this must be sought for. One duty is perfectly clear: No persons of acknowledged licentious life should be admitted to the intimacy of home; no such persons should be welcomed with honour in society, no matter what lower material or intellectual advantages may be possessed. Their acquaintance is even more to be dreaded for sons than for daughters. The corrupt conversation so general amongst immoral men is a source of great evil to the young. As the perusal of licentious books marks the first step in mental degradation, vicious talk is often the second decided advance downward.

The moral meanness of enslavement to passion, of selfish disregard to one’s weaker fellow-creatures exhibited by the profligate, should always be recognised by the parent. Consent should never be given to the union of an innocent child with a profligate. This plain dictate of parental love, this evident duty of the experienced and virtuous to the young and innocent, is strangely disregarded. Material advantages in such cases are allowed to outweigh all other considerations. Parents fail to recognise that the only source of permanent happiness must arise from within, from spiritual qualifications; they fail to recognise the inevitable effect of a corrupt nature upon a fresh young creature linked to it in the closest companionship. Thus, in the most solemn crisis of human life, the parent may betray the child. It is not only the individual child that is betrayed, but the rising generation also. On a previous page, the numerous external corrupting circumstances have been mentioned which gradually degrade the individual, but the subject of inherited qualities, of the inherited tendency to sensuality, was not then dwelt upon. The transmission of this tendency in a race is, however, a weighty fact, which must be distinctly noted in this connection. Change in the tendencies of a race can only be slowly wrought out in the course of generations. A most important step in this direction is the union of virtuous daughters with men of upright—or in the present day, it may be said, of heroic—moral life. The effect upon offspring produced by the noble and intense love of one man for one woman, with resulting circumstances, would in the course of generations produce an hereditary tendency to virtue instead of to sensuality. The known resolve of parents never to consent to the union of their children with men of licentious habits would of itself prove a valuable aid in regenerating society. Honour to virtue, expressed in this sacred and at the same time most practical manner, would be an encouragement, a reward, an incitement to all that is noblest in human nature; it would be a standard to guide youth, a real disinfectant of corrupt society.

The second principle to be kept steadily in view is the encouragement of early marriage. A statesman, writing a generation ago on the causes in the past, which have contributed to the prosperity of England, says: ‘The lower and working classes are an early and universally marrying people; this sacred habit is one which, while it has secured the virtue and promoted the happiness of the country, has multiplied its means and extended its power, and constituted Britain the most powerful and prosperous Empire of the world.’[46] A quaint old writer has said: ‘The forbidding to marry is the doctrine of devils.’ The universal testimony of experience may be summed up in the words of Montesquieu: ‘Who can be silent when the sexes, corrupting each other even by the natural sensations themselves, fly from a union that ought to make them better, to live in that that always renders them worse? It is a rule drawn from nature, that the more the number of marriages is diminished, the more corrupt are those who have entered into that state; the fewer married men, the less fidelity is there in marriage.’ All short-sighted Governments that impose unnatural restrictions upon marriage are compelled, by the increase of bastardy and its attendant evils, to repeal such restrictions. Grohman, speaking of the causes of the present immorality of the Tyrolese, says: ‘Very lately only has the Austrian Government annulled the law which compelled a man desirous of marriage to prove a certain income, and, further, to be the owner of a house or homestead of some kind, before the license was granted. Next in importance is the lax way in which the Church deals with licentious misconduct, it being in her eyes a minor iniquity expiated by confession.’ The obstacles to marriage in the military German Empire must be regarded as one of the causes of that moral corruption which we now observe in a country once so distinguished for home virtues—a corruption which threatens to shake the foundations of the great German race.

Early marriage, however, without previous habits of self-control, is unavailing to raise the tone of society. Marriage is no cure for diseased sex, and early licentiousness is really (as has been shown) disease. In those parts of the Continent where the lowest sexual morality exists, marriage is regarded as the opportunity for constant and unlimited license. The young man, therefore, is not allowed to marry (by the law of social custom) until he is over thirty years of age. If his health has been impaired by licentiousness, he is enjoined to resort less frequently to prostitutes, or to take a mistress; but marriage is positively forbidden by his medical advisers and discouraged by his relations. By the age of thirty his health is either completely broken down, and marriage, therefore, out of the question, or, having passed the most dangerous age of passion without breaking down, it is judged that his physical health will hold out under the opportunities of married life. The result of this system is inevitable. Marriage, being regarded as the legalization of uncontrolled passion, is so exercised until satiety ensues. Satiety is the inevitable boundary of all simply material enjoyments. Self-control being entirely wanting, the spiritual possibilities of marriage are unknown; social duty in respect to sex is a vague dream, not a reality. Physical satiety can only be met by variety; hence universal infidelity—destruction of the highest ends of marriage, the dethronement of the mother, the deterioration of the father, and the failure of the family influence as the first element in the growth of the nation.

