f view is shared by so many men and women that
a national body was organized in 1905 to promote the teaching of sex
hygiene,--the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. This society
has its headquarters in New York, and distributes at cost lectures and
essays. The second of its educational pamphlets is addressed to
teachers, and is entitled "Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of
Sex." The introduction asks eleven questions of the teachers as
follows:

1. Do you wish a pamphlet on sex subjects to hand to your pupils?
Why?

2. Do you wish separate pamphlets for boys and girls?

3. For what age limits and social conditions do you wish them?

4. What topics do you wish the pamphlets for boys to "handle"?

5. What topic do you wish the pamphlet for girls to "handle"?

6. If you think one pamphlet sufficient for both sexes, what
should it consider?

7. How far do you go in teaching sexual hygiene or reproduction?
By what method?

8. What special difficulties do you find in teaching it?

9. What special need of teaching it have you found?

10. What special benefits (or otherwise) have you noticed from
teaching it?

11. What criticisms (favorable or otherwise) do you encounter?

The difficulty of introducing formal instruction in sex hygiene, even
in the upper grades of public and private schools, is hinted at in the
pamphlet. The purpose of the publishing society as given in its
constitution is "to eliminate the spread of diseases which have their
origin in the social evil." Although sex hygiene does not begin with
sex immorality, almost every text-book on sex hygiene, and almost every
pamphlet urging class instruction in sex hygiene, begins with sex
immorality. Yet only the exceptional school child is in danger of
violating sex morals, while every school child needs instruction in sex
hygiene.

Instruction in sex hygiene, whether at school or at home, should deal
with sex normality, sex health, sex temperance. Instruction in sex
immorality is objectionable, not merely because it offends prudists,
not because it is difficult, but because it can be shown by experience
to be less efficacious than training in sex health.

To expect fear to prompt sex hygiene is to make a mistake that has
retarded the development of sound measures in the treatment of
offenders against criminal law. For centuries man failed in attempts to
fit the punishment to the crime. To deter men from