o ten together at
one time, and those from ten to twelve, and those from over twelve to
sixteen." Dr. Henry was evidently not aware that the principle of a
special teacher appointed by Government to give special instruction in
matters of sex in all State schools had already been adopted in Canada,
in the province of Ontario; the teacher thus appointed goes from school
to school and teaches the elements of sexual physiology and anatomy, and
the duty of treating sexual matters with reverence, to classes of boys
and of girls from the age of ten. The course is not compulsory, but any
School Board may call upon the special teacher to deliver the lectures.
This appointment has met with so much approval that it is proposed to
appoint further teachers on the same lines, women as well as men.

It is not necessary that the school teacher of sex should be a
physician. For personal and particular advice on the concrete
difficulties of sex, however, as well as for the more special and
detailed hygiene of the sexual relationship and the precautions demanded
by eugenics, we must call in the physician. Yet none of these things so
far enter the curriculum through which the physician passes to reach
his profession; he is often only a layman in relation to them. Even if
we are assured that these subjects form part of his scientific
equipment, that fact by no means guarantees his tact, sympathy, and
insight in addressing the young, whether by general lectures or
individual interviews, both these being forms of imparting sexual
hygiene for which we may properly call upon the physician, especially
towards the end of the school or college course, and at the outset of
any career in the world.[188]

Undoubtedly we have amongst us many mothers, teachers, and physicians
who are admirably equipped to fulfil their respective parts--elementary,
secondary, and advanced--in the work of sexual hygiene. But so long as
they are few and far apart their influence is negatived, if it is not
even rendered harmful.

It must often be useless for a mother to instil into her little boy
respect for his own body, reverence for the channel of motherhood
through which he entered the world, any sense of the purity of natural
functions or the beauty of natural organs, if outside his home the
little boy finds that all other little boys and girls regard these
things as only an occasion for sniggering. It is idle for the teacher to
describe plainly the scientific fact