ect of the enlightenment in furnishing
protection against the venereal diseases. It is by this very error
attaching to so much of what is said about the sexual enlightenment,
that attention is readily diverted from a far more important field.
Namely, in moral questions, a child is far more easily influenced by
good example, than by any amount of good instruction by word of mouth.
Example arouses a stimulus towards imitative action, whilst, in
countless cases, the listener has no inclination whatever to do what he
is merely told. This applies even to very little children, who adopt for
themselves the practices they observe in their elders to a far greater
extent than is commonly believed--although, as Bleuler[148] has shown,
in this imitativeness the conceptual life may play a comparatively small
part. If, therefore, from the first the principal stress is laid on
giving a good example, the subsequent sexual enlightenment would be
rendered far easier, and its success to a large extent assured. In a
pure household, it is not so necessary that a child should be fully
enlightened; or rather, the child's enlightenment will be extremely
easy. Conversely in the case of an impure household. Unless the greatest
care is taken that children shall never be exposed to the contagion of
bad example, how readily may it happen, that the child, after it has
received the sexual enlightenment, and has been cautioned against any
kind of obscene talk, is allowed to watch all sorts of improper acts and
to listen to obscenities! Such mischances may occur, not only, as
self-satisfied parents are apt to imagine, through the misconduct of
servants or strangers, but often the members of the child's own family
may be the persons at fault. Adults believe that a child hears nothing,
when in reality it is paying careful attention to that which is not
intended for childish ears, and to that which gives the lie to what the
child has just been told in the form of the sexual enlightenment. And
this may happen without the grown-up persons having made any indiscreet
connected speeches in the child's presence. Various slight indications,
gestures, a stolen laugh, &c., may be interpreted by the child after its
own fashion, which is often one directly conflicting with the sense of
the lesson previously given. How easily may it happen that a boy is
taught that the seduction of a girl is a wicked thing, or a girl is told
that she must never be so ignorant or so stu