ive a clean marriage a preferred position in the
social and economic scale, and, by helping to meet the cost of it,
recognize in a substantial way the value to the race of a family of
vigorous children, an important factor in youthful sexual laxity would
be robbed of its power. No one will assert that such remedial proposals
are of themselves cure-alls for present evils, but they must have at
least an emphatic place in the future of moral prophylaxis.

+The Teaching of Sexual Self-control.+--First then, make the social
order such that sexual self-control yields a reward and not a
punishment. Second, teach sexual control itself, since it is one of the
fundamental means of attack on the problem of syphilis. How can such
control be taught? Information about the physical dangers of illicit
sexual indulgence is of course of value, and should be spread broadcast.
But taken by itself, the fear of disease, especially if it enters the
individual's life after the age when he has already experienced the
force of his sexual instincts, is a feeble influence. The person who has
nothing but the knowledge that he is taking great risks between him and
the gratification of his sexual desires will take the risks and take
them once too often. One cannot begin to teach the boy or girl of high
school age that sexual offenses mean physical disaster, and expect to
control syphilis. The time to control the future of the sexual diseases
is in the toddler at the knee, the child whose daily lesson in
self-control will culminate when he says the final 'No' to his passions
as a man. The child who does not learn to respect his body in the act of
brushing his teeth and taking his bath and exercise, and whose thought
and speech and temper are unbridled by any self-restraint, will give
little heed when told not to abuse his manhood by exposing himself to
filth. The prevention of syphilis by sexual self-control goes down to
the foundations of character, and has practical value only in those
whose self-control is the expression of a lifelong habit of
self-discipline bred in the bone from childhood, not merely painted on
the surface at puberty. Those who want their sons and daughters never to
know by personal experience the meaning of syphilis must first build a
foundation in character for them which will make self-control in them
instinctive, almost automatic. Knowledge of sexual matters has power
only in proportion to the strength of the character that wi