PROBLEMS OF PARENTHOOD

AND SEX EDUCATION.

Preparation for parenthood should be one of the main aims of a scientifically planned and righteously conducted education, and in the fulfilment of such a purpose instruction in the fundamentals of sex must have a proper place. In the elucidation of problems of sex and in the exposition of the responsibilities of parenthood, two recently published books deserve consideration, and it is the object of this paragraph to direct attention to these notable volumes: "Motherhood and the Relationship of the Sexes," by Mrs. C. Gasquoine Hartley, published by the Eveleigh Nash Company, Ltd., 36, King Street, Covent Garden, W.C.1 (price 75. 6d. net), is a thought-stirring, timely contribution which deserves the fullest study of all medical and educational advisers, eugenists and other students and workers for individual betterment and national welfare. The author takes as her introduction the following striking words of Sir George Newman, taken from his Annual Report for 1914 as Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education: "It is now a well-established truism to say that the most injurious influences affecting the physical condition of young children arise from the habits, customs and practices of the people themselves rather than from external surroundings or conditions. The environment of the infant is its mother. health and physical fitness are dependent primarily upon her health, her capacity in domesticity, and her knowledge of infant care and management. Thus the fundamental requirement in regard to this particular problem is healthy motherhood and the art and practice of mothercraft. Given a healthy and careful mother, we are on the high road to securing a healthy infant; from healthy infancy we may expect healthy childhood, and from healthy childhood may be laid the foundations of a nation's health." Mrs. Hartley's handsome volume is

Its

divided into five parts: The introduction, in which are fully discussed the position of women before the War, and the position of women as affected by the War. This is followed by a clever study of the maternal instinct in the making, in which much interesting material relative to parenthood among animals has been skilfully collected and attractively set forth. The author has evidently sought far and wide for material, and has selected with judgment and real understanding. "The Study of the Mother in the Primitive Family" is a section of exceptional interest and value. Part IV is devoted to a consideration of "Motherhood and the Relationship of the Sexes," and is intro- duced by the following striking quotation from a work of Mr. H. G. Wells: "For the great majority of mankind at least it can be held that life resolves itself quite simply and obviously into three cardinal phases. There is a period of youth and preparation, a great insurgence of emotion and enterprise centring about the passion of love; and a third period in which, arising amidst the warmth and stir of the second, interweaving indeed with the second, the care and love of offspring becomes the central interest in life. . . . Looking at this with a primary regard to its broadest aspect, life is seen essentially as a matter of reproduction, first a growth and training to that end, then commonly mating and actual physical reproduction; and finally the consummation of these things in parental nurture and education. Love, home, and children, these are the heartwords of life." Mrs. Hartley deals very fully with the Family and the Home, Monogamous Marriage and Women, Sexual Relationships Qutside of Marriage, the Unmarried Mother, and the Danger of Secret Diseases. It is rightly urged that "the urgent duty that rests upon us all is the duty of taking action to prevent the penalty for the sin of illegitimate parentage being paid by the child." And to this end it is held that "it is immoral to countenance laws that

make profligacy easy." The following practical suggestions are set forth: (1) The removal of the present limit of the father's payment to an amount not exceeding 5s. per week.' The alimony paid should vary according to the means and social status of the father; in all cases it should include some kind of training to enable the child to earn its own living; until that time the payments of the father should continue. And if the child should be physically or mentally deficient, so as to be unable to support itself, the father must continue his aid for all its life. (2) A further charge should be made upon the man for the support of the mother for a period, certainly not less than one month before, and three months after the birth of the child. He should be compelled to pay for a doctor and a nurse for the mother, and provide clothes for the child. (3) The father's responsibility should be truly recognized, so that if the mother is driven to commit any deed of violence against the child, he must be held accountable with her and punished, should he have known of her condition and refused to help her. (4) In the case of the death of the mother, it should be possible to bring an order against the father or the supposed father. The mortality in childbed in these cases is much higher than among married women, and it is clearly unfair that the mother's death should leave the child, unprotected, without any power on the part of its guardians to compel the father to fulfil his parental responsibilities. (5) The father against whom an order has been made must be prevented from leaving the country unless he has first paid a sum sufficient to discharge his obligations, or has made suitable arrangements for payment during his absence." The concluding section of Mrs. Hartley's illuminating treatise deals with sexual education, and particularly with reference to the adolescent girl. The first chapter of this part deals with the relationship of the mother and her child, and is introduced by the following quotation, taken from Dr. Havelock Ellis: "The child at its mother's knee is not too young to hear from her lips the sacred facts concerning his own origin; in a few years, indeed, he will be too old, for he will have learnt those facts from a worse source, perhaps in the gutter; and instead of being beautiful

