citement by most women.

[Sidenote: Danger no reason for condemning dancing.]

The frank admission that dancing may sometimes stimulate sexual
emotions is no condemnation of dancing, as many writers seem to think.
We must know first whether such emotions lead to good or harm. Sexual
emotions are not in themselves wrong from any except a strictly aescetic
point of view. The fact that most intelligent men who in general are
frankly truthful confess that dancing may sometimes arouse sexual
emotion simply raises the question whether such emotions lead directly
to immoral relations with women or whether they lead, as does the best
social life of men and women together, to a higher aesthetic
appreciation of life as it involves the relations of the two sexes.
After discussing this with many--yes, with more than a hundred--men and
women, I am now convinced that dancing may have both results, depending
upon the individuals. Dancing, then, has its dangers, but so have many
other things that go to make up the most complete life. Eating may lead
to gluttony, mountain-climbing may lead to a broken neck, swimming to
drowning, music and art to sensuality, and even love is not without
danger of bestial degradation. Life is full of dangers and we are
constantly striving to reduce them to a minimum. So we must refuse to
condemn dancing because of its admitted sexual dangers for young
people, unless it can be shown that the danger is so great and so
unconquerable as to outweigh all the physical, social, and aesthetic
considerations in favor of the pastime.

[Sidenote: Dancing and immorality.]

That dancing is a strong incentive to immorality is contended by many
writers. A prominent physiologist has said that "the dance is the
devil's procession so far as the young man is concerned." Others have
pointed to the immorality that is connected with the dance halls, and
to the fact that waves of immorality of young men have often followed
the annual balls given in some high schools and colleges. Contrary to
the view which I formerly held, I am now inclined to think that it is
not fair to charge such immoral tendencies entirely to dancing, and
therefore condemn all dancing as immoral. It is no secret of sociology
that similar epidemics of immorality have been known to occur in
connection with Sunday-school picnics, camp meetings, expositions,
political and other conventions, and religious revivals. Shall we
condemn all these along with danci