In the first place it may be pertinent to ask why it should be expected that the average teacher, especially one who is young and unmarried, should be any better fitted to give this instruction to boys and girls than are the parents. And even tho the teacher may have received adequate instruction in sex hygiene, the problem of presenting the needed information is most difficult.

In New York City over 46 per cent of the high-school pupils are taught in classes where boys and girls recite together, and in the smaller cities and towns of the country mixed classes are almost universal. But, urge the advocates of sex hygiene, we should separate the two sexes and then give the necessary instruction. If much definite teaching of the subject is to be given in the public schools, this separation must of course be made, but experience has shown that when one part of a division has been isolated for special instruction, unfortunate self-consciousness seems to be the inevitable result.

11. That the subject may be taught in such a way as to influence the life of our boys and girls the instruction must be given by men and women who have high ideals. It was Emerson, was it not, who said, "What you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say"? It is useless and worse, then, for a frivolous mother, or immoral father, or a characterless teacher to attempt to enter this field of sacred duty. For to be successful here mere knowledge is not enough. Who knows more of the great facts relative to the transmission of life than does a doctor? But do we go to the medical school for high ideals of virtue? Even the churches, alas, are not always free from sin in these matters. The problem, I repeat, can be faced successfully only when parents, pastors, and pedagogs co-operate wholeheartedly in this great movement.

I shall take for granted that the majority of my hearers agree to these eleven propositions that I have outlined, and shall not, therefore, take time to defend them. Instead, may I first ask your attention while I give some account of the method of sex instruction we have followed with the children in our own home? Later, I should like to discuss some of the work in the biology classes in the Morris High School and some of the conferences that have been held with groups of our older boys and girls outside of school hours.

In our own family we first met the problem of sex education before the children were five years old. Fortunately, when they were reaching this questioning age, we were spending the summer on a New Hampshire farm when the dog, Fido, had her litter of puppies. The eager interrogations of the children were answered frankly and as fully as seemed necessary, and their natural curiosity was satisfied. After their return to the city, on learning of the birth of a little child in a neighboring apartment, they said, in the most matter-of-fact way, "Oh, yes, just like Fido!" and so the essential facts of maternity had evidently become sufficiently clear to the little people.

Soon, however, came the insistent questions relating to fatherhood, and these interrogations were answered for the eight-year-olds by an interesting agricultural experiment that we carried on all unwittingly. We had built our home in a suburban community where there is ample space for the typical commuter's garden. The small boy wished to do a bit of gardening on his own account, and so he secured from the United States Bureau of Agriculture, at Washington, some choice popcorn which he planted, hoed,

and tended in his own corner of the house plot. Not far away his father sowed the sweet corn needed by the family. When the autumn came and the two crops were gathered, there was an astonishing mix-up of kernels; for we found sweet-pop-corn and pop-sweet-corn, and seemingly all possible intermediate stages.

The material needed for teaching the boy the significance of the paternal function was now right at hand, and the boy and his father spent a Sunday morning in interpreting the experiments. Pollen was shown under the microscope, and the processes of cross pollination and of fertilization of egg cells were discussed in a simple fashion. The sex relations in the poultry yard were referred to, and the necessity of male birds to insure fertile eggs was made clear. The attention of the boy was then called to the characteristics of eyes, hair, and complexion which he himself had inherited from each of his parents and grandparents, and emphasis was laid upon the fact that the organs set apart for the transmission of life must be kept clean and sacred for the function for which they were intended. Later came the counsel as to possible seminal emissions and the dangers of sensual indulgence even in unclean reading, pictures, or thoughts. The response of the boy has been only what any father who has kept his boy as a boon companion ought to expect, and no greater reward could be sought or received than his oft-repeated exclamation: "My father and I are pretty good friends."

In a similar way the daughter was prepared by her mother for the physiological experience of menstruation. When it came and the brother was told its significance, a far more chivalrous care of his sister became evident in his conduct. All of this is perhaps so simple and commonplace an experience in many of your homes that you may think it not worth the telling. But if the experiences with our children convince even one of my doubting hearers that the parent who would have and hold the confidence of his child must cast aside the "policy of silence," then the last few minutes will not have been spent in vain.

Shall we turn now to a consideration of the aspects of sex education that may well be presented in the school? In this discussion I shall confine myself to the high-school period, for I have had only a limited experience in giving biological instruction either in the elementary school or in the college.

In the New York City schools, biology is required thruout the first year of the high school, and just as much time in the curriculum (namely, five periods per week) is assigned to this subject as is given to English, mathematics, or a foreign language. A similar time allotment is becoming more and more the rule thruout New York state. In outlining the course in elementary biology, our committee of teachers has constantly aimed to bring into the foreground the relations of biology to human welfare. Hence, we are spending relatively little time in teaching these young people com

parative morphology, microscopic anatomy, and theories of evolution. Instead we emphasize the functions of all living things-food-getting, digestion, assimilation, respiration, and reproduction-and we devote a large amount of time to the economic importance of plants and animals, to the necessity of tree preservation, insect extermination, bird protection, to the hygiene of the teeth and skin, to healthful diet, efficient ventilation, prevention of disease, and to hygienic habits of study. That our students on the whole are thoroly interested in this subject is evidenced by the fact that when over three hundred of those in the first part of the second year were asked which of their four first-year subjects they enjoyed most, the answer of 53 per cent was "biology." Only 34 per cent, however, stated that biology was their easiest subject.

We have just introduced a new elective of five periods a week for our third- and fourth-year students which is devoted to comparative physiology, personal hygiene, home and city sanitation. In our own school there are seven divisions of students, over 160 boys and girls, who are following this course, and here we have abundant opportunities to be of service in the training of those who are to be the teachers and homemakers of tomorrow in the wide applications of biology to human welfare.

