Chapter XXVI

The manner in which up to the present day humanity has, properly speaking, completely ignored the fact of sexuality is at once remarkable and difficult to understand. Until recently people went so far as to regard scientific research into sexual matters by adult persons as improper! The mystical idea of the sinfulness, of the radically evil character, of the sexual, was a dogma which even natural science appeared to admit. Our attitude towards the sexual was as if it were at once Sphinx and Gorgon’s head, as if it were the veiled statue of Sais. We stood helpless, in the face of this mysterious and malignant power, against the blind hazard of chance which plays so momentous a part, more especially in sexual affairs. As everywhere in life, so here also, the dominion of chance could be overcome only by means of knowledge. The solution of the sexual problem demands, in the first place, openness, clearness, learning in the department of the sexual, knowledge of cause and effect, and the transmission of this knowledge to the next generation, so that this latter may without harm become wise. Sexual education is an important chapter in general pedagogy.[696]

Regarding animals, plants, and stones the youthful human being of to-day acquires the most exact information, but we have hitherto refused him the right to understand his own body, and to acquire a knowledge of certain important vital functions of that body. There can be no doubt about the fact that the modern human being, who has learned to so large an extent to regard himself as a social being, has a sacred natural right to this knowledge.

Celebrated pedagogues of a hundred years ago, such as Rousseau, Salzmann, Basedow, Jean Paul, etc., expressed themselves in favour of the early sexual enlightenment of youth, and gave the most valuable advice regarding the methods to be employed;[697] but their views remained for the most part devoid of practical effect, and it is only in recent years, in connexion with the question of the protection of motherhood, with the campaign against prostitution, and with the attempt to suppress venereal diseases, that interest in this matter has been reawakened; and there now exists in this department an extensive literature, belonging chiefly to the last few years, proceeding from the pens of physicians, pedagogues, hygienists, and advocates of woman’s rights.[698] It is, in truth, the burning question of our time, the solution of which is here attempted. Correct sexual education forms the foundation for the ennoblement and resanation of our entire sexual life. Only knowledge and will can here effect a cure. Thus, sexual pedagogy naturally falls into two parts—sexual enlightenment and the education of the will.

The need for sexual enlightenment is now recognized by all far-seeing social hygienists and pedagogues. The only difference of opinion concerns the when and the how. Some plead for enlightenment as early as possible, in the first years of school life; others wish to defer enlightenment until puberty, or even later. I am of opinion that the circumstances in this respect are entirely different, according as we have to do with small towns and the open country, where more careful watching of children is possible, and where the dangers of premature sexual development and of seduction are not so great, or as we have to do with large towns, where, in my view, the children cannot be enlightened too early, since town life brings the children of all classes, and social misery brings more especially the children of the lowest classes of the population, so early into contact with sexual matters that a purposive enlightenment becomes absolutely indispensable. Children living in large towns should, from ten years onwards, be gradually and carefully made acquainted with the principal facts of the sexual life. We find here more points of association than is usually imagined. Gutzkow, in his admirable autobiography, “From the Days of My Boyhood” (Frankfort-a.-M., 1852, pp. 263, 264), has beautifully described this:

“The first appearances of love in the heart of the child occur as secretly as the fall of the dew upon flowers. Playing and jesting, innocence gropes its way through the darkness. Words, perceptions, ideas, which to the adult appear to be full of dangerous barbs, the child grasps with careless security, and takes the duplex sexual life of humanity to be a primeval fact which came into the world with man as a matter of course, and one which requires no explanation. Born from the mother’s womb, to the child the mother is the secure bridge by which it is conducted past all the riddles of womanhood. The child imitates the love of the father for the mother, plays the game of the family, plays father and mother, plays at being himself, a child. From the rustling autumn leaves, from abandoned bundles of straw, huts and nests are built, and for half an hour at a time a completely blameless boy can lie down besides his girl playmate, quietly, and as if magnetized by the intimation of love. Danger is in truth not far distant from such a practice of childish naïveté; it lurks in the background, and seeks only an opportunity to lead astray. But a child never understands the significance of the severe punishment which it so often receives for its imitative imaginary family life. The amatory life of the adult first breaks upon the imagination of the child and upon his quiet play like the opening of a door into a house. People take so little care of what they do before the innocent; they exhibit passionate affection for one another; they caress when the children are by. The child sees, ponders, and listens. Certain hieroglyphics alarm it; tales are laughed at—tales which suddenly throw a strange and wonderful light upon quite familiar human beings. The boy will notice that his elder sister has a joy or a sorrow, the nature of which he cannot completely grasp. He sees an elder brother filled with the joy of life, with the lust of youth, with the love of adventure, and no attempt is made to conceal these passions from the child.... Such and similar experiences succeed one another without cessation, and tales which the child hears are listened to with eagerness. The red threads of love and of the charm of beautiful women are not to be grasped by the hand of a child, and yet they have upon the child a certain secret influence.”