to him, as they might and should be, they will be merely dirty." The essential points are admirably summarized thus: "(1) Every child is born with a sexual nature; (2) this infantile sexuality furnishes the groundwork of the later sexual life; (3) and the individual's sexual conduct and health will depend, in part at least, on the peculiarities of this early period of infancy and childhood; (4) therefore the sexual desires and instincts with which the child is born cannot safely be left alone; they must be dealt with in some way; (5) for a wrong direction to these instincts may most easily be given by any mistake or neglect on the part of the mother or those connected with the child; (6) lastly, and most important of all, repression of sex is always dangerous; any efforts made in this direction are very likely to lead to evil in the later life of the child." And so it is rightly urged that "the sexual education of the child should begin in its earliest years, since there is no age too young for harm to be done by our neglect or mistakes." Mrs. Hartley has many practical suggestions which deserve fullest consideration. The book is an outspoken, thoughtful, constructive contribution to the study of fundamental questions which cannot be ignored, and which in these days demand attention as never before. There is a serviceable bibliography. We earnestly commend the whole volume to the careful study of all workers for child welfare and the protection and highest fulfilment of parenthood.

Another remarkable volume deserving of study is "An Introduction to the Physiology and Psychology of Sex," by S. Herbert, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., published by A. and C. Black, Ltd., 4-6, Soho Square, W.1 (price 3s. 6d. net). It is a handsome volume, well illustrated and attractively got up. Its subject matter will be of the greatest value to all desirous of understanding something of the essential facts and fundamental principles governing sex and the functions of sexual life. The author has endeavoured to present in a form acceptable to intelligent men and women the chief points relating to sex, mating and reproduction, both from physiological and psychological standpoints. The author claims that while there is a superabundance of books on sex, there exists

no work for beginners which deals in plain and unmistakeable language with all the essential phenomena of sex. Dr. Herbert's work certainly meets this lack. It is a lucid, scientific exposition with much practical information which will be of service to those who, as medical advisers, educational guides, parents, teachers, welfare workers and the like, are responsible for the enlightenment and direction of childhood and youth in regard to the sex instinct and its varied influences and manifestations. The book deals along evolutional lines with the biology of sex, its physiology and psychology, aberrations and the sexual norm. There are doubtless statements and opinions which will arouse discussion and concerning which differences of opinion must exist, but the book provides an honest endeavour to direct knowledge along sure lines. We particularly commend the book to the study of medical advisers, believing that it will furnish many doctors with just the presentation which they will find of service to give to inquiring parents and teachers. There is a short bibliography. The main thesis of this enlightening and suggestive little volume is admirably set forth in the concluding paragraphs, which we venture to quote: "Two points will have become clear from this discussion. The first is, that the erotic life of man, even the highest expression of it, stretches back with its furthest rootlets to the primitive sex impulse as found among animals. The physical basis of sex, though overlaid with a magnificent structure of the human mind, is thereby not made dispensable, but, on the contrary, forms the necessary stable foundation of all human love. The second fact elucidated is, that there exists an inherent opposition in the character of the male and the female sex elements; that, while the former tends to be katabolic, active, restless, and aggressive, the latter is more anabolic, passive, stable, and submissive. This difference of the male and female sex characters has been traced right through the physical and psychic sex constitution of man and woman. Its influence makes itself felt not less in the domain of sexual hygiene, where it creates the serious problem of continence outside and inside marriage. But the potency of this primitive sex antagonism is still more felt in the prac

tical and social sphere of sex. According to Walter Heape, it is the male who, with his roving and changeable nature, is responsible for the custom of exogamy, or mariage outside the clan; while the female, always more a mother than a wife, has been the founder of the family, even constituting its main prop. The problem has remained very much the same up to modern times. Thus prostitution and venereal disease depend largely upon the male sex factor, while illegitimacy and limitation of births are typical examples of the female sex problem. Now the physiological and psychological facts of the sex impulse form, of course, merely a substratum of the great social fabric of sex relationship. This builds itself up in its main outline according to the great fundamental laws of sex. Social factors, the outcome of the blind forces of human nature, merely modify such structure to a certain extent, giving it the various shapes and expressions we find among various peoples. This has been the course of the evolution of sex relationship up to the present day. But now the movement has entered on a new phase. Man has become self-conscious. Progress, instead of being left to run its course blindly, has become a deliberate idea of man. Through this very thought he has acquired the power of directing his own upward destiny. The whole feminist movement is an expression of this new impetus for progress. It aims at correcting the inherent weaknesses of sex, at reconciling the sex antagonism rampant in Nature. The old problem of Adam and Eve has acquired a novel aspect; suggestions and ideas for reform pour in on all sides and are eagerly discussed. A new world is surging to be born from out the womb of sex, the lifegiver. The old opposition of male and female, irreconcilable in its primitive form, assumes a higher aspect, and is taken up in the synthesis of a new sexual order. In the words of Edward Carpenter: The sexes, instead of forming two groups hopelessly isolated in habit and feeling from each other, rather represent the two poles of one group, which is the human race.' It is from this standpoint that a new society will have to shape itself in the reconciliation of the warring claims of man and woman. How to adjust the rights of man and woman out