The same important truth is exemplified in the social condition of our great Indian Empire. There the custom of early, even infantine, marriage co-exists with a licentiousness truly appalling in its strength and character.[47] Lads of sixteen, thoroughly corrupted in childhood, become the fathers of a degenerate race, the girl-mothers being the hopeless slaves of simple physical instincts. Early marriage is the safeguard of society only when the self-control of chastity exists, a self-government which is essential to the formation of manly character as well as conducive to vigorous health. With the acceptance of this essential condition, the aim of all wise parents will be to secure for their children the great blessing of early marriage, to provide for them opportunities of choice, and to promote the design of Providence that the young man and young woman suited to each other shall together gain the wider experience of life.

This proposition is always met by a host of social difficulties which perplex the inquirer, and finally quiet the conscience of society into a passive acquiescence in evil customs. These difficulties, however, must be met and overcome. It is cowardly not to face them, and weak not to vanquish them. Wise early marriage is the natural and true way out of disorder and license into the providential order of human existence. The first condition of improvement is to accept this plan as a living faith, not an abstract ideal; to consider how difficulties can be removed, not be cowed by them; and to study the possibilities, not the impossibilities. It leads to diametrically opposite practical action, whether we dwell upon the advantages of a certain course of life and strive in every way to attain it, or whether we lose ourselves in doubts and discouragements. ‘Put your shoulder to the wheel, and call upon Hercules to help,’ is the only true plan now, as in the days of Æsop. It is a matter of every-day experience that if we resolutely determine to do a thing, and steadily apply the common-sense and intelligence (the germs of which exist in every human being) to its accomplishment, success will follow.

The difficulties urged are the foolishness of first love; the impossibility of providing for a family; the craving for wild adventure, excitement, change. These are the spectres which bar the entrance to the right way of life. But such arguments are all false. They are founded on the sandy basis of removable conditions—on false methods of education, narrow family exclusiveness, on lack of self-control, vicious customs, and perverted tastes. All sound argument, based on the permanent facts of human nature, enjoins us to provide for early marriage as the basis of social good. The young man accustomed from boyhood to mix freely with young women under honourable conditions, is no longer bewildered by the first woman he meets, whilst the free, friendly companionship, secured by the family circle with its wide connections, has supplied a want that his growing nature craves; his taste and judgment have grown and strengthened, and he is no longer the victim of baseless fantasies. Accustomed to free association with young women of his own class, he is able at an early age to know his own mind and make a wise selection of his future partner. To the young woman an early marriage is the natural course of life; to this end she tends, and, consciously or unconsciously, prepares herself to secure it according to the requirements of society. Her unperverted taste is for the young man a little older than herself—a companion she can admire, respect, and, love—but still a companion, not a father. If taught by the silent though still powerful voice of society that harmony of character, of aims, of temperament—i.e., mental attraction—is the indispensable foundation of great and lasting happiness in marriage; that material advantages are secondary to this unspeakable blessing; that thrift, knowledge of household economy, power of creating an attractive home, are essential to the attainment of this great good, then her instincts, by an inevitable law of nature, will tend to the acquirement of these qualifications. If, on the contrary, she feels, through the influence of society (still unexpressed), that physical effects are the things chiefly sought for, that physical charm or the power exercised by corporeal sex is the chief or only possession that draws attention to her, then, by the same inevitable law, she will strive to exercise this physical power, and the means of doing so will become the all-absorbing occupation of an ever-increasing number of young women. As already stated, the direct result of the mastery of young men by irresistible physical instinct will be to create a necessity in young women for dress which will bring physical attractions into prominence or supply their deficiency. The craving for riches and luxury, the ignorance of economy, so often urged as an obstacle to marriage, are the inevitable results of licentiousness, which strengthens and cultivates exclusively material desires and necessities. Children should look forward to beginning life as simply as their parents began it, but with the added advantages of education. It is a totally false principle that they should expect to begin where their parents left off. Filial honour for their parents’ lives and inherited vigour would alike lead them to commence life with extreme simplicity. The power of rendering such simplicity attractive would prove that they had acquired the refinement and breadth of view which is the result of true culture instead of being enervated by luxury. They would thus, whilst beginning life as did their parents, begin it, nevertheless, from a vantage-ground, the result of their parents’ labours. Each generation would thus make a solid gain in life instead of encountering the destructive results which always attend the strife for material luxury.