The child hears and sees much that is erotic, even immoral, but does not stop to think about it, does not understand it. After a while its ignorance becomes a puzzle; soon lascivious thoughts arise. Maria Lischnewska describes very vividly this psychological process in the soul of the child, in part according to her observations as a teacher. She justly criticizes the “stork stories,” to which the child listens without believing them, in order subsequently to be enlightened in an extremely disagreeable manner by older ill-conditioned comrades.[699]

These children, ten or twelve years of age, often learn about sexual matters from the lowest side, without obtaining a true knowledge. They frequently acquire the most astounding verbal treasury of lewd expressions, and even sing obscene songs, of which Maria Lischnewska gives a remarkable example on the part of a girl twelve years of age.

No, there can be no question that the child at school, from the tenth year onwards, should, without fear of disastrous consequences, be enlightened regarding sexual matters by parents and teachers, in order to avoid the dangers which we have just described. But this instruction must be divested of any individual relationship, of any personal character, and must be communicated in thoroughly general terms, as natural scientific knowledge, as a medical doctrine, belonging to the province of philosophical and pathological science. In this way will be avoided any undesirable accessory effect related to subjective perceptions. When Matthisson esteems youth as happy on this account, because the book of possibilities is not yet open to its gaze, this certainly does not hold as regards sexual enlightenment. Here, to a certain degree, this book of possibilities must be disclosed, if we do not wish all the poetry and all the ideal view of life to be utterly destroyed by contact with rude reality. Precisely in this case do we understand the wonderful remark of Goethe, that we receive the veil of poetry from the hand of truth. This first renders possible a truly earnest and profound conception of sexual relationships; this creates a consciousness of responsibility which cannot be awakened sufficiently early. The true danger is, as Freud[700] also points out, the intermixture of “lasciviousness and prudery” with which humanity is accustomed to regard the sexual problem, just because people have not learned sufficiently to understand the connexion between cause and effect in this department of human activity.

Various methods have been recommended for sexual enlightenment. I shall discuss more particularly the suggestions of the Austrian Realschul professor, Sigmund, of the Volkschul teacher, Maria Lischnewska, and of the University professor, F. W. Förster.

Sigmund (quoted by Ullmann, op. cit., p. 7) considers that in the Volkschüler (primary schools), in the case of children up to the age of eleven years, there should be no systematic explanation of sexual matters, and that this should be begun first in the Gymnasium (higher school). His scheme of instruction is as follows:

1. The enlightenment of the pupils at the Gymnasium is to be effected in five stages (Classes I., II., V., VI., VII.)

2. The enlightenment in the lower classes is limited to the processes of sexual reproduction. In the first class, the origin and birth of the mammalian young and the origin of insects’ eggs are explained. In the second class, the origin and birth of reptiles’ and birds’ eggs, the fertilization of the eggs of fishes and batrachians, the ova of the sea-urchin, and those of the jellyfish, are described. The act of sexual intercourse will not be alluded to in the first two classes—that is, it will not be mentioned to children before the age of thirteen years.

3. The completion of the idea of “sexual life” is effected by means of botanical and zoological instruction in the upper school in a synthetic manner, wherein no important detail is omitted, but the copulatory act is kept in the background.

4. All sexual matters expressly concerning human beings, and all the pathological relations of the sexual life, should be left to the hygienic instruction, which is given during one hour weekly to the seventh class as a part of general instruction in somatology.

5. The natural history taught to the sixth class will embrace zoology only; the natural system will be considered in an ascending series (excluding human somatology, which in a logical manner is deferred until the study of zoology is completed, and it will thus be dealt with in the seventh class, as a preparation to the instruction in hygiene).

6. In conferences with parents, the parents can be kept informed regarding the nature of the instruction which is being given to their children, and can at the same time be led to work in unison with the school in this matter.

Maria Lischnewska advises beginning already in the third class of primary schools—that is, when the child is only eight years old—to give instruction in the elements of natural science, more especially utilizing, as the first means of sexual enlightenment, the examples of vegetable fertilization, as well as the reproduction of fishes and birds. Even to the question “Whence do little children come?” an answer should be given, more or less in the following terms:

“The child lies in the body of the mother: when she breathes, then the child breathes; when she eats and drinks, the child also obtains his food. It lies there warm and safe. Gradually it becomes larger and begins to move. It has to lie somewhat curled up, because there is so little room for it. But the mother feels that it is alive; she is full of joy, and makes ready the child’s clothing and its bed. Finally it is fully grown. The mother’s body opens, and the child comes to the light. Then the mother takes it into her arms with joy and nourishes it with her milk.” Then the teacher would pause, and continue after a while: “Now, would you like to see the child?” Then there would naturally be a many-voiced “Yes, yes!” and the teacher would show to the class a picture such as our anatomical atlases exhibit now in beautiful form. The abdominal walls of the mother are turned back, and the child is seen slumbering. Then the teacher would say: “Thus you also slept within the body of your mother. You belong to her as to no other human being in the whole world. For this reason you should always love and honour her.”

