ic in women, earnings of prostitutes, and raids on
houses. Novels that might have been condemned and suppressed a few decades
ago are now listed among "the best sellers." Lectures on sex hygiene and
morals are given widely, over four hundred such lectures having been given
under the auspices of a single society. Fake doctors, while obeying the
letter of new laws, are bolder than ever in some directions and use the
alarm caused by the production of _Damaged Goods_, for example, as a means
of snaring new victims. Generations of silence, enforced by the powerful
influence of social custom, have been suddenly followed by a campaign of
pitiless publicity, sanctioned by eminent men and women, and carried
forward by the agencies of public education that daily reach the largest
number of human beings--namely, the press, the motion picture, and the
stage.

This far-reaching change in the customs of society is fraught with
immediate dangers, because we do not know whether the mere knowledge of
facts concerning sexual processes, vices, and diseases will do a given
individual harm or good. The effect of such information upon any person is
unquestionably determined by his physiological age, by his nervous system,
by the manner and time of the presentation of the subject; above all, by
his will power and the controlling ideals that are acquired along with
scientific facts. As yet, we have not discovered thoroughly trustworthy
pedagogical principles, administrative methods, and printed materials for
public education in matters of sex. So difficult and complicated are the
problems, and so disastrous are mistakes in this field of instruction,
that the home, the church, and the school--the institutions to which young
people should naturally look for truth in all matters, the agencies best
qualified to solve the problems--are extremely cautious and conservative.
While these agencies, which are concerned primarily with the welfare of
the individual, the family, and society, have made some efforts to solve
the problems, and to discover a safe and gradual transition from the old
order to the new, other agencies, concerned primarily with making money,
have rushed in to exploit the new freedom and the universal interest in
matters of sex. This passing of the old order, and the invasion of the new
order before we are prepared for it, constitute the social emergency of
the twentieth century. Great as are the industrial and political
revolutions o