fact, the way is very often left open to an immoral
interpretation. All such literature certainly tends to work against the
aims of sex-education. Perhaps parents and teachers may cooperate to
keep much of this kind of literature out of the hands of young people,
but the safest procedure is in cultivating taste for literature that
does teach helpful lessons of life. If young people do read books and
magazines that seem to stand for uncertain morals, it is best that
parents and teachers should point out the moral interpretations.

Sec. 24. _Dangers in Literature on Abnormal Sexuality_

[Sidenote: Danger in present interests in the abnormal.]

The opinion is spreading among those who are studying the educational
problems relating to sex that there is great danger, even for many
adults, in much of the literature describing psychopathological and
abnormal social-sexual facts. There are enormous quantities of such
literature, particularly concerning the social evil. It is extremely
doubtful whether the reader who is not directly engaged in medicine,
psychiatry, or social reform will profit by filling his mind with facts
from the darkest side of life. No doubt it is important that all
intelligent men and women should know enough about sexual immorality
and the life of the underworld so that they will realize the necessity
of protecting young people from vice in all its forms; but this does
not mean that everybody should read extensively in the mass of printed
matter that sets forth the most awful details concerning human
depravity. There is a real danger in this line. The sex-education
movement has already brought the problems of sex out of the old-time
secrecy, and no other topics of the times are so freely read and
discussed. This might be well if the reading and discussion always took
constructive lines leading towards improvement of sexual relationships;
but unfortunately, much of the present popular interest in sexual
problems seems to be a morbid craving for the abnormal. We find this
tendency in the demand for a certain type of sex-problem novels, we
see it frequently on the stage and in motion pictures, and we hear it
in general conversation. The advertised suggestion of sexual immorality
in a forthcoming serial novel often raises surprisingly the circulation
of certain magazines. A few hints of sexual irregularity in certain
plays have brought crowded audiences. A scandalous divorce case,
reported as freely as t