Thus is the child’s urgent demand for knowledge satisfied. He is freed from all prying into nooks and corners. He experiences a feeling of honourable respect towards the primary source of life.

In the fourth school year further examples of the reproduction of plants, fishes, and birds should be given; in the fifth and sixth years the first demonstration of the process of sexual union among the mammals, with some account of embryology; and the process of birth should also be described. Then there should follow (at about the age of thirteen or fourteen) enlightenment regarding the development of the sexual life and regarding venereal diseases—information, that is to say, concerning hygiene and concerning the protection of one’s own body. Physicians such as Oker Blom and Dr. Agnes Hacker definitely demand that elucidation regarding this latter point should not be deferred until the time of puberty.

F. W. Förster proposes to postpone the whole process of enlightenment until the twelfth or thirteenth year; and if at an earlier age a child expresses any natural doubt regarding the stork fables, the following answer should be given (op. cit., p. 606):

“Where small children come from is a matter which you cannot yet understand. We grown-up persons even understand very little about it. I promise you that I will explain to you what we know of the matter on your twelfth birthday, but only if you promise me something in return. Do you know that there are boys and girls so bumptious that they behave as if they already knew all about it, because they have somewhere picked up a word or two without really understanding it? Promise me that you will never listen when such as these begin to talk about the matter; for you may be certain that the true secrets are matters of which they are ignorant, for this reason—they would not speak about it. He who really knows holds it as a sacred matter; he is silent about it, and does not call it out at the street comers.”

Förster strongly advises against associating sexual enlightenment with a knowledge of the reproductive process in plants and animals, for this reason: that if this is done “the human being is brought too near to the vegetable and animal life,” and the “sacred thought” of the elevation of humanity above the animal is obscured. He then gives very beautiful examples and modes of instruction for such sexual enlightenment of children twelve years of age.

I myself am of opinion that, without in any way making light of the difference between man and animal, the earlier elucidation at about the age of ten years should be associated with the general instruction in natural history regarding the reproductive process of animals and plants; and then very gradually, up to the age of fourteen, all important points in this department can be explained, including, finally, an account of the venereal diseases. It is obvious that after this time, more especially in the dangerous years of puberty, systematic enlightenment must be continued. That which is good and useful in this department of knowledge cannot be too often repeated.

But all enlightenment will be useless unless hand in hand with it there proceeds a process of education of the character and the will. Our school youth thinks and dreams too much, and does too little. Up to the present time it has been believed that it is sufficient to teach children, and to continue to teach them, to care for their health, to see that they have good food and sound sleep, without also taking into consideration the necessity for awakening the individuality and the energy slumbering in each one of them. The “gymnasium” must concern itself with the gymnastics, not only of the body, but also of the mind, and must thus restore that harmony between body and mind which appears to have been quite lost at the present day. Bodily education by games and sports is only one of the means for this purpose. The principal aim is to strengthen the character, to induce the habit of self-command and self-denial by a profound and intimate grasp of sexual problems. Nowhere does fantastic dreaming take revenge more thoroughly than in sexual relationships, for which reason also the so-called “only children” are especially endangered;[701] nowhere do clear knowledge, objective acquirements, and a firm will celebrate finer triumphs over blind impulses than they do here. The principal rule of sexual pedagogy runs as follows: Avoid the first opportunity and the first contact; keep the child and the young man and the young woman at a distance from all the stimulating pleasures and enjoyments of the adult. The production of manliness, as it has recently been described by Mosso,[702] Güssfeldt,[703] Georg Sticker,[704] and Ludwig Gurlitt,[705] has the greatest importance, more especially as regards the sexual life. This has been insisted on, above all, by Hans Wegener[706] and F. W. Förster (op. cit.). Moral statistics have incontrovertibly proved that progress in civilization and morals does not depend upon punishment or upon prophylactic measures against errors and excesses of passion, but only upon the subjective improvement and strengthening of the single individual. Guizot declared: “C’est de l’état intérieur de l’homme que dépend l’état visible de la société.” Drobisch,[707] in his “Moral Statistics,” has established this fact yet more firmly. Energy is the magic word for all vital activities of the present day, both spiritual and physical. Discipline, work, abstinence, bodily hygiene, are the means for educating the character, and these also play the principal part in sexual pedagogy.[708]