There are many important points bearing on this vital question of early marriage—such as the exercise of self-control in married life and the teaching of sound physiology, which is needed to reconcile marriage with foresight—whose discussion would be out of place in the present essay. But that the topic must be thoroughly and wisely considered by parents resolved to aid one another in securing this inevitable reform, is certain. The increasing tendency to delay marriage is so serious an evil, that methods for checking this tendency must be found if our worth as a nation is to continue. The early and solemn betrothal of young people is an old custom now fallen into disuse. The possibility of its readoption as a beneficial social practice, with its duration, duties, and privileges, is worthy of serious consideration.

We have seen that the careful guidance of youth in relation to the faculty of sex, an improvement in the tone of society, and provision for early marriage, are fundamental points which should engage the earnest thought of every mother. It would be, however, a most serious mistake to suppose that the methods of carrying out these principles devolve upon the mother only. It is too frequently the case that the father, absorbed in outdoor pursuits, regards the indoor life as exclusively the business of his wife, and takes little or no part in the education of his children; but no true home can ever be formed without the mutual aid of father and mother. The division of labour may be different, but the joint influence should ever be felt in this closest of partnerships. As the wise wife is the most trusty confidant of the general business life of the husband, so he is the natural counsellor and support in all that concerns the occupations, amusements, society, and influence of his home. No home can be a happy one, if the father’s keenest interest and enjoyment do not centre in his family life. There are, however, special duties to the family required from the father, owing to his position as a citizen, and these hold an intimate relation to the future of his children. A large view of home duty must necessarily lead to a fulfilment of citizen duty. There are few men who, in their special business or occupation, do not possess large opportunities for encouraging a nobler idea respecting the relations of men and women than now prevails; few who cannot show their respect for virtue and in some way discourage vice. Men, not only as fathers, but as educators of youth—clergymen, physicians, employers of labour—hold an immense power in their hands for raising the tone of a community into which their sons and daughters must soon enter, and through the ceaseless temptations of which the effects of the most careful family education may be destroyed. No occupation can stand isolated from the rest of life; the interlinkings are innumerable. The man who throws a temptation in the way of a weaker neighbour, or ignores the struggles of his dependents, or fails to speak the encouraging word to those whom he influences, may be placing a pitfall in the way of his own son and daughter.

A mighty power which fathers hold in trust for the future of their children, is the character of the legislation which they establish or sanction. It is almost inconceivable how intelligent and well-meaning individuals, knowing the weakness of human nature and its inevitable growth towards good or evil through circumstances, can fail to see the immense moral bearing of legislation. The laws of a country are powerful educators of the rising generation. They reach all classes; their influence is a national one, silently exercising a never-ceasing effect on the community. Every new act of legislation is a power which will work much more strongly upon the young than the old. The adult who makes the law has grown up to complete manhood under other influences; he is moulded by the laws of a previous generation, and no new legislative action can change his fixed character. It is the young and unformed who will grow in the direction made easiest to them by our laws. Whether the subject of legislation be the increase of standing armies, the promotion of the liquor traffic, the regulation of factory labour, the arrangement of national education, or the establishment of railways—these subjects affect the moral condition of a people. It would be difficult to find a subject of legislation which has not some moral issue, more or less directly connected with it, and which will not influence the rising generation more powerfully than the generation that establishes the law. Legislation, therefore, has an inevitable and most important bearing upon the welfare of the family, and must be considered in relation to its effect upon the youth of the nation. Every mother has a right to ask this from the legislators of a country. No parental legislator should ever lose sight of the central family point of view in legislation—viz., How can good conquer evil? How can it be made easier for children to grow up virtuous than vicious?

The power of the human race to place itself under any restrictions which its welfare requires, has already been shown in the control which society exercises over the intense craving of hunger. Strong as the faculty of sex is, its abnegation does not destroy the individual as does starvation from lack of food. This instinct, therefore, cannot be considered more imperative than that of hunger; it must be as susceptible of restraint. Indeed, the relations of sex have already been placed under a certain amount of restriction by both law and custom, only these restrictions are not nearly of such severity or universal application as those which govern the instinct of hunger, showing that the human race, in their present stage of development, have not felt that it was such a pressing question. Society has not hitherto recognised such restraint as essential to its own existence and welfare. This conviction, however, is now awakened, and when once established, it will be found that the dominion of law is as powerful in one direction as in the other. Every great question of society is a necessary subject of legislation. The necessity of protecting property and the ability to do so, even against the terrible power of slow starvation, is shown by every civilized nation. This experience conclusively proves that chastity also may be protected by legislation, as soon as the growing common-sense of a community awakes to the fact that it also is a property—the most valuable property that a great nation can possess—and that licentiousness is a growing evil that may be checked by legislation. The true principle to be held to, in legislating for the evils that afflict society, cannot be too often insisted on. In legislating for any evil, it is necessary to seek out the deepest source of the evil, and check that source. Attention must not be limited to the effects of the evil. This is eminently true of all legislation which deals with the evils caused by licentiousness—a branch of legislation which, more than any other, has a direct and powerful bearing upon the welfare of the family.