Such is the field that has opened up to us biology teachers. And in presenting the subject we believe we are helping our boys and girls to answer some of the deepest questions of their lives-namely, those that concern the perpetuation of life. In the plant study we lay a broad foundation for the study of reproduction and introduce terms like sperm cell, egg cell, fertilization, and embryo, which later are employed in considering the reproductive processes of insects, fishes, frogs, and birds.

In the elective courses we can carry on this work more in detail, and even in mixed classes our students discuss in scientific terms, and apparently without any self-consciousness, the function of reproduction in all groups of animals including the mammals. In this connection we emphasize the deep meaning of the home as a prime factor in evolution, the importance of right choices in marriage, and the tremendous significance of heredity both to the individual and to society. No part of this study makes a deeper impression than does the contrast between the heritage in the Jonathan Edwards and the so-called Kallikak family. Many have been the expressions of appreciation for this frank presentation of human problems that have come to us from our most thoughtful boys and girls.

But classroom instruction specific even as this does not touch the real heart of the sex problem of the adolescent boy; and some of us, remembering the experiences of our own boyhood, have long felt that we ought to go much farther with some of the boys whom we had come to know rather intimately. For the past ten years I have been in charge of the school printing squad, and another of our biology teachers, Mr. Mann, has been coach of the most successful high-school gun squad in the United States.

Here we have a group of fifty to sixty picked boys who know and trust us. Last year we divided these boys into groups of eight to fifteen each, and invited them to meet us in one of the laboratories after school hours. There we reviewed the whole process of reproduction from the lowest organisms up thru the flowering plants and the lower vertebrates to man; we told them the meaning of menstruation and of seminal emissions; we warned them of the dangers of sensual indulgence and of the perils of venereal disease; but thruout all our discussions we emphasized the splendid calls to chivalry in the treatment of the opposite sex, and the rewards that are open to those who live clean, manly lives.

The boys in these conferences have always responded in the finest kind of fashion. In not a few cases they have told us of their terrors on reading quack advertisements, and of their feeling of relief on learning that occasional seminal emissions are only normal experiences. Several of them have frankly told us of their fights against self-abuse, of their temporary defeats, and of the victories they have won. If any of you know of a business that pays greater dividends on the investment than that of helping a tempted boy to make a man of himself I should like to hear of such an opening. Until I hear of such a job, I shall stick with supreme satisfaction to the one I now hold. In all this work we are most fortunate in having the hearty support and sympathy of Principal Denbigh, of City Superintendent Maxwell, of Dr. Bardwell, and of others of their associates.

We men teachers could, of course, do nothing outside the classroom to instruct the girls in these matters, and none of our women teachers thought themselves prepared to do this. The girls need this personal counsel perhaps even more than do the boys, and several of those who were taking the advanced biology asked that further instruction be given. We were most fortunate in being able to secure the assistance of Miss Nellie M. Smith, who, as perhaps you know, has written one of the sanest and most wholesome books for girls that has yet appeared-The Three Gifts of Life. We told our senior girls that Miss Smith would give her first lecture at 2:45 in one of the study halls. Seventy-five girls appeared and for two and a half hours listened to Miss Smith and plied her with questions. And, if you could have seen their shining eyes as they left the building, you would have become convinced that the problem of sex instruction was solved so far as these girls were concerned. At the second lecture, 175 girls crowded into the study hall and so eager were those who had missed the first lecture to hear it that they persuaded Miss Smith to come again the next week.

Miss Smith, knowing my deep interest in the subject, kindly allowed me to look over the eighty or more written questions that were handed in. Most of them showed real hunger for wholesome information to counteract the misinformation they had received. We count ourselves most fortunate in securing Miss Smith's promise to continue this work next year and we plan to have conference hours when the girls can consult her as to their

individual problems. Can you see any possible danger in this movement? We urge our boys and girls to talk over freely with their parents what they have heard, but not to discuss these matters with their schoolmates of either sex.

The whole problem of sex instruction is so tremendous in a great city like New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, or St. Paul, that any work the individual may do seems likely to be lost in the great shuffle. In spite of the crying need of widespread sex education, however, I am still in doubt as to the efficacy of lectures given by outside physicians or other physiological experts to large groups of students. This method, as you know, was tried out in Chicago and abandoned. The problem is so vital and personal that it needs the individual touch and counsel of those whom students already know and trust.

For most of the plays dealing with the sex problem I have absolutely no use, and many of the moving-picture films are probably even more dangerous. I have never seen but one of the latter and only two of the former, for why, pray, should we seek to get nutrition or enjoyment from sewage? Let me commend to you, however, either Damaged Goods or The Blindness of Virtue.

I am optimistic enough to believe that at least the next generation of teachers and parents will be trained to deal with the problem far more intelligently and courageously than have we. To this end we need to curb the reckless agitator for compulsory sex education, to give sane and wholesome courses dealing with this problem in all normal schools, colleges, and theological seminaries, to lead our children in the public schools to appreciate something of the far-reaching importance of the process of reproduction, and, above all, to seek in every way to arouse in parents a feeling of the deep responsibility to these children and to society which they have assumed in bringing their children into being.

COMMISSION ON THE REORGANIZATION OF
SECONDARY EDUCATION

MINUTES

RICHMOND MEETING

At the Richmond meeting of the Department of Superintendence the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education held four sessions as follows:

Wednesday Afternoon, February 25, 1914.-The following topics were discussed: "How May the Commission Become a Clearing-House for the Results of Successful Experiments in High-School Teaching thruout the Country?" "Is Such a ClearingHouse Needed?" "What Kind of Syllabus Is Helpful When Any High-School Subject