side and inside marriage, how to apportion the relative duties of husband and wife, of father and mother; this is the task of Sexual Ethics."

'COMING EVENTS.

An address in French, entitled "Ceci est une Entente pour Toujours," intended specially for schools, will be given by M. Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, Officier Interprète, at King's College, on March 2, at 3 p.m., under the auspices of the Anglo-French Society. Communications should be addressed to the Anglo-French Society, 8, St. Martin's Place, W.C.2.

Free lectures are being given at the Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, S.E., on Saturdays, at 3.30 p.m., as follows:March 2: "Our Food from the Sea," by Mr. H. N. Milligan; March 9: "My Garden in War-time," by Mr. Edward Lovett; March 16: "Some Insect Pests of Gardens and Small Holdings," by Mr. Balfour-Browne.

At the Royal Institute of Public Health, 37, Russell Square, W.C.1, on the following Wednesdays in March, at 4 p.m., lectures will be given: March 6: Town Planning in its Relation to Public Health," by Professor S. D. Adshead, M.A., F.R.I.B.A.; March 13; "Food in its Relation to External or Useful Work," by Professor W. H. Thompson, M.D., Sc.D.

The Royal Sanitary Institute, 90, Buckingham Palace Road, S. W., are continuing their course of lectures for women health visitors, tuberculosis visitors, school nurses and school teachers; and also the lectures and demonstrations for maternity and child welfare workers.

At Bedford College for Women, Regent's Park, N.W.1, a systematic course of instruction in social studies is being held, arranged in connection with the Charity Organisation Society's scheme of training for social work. Particulars may be obtained from the Secretary of C.O.S., Rev. J. C. Pringle, Denison House, 296, Vauxhall Bridge Road, S. W.1.

The National Association for the Prevention of Infant Mortality and for the Welfare of Infancy, 4, Tavistock Square, W.C.1, are continuing the course of advanced lectures on Infant Care throughout March and April at 1, Wimpole Street, W.1.

At the Battersea Polytechnic, S. W.11, courses of lectures are being given primarily for students in training as health visitors, infant welfare workers, voluntary workers in infant welfare centres, and teachers. The subjects include Infant Care, Local Government, Artizans' Cookery and Housewifery, Food and Dietetics, and Home Nursing. Among the scholarships for the session 1918-19 which the Governors of the Battersea Polytechnic are offering in June next, is the Morgan Scholarship for Hygiene and Physiology. For this Scholarship candidates must be between the ages of 21 and 33. The successful candidate will be expected to follow a day course of training in hygiene and public health and the subjects bearing thereon. Particulars may be obtained from the Principal of the Battersea Polytechnic, S. W.11.

At the South-Western Polytechnic Institute, Manresa Road, Chelsea, S.W.3, a course of lectures on " Physiology and Hygiene" is in progress. These lectures will be of service to those training for social work.

At Mansfield House Settlement, Canning Town, residence and training are now available for students undertaking the investigation of social and educational problems. Information can be obtained from the Hon. Dean, Mrs. Mackenzie, M.A., Lecture Centre, 11, Tavistock Square, W.C.1.

At the College of Preceptors, Bloomsbury Square, W.C.1, Professor John Adams, M.A., B.Sc., LL.D., is giving a course of lectures on "Psychology" for teachers on Thursday evenings.

In connection with the Mothers' Union lectures are being delivered in March at the Mary Sumner House, 8, Dean's Yard, Westminster. On Wednesdays, at 3 p.m., Miss Newman deals with problems of Child Psychology.

The National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases are arranging for the delivery of educational lectures in different parts of the country. Particulars may be obtained from headquarters of N.C.C.V.D., 5, Avenue Chambers, Southampton Row, W.C.1.

The Froebel Society and Junior Schools Association propose to hold a summer school during the first fortnight in August at Westfield College, Hampstead, N. W.