The subject of licentiousness is justly attracting the attention of legislators of the present day to an extent which has never been witnessed before. This is a sign of dawning promise, for the worst condition of a nation is that where gross evils remain uncared for. This great evil has crept on uncared for, or referred to with hushed breath, until it bids fair to ruin our most valued institutions. Legislation has broken the spell, and will continue its work until it has aroused the conscience of the nation. The execution of wise measures can only be secured by the support of an enlightened, conscientious community. No legislation can be efficient which does not represent the best average sentiment of the country. In regard to this great question, no wise legislation is possible for any evil of licentiousness until the subject has been thoroughly considered by those who are most keenly interested in it—viz., the fathers and mothers of the nation. No specialists, of whatever class, can suggest wise measures, as specialists, in a matter which so intimately concerns the family. Only a large view of what is needed for the purity and dignity of the family, for the good of its children, for its influence in society, can secure wise laws. Anything which tends to encourage the lowest passions of human nature, either by the acceptance of base customs, by the legalization of vice, or by fostering in any other way the animal tendencies of men, must produce hereditary as well as social effects on daughters as well as sons. Customs and institutions which injure the character of women, which weaken their virtue and crush out the germs of higher life, must be the source of deadliest evil to any nation. It behoves the legislators of the present generation to be careful in their social and legal sanction of vice amongst males, lest they be blindly undermining the whole social fabric, amongst women as well as men, in a way which they would least wish to do, if they knew what they were doing.

The first step towards the moral education of the youth of a nation is a clear perception on the part of parents of the true aim of education, with the individual action to which such perception leads. The second step is combination—i.e., the determination to secure this end by the strength of union. It is true that individual efforts are the foundation on which any power must rest that wishes to lift society to a higher level, and we find at present innumerable individuals keenly alive to the evils in which we are involved, and earnest in seeking a remedy. There are very many families where father and mother work together with unwearied effort to ennoble home life, but these individual efforts, these aspirations and patient endeavours, although indispensable as a foundation, are isolated and scattered; they are continually overpowered by the evil influences existing outside the family. Organized effort is needed—resolute and united action—to meet the organized dangers of the present age. The condensed review in the preceding pages of the causes which produce the present low or diseased condition of the humanizing principle of sex, indicates the immense range of subjects which its consideration and guidance involve. No isolated individual, no single family, can work out for itself a solution of the present problem, or command the means for securing the moral welfare of the most cherished child. Change in the conditions of life may be wrought by united effort; it cannot be attained by isolated effort. When we consider the innumerable objects for which strength is gained by association, and that this rational principle is constantly extending its operation in the present age, it is evident that any strong leading principle capable of enlisting devotion and steady enthusiasm affords sound basis for combination and organization. Such a leading principle is found in the clear conviction of the nobility of the spiritual principle of sex in the human being, the binding obligation of one moral law for all, and the regenerating power of this law upon the human race. It is a principle capable of enlisting religious devotion and embodying itself in the most valuable practical action. Methods of combination inspired by this principle are clearly conceivable which would be susceptible of the widest application. Indications of such combination are already visible, and these must constantly extend themselves as this great idea of the present age—the true view of Sex—grows into complete development.

All existing efforts which tend to destroy the causes of licentiousness—such as temperance, increase of occupation and wages for women, improvement of poor dwellings, facilities for rational amusement, the abolition of enforced celibacy, and the regeneration of the army—demand and should receive the special recognition and aid of parents. These movements are all invaluable and cannot be too actively supported, being founded on true principles of growth; but something more is needed—viz., distinct open acknowledgment of the fundamental principle here laid down, and organization growing out of it. In this work the natural leader of a nation is the Church—i.e., that great body of all religious teachers and persons who believe that man cannot live by bread alone, but that the Divine instinct that urges him onwards and upwards must be expressed in the forms of our daily life. When the Church recognises that one of its difficult but glorious duties is to teach men how to carry out religious principles in practical life, it will perceive that the foundation of all righteous life is reverence for the noble human principle of sex. It will no longer shrink from enforcing this regenerating principle. The undue proportion of thought and effort now given to forms and ceremonies, to metaphysical disquisitions and subtle distinctions, will then give place to earnest united efforts to enable men to lead righteous lives. No Church performs its duty to the young that fails to raise this fundamental subject of sex into its proper human level. It is bound to rouse every young man and woman of its congregation to the perception that respect for the principle of sex, with fidelity to purity, is a fundamental condition of religious life.

The truths which have been set forth in the preceding pages may be briefly summed up in the following propositions—viz: