Front matter

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Telling the Story of Life; The Present Day Idea of Sex Instruction. “O, thou child of many prayers,”

SELF KNOWLEDGE ——AND—— GUIDE TO SEX INSTRUCTION VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR ALL AGES

——— A Complete and Comprehensive Guide to Parents for the Proper Instruction of Their Children, Concerning the Delicate Questions of Life; Timely Help for the Boy and Girl, at the Ages of Greatest Danger, with Warnings of the Pitfalls which Lie Hidden in Their Pathway, TOGETHER WITH Vital Information for the Marriageable; Safe, Sane, Scientific Counsel for the Married of all Ages, including Knowledge Vital to those in Middle Life and Declining Years, with a Word of Warning Against the Prevailing Ignorance of God’s Sacred Laws of Sex and Heredity BY Professor T. W. SHANNON, A.M. International Lecturer on Moral, Social and Reform Topics; Member of Advisory Board World’s Purity Federation; also Author of Eight other Purity Books ——— With Special Chapters by Hon. Stanley Finch, Special Commissioner for The Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, U. S. Department of Justice; B. S. Steadwell, President World’s Purity Federation and Charles W. Eliot, Former President Harvard University ——— INTRODUCED BY B. S. STEADWELL Publisher “The Light,” Official Organ of The World’s Purity Federation

PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY THE S. A. MULLIKIN COMPANY MARIETTA OHIO Copyrighted, 1913, By THE S. A. MULLIKIN CO. Agents wanted in all English-speaking countries. Address publishers at foot of title page. Dedicated TO THE GRANDFATHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS, TO THE FATHERS AND MOTHERS, TO THE HUSBANDS AND WIVES, TO THE BACHELORS AND MAIDS, TO THE YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN, TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS, TO THE BABES THAT BE AND ARE TO BE, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.

Yours for the Uplift of Humanity T.W. Shannon

PREFACE

Truth like gold is unaffected in quality by its environment, but the environment of truth does affect the character of the person receiving it. Half truths clothed in obscene language and imparted by the ignorant or vicious have made mental, moral and physical wrecks of millions. The same truth received from a pure mother, noble father, a good book or a wise teacher, safeguards the youth and accomplishes untold good.

The purpose of this book is not only to enable parents, teachers and all matured people, to inform themselves more fully concerning the vital facts of life, but it furnishes a specific guide to all parents, who would know how to tell their children the sacred story of life, and counsel intelligently with their sons and daughters at the ages of greatest danger and give them clean, concise and scientific sex instruction with a view to safeguarding them against the demoralizing half truths of vicious or ignorant schoolmates, servants or companions; and to all others of sufficient age, who have an opportunity for service to innocent and helpless children, who would have a wise word at the right time; and to the young man and young woman, married or single, who would avoid the pit-falls lying in the pathway of those ignorant of God’s sacred laws of nature; and to all mankind who seek to make the world better by more intelligent and better living.

The author of this book is sacrificing home life, financial interests, and much that is dear to all human hearts, to humanity’s cause. He lectures by day and works and travels by night and is unable to meet half of the calls for service. During engagements of two or three days he labors at night without money and without price in private interviews with young men after his lectures until midnight, one, two, three and four o’clock in the morning, hoping thereby to lend a helping hand to thousands to the end of nobler, purer and better living. In this work he has met with marvelous success. He now hopes to send his vital messages to the four corners of the earth in book form in order that the influence of his work may be felt in wider circles than he may ever hope to reach in personal endeavors. The spirit in which this book has been written is best expressed in the words of Henry Van Dyke:

“There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. There is a nobler character than that which is merely incorruptible. It is the character which acts as an antidote and preventive of corruption. Fearlessly to speak the words which bear witness to righteousness and truth and purity; patiently to do the deeds which strengthen virtue and kindle hope in your fellow men; generously to lend a hand to those who are trying to climb upward; faithfully to give your support and your personal help to the efforts which are making to elevate and purify the social life of the world.”

Prof. Shannon observes that the spirit of society and the attitude of our government has been to protect our forests, inspect our swine and neglect our children, but that a wiser and more hopeful day is dawning. More interest in the study and application of the laws of Heredity has been taken in the past ten years than in the previous ninety. Newspapers and magazines contain articles by leaders of eugenic thought; purity organizations are springing up throughout the country and sounding the word of warning against the prevailing ignorance of these subjects; books are being written; sermons and lectures delivered and the masses are becoming interested. In this Prof. Shannon is doing his part. The sale of his books to date have reached in excess of a quarter of a million copies with no organized effort behind them. Each copy sold seems to sell two others, and with the business growing by leaps and bounds and getting beyond his control, the present publishers with a sales system unexcelled, were selected as a medium for placing his messages literally into the homes of millions.

Prof. Shannon is a member of the Advisory Board of the World’s Purity Federation and lectures under the auspices of this movement. Eight years as teacher of Biology, after his graduation from college, his experience in writing eight other purity books and years of research and lecturing on these subjects have eminently qualified him for the high position he holds to-day with the World’s Purity Federation, and as author of a number of books on moral, social and reform topics which are to-day meeting with such an enormous sale. He sends forth this volume on its mission of usefulness to the human race with the implicit faith that it will be the means of safeguarding the youth wherever it goes and make thousands of homes happier and brighter and the world a better place to live.

The Publishers.

INTRODUCTION

The saddest thing in all this world is a human wreck,—a man or a woman, young or old, who is undone and who, in one or more walks of life, is a failure. There are so many of them! Mental wrecks, physical wrecks, nervous wrecks, social wrecks, business wrecks, character wrecks. The aspect of these derelicts is the more pitiable because of the possibilities before every well-born human being, who, with the endowment of intelligence and other gifts and powers bestowed upon him by a kind Creator, is capable of rising to heights of human perfection. Ample provision made for man’s every need and want by God, and yet we find misery where there ought to be happiness, poverty where there ought to be riches, darkness where there ought to be light, ignorance where there ought to be knowledge, vice where there ought to be virtue, and turmoil and strife where there ought to be peace. Only too accurately do the poet’s words apply:

This problem of human wreckage becomes more depressing when we consider that in the breast of every person there is an innate desire to live true, to win success. The day dreams of every boy and girl picture themselves as the hero or the heroine in the story which weaves into its plot their ideal men and women. Their ideals may be low, that is the fault of their environment and training, but their ideals always represent their own highest conceptions of manhood and womanhood. But sooner or later struggle comes, appetite craves, and passion cries out, and if they are unprepared for life’s real conflict, they go down, and another failure is recorded and another wreck left to float and endanger every other craft upon life’s seas, until human wreckage is becoming so enormous that it is a question in the minds of scientists and sociologists as to how long humanity can keep up its present pace and survive the centuries.

The causes of human wrecks are many, far too many to be tabulated or enumerated. In a sentence they result from the principle that it is easier to coast than to climb; so much easier to float than to struggle against the current. Like the weeds that kill out the crops, just so is humanity beset by enumerable temptations at every turn, social and economic customs force downward a great many who would otherwise rise to higher things, and, it is suspected, that in the very nature of man there is a strong tendency to evil which can be overcome only by divine grace. Appetite and passion are the two forces to which man’s higher aspirations most often give way. Intemperance and impurity, in their broader meaning, are the two bars upon which most human wrecks have stranded. Social impurity, or the abuse of the sex function and nature, is by far the most insidious, and with respect to the number and degradation of its victims, the greatest evil in the world to-day.

This book is one of the most valuable ever written because it treats fully and wisely this question of personal and social purity; it points out the reefs, the bars, the snags, the icebergs, the shallow and dangerous places where human wrecks are made; it guides those who accept it as their pilot into the deep waters of an unobstructed channel where the voyage of life will be ever safe, successful, glorious. Here will be found an incentive to climb rather than to coast, an inspiration to struggle even against the current if in the struggle may be won some of the more valuable prizes of life. Here is a book that holds high the single standard of morality, and demands that men shall be as pure as women; it stands boldly for the education of the young in sex hygiene, and proclaims a truth that ought long ago to have been universally known, that it is the right of every person to know every knowable fact pertaining to themselves, and that such knowledge ought to be imparted to them before the lack of it has brought injury to their lives. This is a book that will help to forever banish that false modesty and prurient thinking which has made the tremendous growth of public vice a reality, until every girl is in danger of enslavement and every boy threatened with its corruption.

This is not a pioneer book on these questions. Other most excellent works have preceded it, for which we should all be grateful, and have paved the way for this latest volume. The excellence of this work consists largely in its completeness. It is a book for the home, for every home, and for every member of the home. It tells exactly what ought to be known concerning the sex nature and life of the individual, and the normal relations of the family and society, and best of all it teaches parents how to impart this saving knowledge to their children. Any and every home that takes this book as a friend and counselor, and faithfully studies its pages, will fortify every person within the portals of that home against the baneful influences of impurity and vice.

The writer has known Prof. T. W. Shannon, the talented author of this book, for some years, and we have watched his efforts with interest and admiration. A voluminous writer, a wide traveler, he has probably reached more people with his uplifting message of purity through his books and upon the platform than any other living man of the same age. His methods are never sensational and he does not stoop to uncovering all the cesspools of sin and vice, but he leads people upward by directing their minds and hearts to the beauty and rewards of pure living and right thinking. Through the strength of his personality and the profound truth in his message, he has helped thousands of college students and other young men to avoid the pitfalls which have brought disaster to so many young lives. By education and experience Prof. Shannon is eminently fitted to prepare just such a book as this and his authorship should at once entitle it to a high place among the standard works of the day dealing with these problems.

As the volume has received my own endorsement, even so I trust it may be most cordially received into the homes of America, that our sons and our daughters may be fortified through the truth, presented in an attractive and safe and sane manner, against the temptations which constantly meet them; that human wrecks may be fewer, and that every life may have a fair chance to attain all for which it was created.

B. S. Steadwell.

La Crosse, Wisconsin, December 18, 1912.

