k.
[52] Emerson, _Education_, p. 38. Riverside Monograph Series.
[53] Henry Bryan Binns, _Abraham Lincoln_, p. 356.
[54] Charles Kingsley, _The Roman and the Teuton_, p. 46.
[55] Winfield S. Hall, M.D., _From Youth into Manhood_, p. 32. Association
Press, New York.
[56] Hall, _Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene._
[57] From an investigation conducted by Dr. Winfield S. Hall.
[58] "A Social Emergency," First Annual Report of the Social Hygiene
Society of Portland, Oregon, and the Bulletin of the Oregon Social Hygiene
Society, vol. I, no. I.
CHAPTER X
TEACHING PHASES: FOR GIRLS
_By Bertha Stuart_
The normality of the reaction to sex knowledge depends upon the physical
and mental training of the child. Our thoughts concerning girls run in
fixed grooves. We believe that, in babyhood, instinct leads them to prefer
dolls to their brothers' guns and a little later renders them less active
physically and more gentle and tractable mentally. Because of this
supposed difference in instincts and because of a well-defined picture in
our own minds of the final product we wish to evolve, we build a structure
externally fair, but lacking the foundation to enable it to resist the
stress of time and circumstance. Because of our traditionally different
ways of dealing with girls and boys, we have produced girls who are not
healthy little animals, but women in miniature with nervous systems too
unstable to cope successfully with the strain of our modern complex life.
The stability of the nervous system is dependent upon the proper
development of the fundamental centers. Incomplete development of the
lower parts means incomplete development in the higher. These fundamental
centers are stimulated to growth and development especially by the
activity of the large muscle masses. Not only is the development of the
brain and nervous system dependent upon muscular activity, but the growth
and activity of the vital organs as well,--the heart, lungs, and digestive
system,--and the normality of sex life.
All this we acknowledge in the case of the boy. Even with him, we fail to
live up to our convictions, as is shown by the long hours of inactivity in
school and the lack of suitable activities during recess periods. But on
the whole we encourage the boy to run and climb and jump and take distinct
pride in these accomplishments.
The same accomplishments in our girls occasion alarm; we have an ideal of
gentle womanhood
|