CONTENTS

FIRST DIVISION THE HOME

CHAPTER PAGE

IThe Essentials of a Home15

IIThe Father’s Relation to the Home24

IIIThe Mother’s Relation to the Home29

IVThe Boy’s Relation to the Home34

VThe Girl’s Relation to the Home41

VITraining and Government in the Home47

SECOND DIVISION HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS TO A CHILD

VIIThe Right of a Child to a Knowledge of Sex63

VIIIFirst Story—Baby Plants87

IXSecond Story—Baby Oysters and Fish99

XThird Story—Baby Birds104

XIFourth Story—Baby Animals and Man108

XIIPractical Questions Answered117

THIRD DIVISION HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS TO A GIRL

XIIIA Talk to Mothers122

XIVMother’s First Talk—The Female Form130

XVMother’s Second Talk—Dawning of Womanhood138

XVIMother’s Third Talk—Choosing a Chum143

XVIIMother’s Fourth Talk—Confidential Advice146

XVIIIMother’s Fifth Talk—A Small Girl’s Ethics157

XIXMother’s Sixth Talk—How to Grow Beautiful162

FOURTH DIVISION HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS TO A BOY

XXA Talk to Fathers166

XXIFather’s First Talk—Boys Make Men173

XXIIFather’s Second Talk—Perfect Boys Make Perfect Men182

XXIIIFather’s Third Talk—Imperfect Boys Make Imperfect Men195

XXIVFather’s Fourth Talk—How to Live a Pure Life204

XXVFather’s Fifth Talk—The True Young Knight211

FIFTH DIVISION VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR THE YOUNG WOMAN, MARRIED OR SINGLE

XXVIThe Real Significance of Sex218

XXVIIThe Vicious Novel225

XXVIIIThe Public Dance232

XXIXA Young Woman’s Ethics237

XXXThe Wronged Girl245

XXXIThe Miracle of Motherhood258

XXXIIPractical Questions Answered266

XXXIIIBeauty by Bathing276

XXXIV Physical Culture 291

SIXTH DIVISION VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR THE YOUNG MAN, MARRIED OR SINGLE

XXXVThe Deeper Significance of Sex304

XXXVIContinence313

XXXVIIProstitution318

XXXVIIIVenereal Diseases322

XXXIXA Young Man’s Ethics331

XLManhood Wrecked and Regained337

XLIPractical Questions Answered345

XLIIPhysical Culture371

SEVENTH DIVISION HEREDITY, OR VITAL FACTS FOR THE MARRIED AND MARRIAGEABLE

XLIIIHeredity, a Fact386

XLIVHeredity and Reproduction413

XLVChoosing a Companion435

XLVIPhysical, Mental and Moral Preparation for Parenthood445

XLVIIPrenatal Training454

XLVIIIDelinquencies, Causes and Remedies468

XLIXBirthmarks494

LHeredity, Environment and Redemption506

LICourtship, Marriage and Divorce518

EIGHTH DIVISION VITAL FACTS FOR MARRIED OR UNMARRIED, OF MIDDLE LIFE AND OLD AGE

LIIVital Facts Concerning the “Change of Life” in Woman, and the Years to Follow528

LIIIVital Facts Concerning the “Change of Life” in Man, and the Years to Follow540

LIVPractical Questions Answered550

NINTH DIVISION MORAL, SOCIAL AND REFORM TOPICS

LVSchool Instruction in Sex Hygiene—By Charles W. Eliot560

LVIThe White Slave Traffic—By Hon. Stanley W. Finch570

LVIIThe Purity Movement—By B. S. Steadwell599

Index: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLORED PLATES

Telling the Story of LifeFrontispiece

A Gift from Heaven

God’s Richest Blessing to a Home

I Love You

HALF-TONES AND CHARTS

PAGE

Home17

Ideal Relations in the Home35

Let Them Play Together39

Chums in the Home43

Danger79

Flower94

Female Internal Organs133

Sexual Organs of Male186

Developing Knighthood212

Friendship238

Beauty by Bathing, No. 1277

Beauty by Bathing, No. 2278

Beauty by Bathing, No. 3282

Beauty by Bathing, No. 4283

Beauty by Bathing, No. 5290

Physical Culture, No. 1-6295

Physical Culture, No. 7-12297

Physical Culture, No. 13-14302

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 1375

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 2376

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 3377

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 4-5378

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 6379

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 7380

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 8381

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 9382

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 10383

Physical Culture Exercise, No. 11-12384

A Wild Rose388

American Beauty Rose389

A Wild Strawberry392

A Cultivated Strawberry393

Results of Personal Liberty402

Protected403

Louise and Mary Carter, Twins418

Well Born446

Neglected478

Heredity Chart, Emma W.506

Heredity Chart, No. 1508

Heredity Chart, No. 2-A509

Heredity Chart, No. 2-B511

Well Preserved and Contented Old Age529

Climax of a Well-Spent Life541

Hon. Stanley W. Finch571

John B. Hammond575

Touring Purity Conference at Los Angeles579

Touring Purity Conference, Chattanooga583

Trial of a White Slaver595

B. S. Steadwell601

T. Albert Moore, D.D605

Touring Purity Conference, New Orleans611

HOME.