Title: Child Life and Sex Hygiene: A Remarkable Message
Author: Smith, Otterbein O.
Language: English
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HYGIENE ***



                              CHILD LIFE
                            AND SEX HYGIENE

                         A Remarkable Message

                                  By
                       OTTERBEIN O. SMITH, D. D.

                      Lecturer on Modern Psychics
                           and Active Pastor


       Published by request of a section of the Women’s Club of
               Pierre, So. Dak., before whom the address
                         was originally given



                           COPYRIGHTED 1912

                         By Otterbein O. Smith



                             TO MY MOTHER

            _Who, Through the Upfloodings of a Pure Mother
               Heart, Kissed Nobleness and Courage Into
                      the Heart of Her Boy, This
                          Book Is Dedicated._



                               PRESS OF
                       THE MONARCH PRINTING CO.
                         COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA



                              A FOREWORD


Sending this little book out into the world is like sending out one of
my children, for as they came from my heart, so has it. My heart has
ached for my children as it has been necessary for them to go out and
meet the buffetings of an unsympathetic world and so aches it for this
little fledgling. But still I have a hope that the world will not be
wholly unkind to it and that it will find its place and accomplish that
which has been hoped for it, in helping human lives and adding to the
sum of purity in the world.

This little message grew out of an address made before a section of the
Women’s Club of the city and their request to have it published. I have
not changed the literary style from that of public address, thinking
that perhaps it would be more effective in that form.

You will doubtless find some striking and unusual statements in this
message, but all I ask is that you will give it careful thought and
that you will remember that these statements have been made after
twenty years of careful study of the mysteries of life and that they
are backed up by the best of physical and psychic facts. I have
not dared to go into detailed explanation for want of space and so
may bring down on my head storms that I might easily dissipate if I
were but in touch with the storm maker. But let the storms come if
they must, I will rejoice amidst them all if only I can awaken the
parenthood of this land to the dangers to which their children are
exposed.

                           Yours for purity,

                                              OTTERBEIN OSCAR SMITH.



                      Child Life and Sex Hygiene


                              SEX HYGIENE

This word hygiene has its root in the word Hygeia. Hygeia was the
daughter of one of the gods of the Classic Mythology, and was the
goddess of health. Sex hygiene is then, sex health, or sex normality.

Is there special danger of abnormal conditions or disease in the sex
life of children and young people? We must answer this question before
we can determine whether our time is well spent in the study which
shall follow.

To determine this we must make a brief study of the unfolding human
life and note some of its component parts and their relative relations
and values in the organism.

We can best do this by a study of the accompanying chart. The lower
line of the triangle represents the body, or physical life; the left
side the feelings; the right side the intellect. If body, feelings and
intellect were equal in any human being, then, we would have a perfect
triangle, or a normal human life. But this is not true in any child or
young person. This diagram illustrates the relative relations of these
three elements of being as the child advances toward mature life.

[Illustration: Note――For want of space the triangle is reduced from
original drawing.]

The early years of a child’s life is almost purely physical and the
physical plays a large part in the life of the girl or boy till they
are well advanced in their ’teens, as you will see by a study of this
figure.

Each side of this triangle is three inches long. The lines that run
across the triangle represent feeling at the various stages of the
child’s life. You can see that in the early years the feelings and the
physical are very close together and are the dominating impulses of the
life.

The reader should bear in mind that the word feeling is not here used
in the restricted sense of referring to physical feelings only, but to
all the feelings which surge through the being from whatever source.
We should not lose sight of the fact, however, that, because of the
important part that is played in the organism during the teens by the
impulses from a given nerve center, all feelings will be colored more
or less by the outfloodings of that nerve center. As we have suggested,
the child till well advanced in years is largely a creature of feeling,
and what mind it has is what may be called a picture mind, or a mind
for seeing things. How easy it will be for all the feelings of the
being to become inoculated with impurity and place before this picture
mind of the child such distorted views of life as will vitiate the
entire organism! How important it is that a higher intelligence, that
is the father and mother, create pure, noble and beautiful pictures and
place them before this picture, or seeing mind, of the child.


                  A CHILD’S LIFE EXPRESSED IN FIGURES

Expressing the life of a child in figures, what do we find? As you
will see, the baby has three inches of physical, three inches of
feeling and but one-fourth of an inch of intellect. _This makes six
inches of physical and feeling pitted against one-fourth of an inch
of intellect._ The child of six years has six inches of physical and
feeling and one-half an inch of intellect. The child of fourteen has
six inches of physical and feeling and but one inch of intellect. _Even
at eighteen the proportion is six inches of physical and feeling and
but two inches of intellect._ How striking these proportions are when
we put them in inches.

I would not, however, have you think you can literally measure a child
in yards and inches or that they will all measure the same, for no two
children develope alike, but in a general way this scale holds good.
While you will find some children developing the intellect much more
rapidly than others, and more rapidly than is suggested here, still you
will find on the whole that this scale of relative proportions is not
far out of the way for the average child.

I WOULD HAVE YOU STOP FOR A MOMENT AND GET THIS DIAGRAM AND RELATIVE
PROPORTIONS WELL FIXED IN YOUR MINDS.

Think what these proportions mean and to what constant danger this
child is exposed in developing sex abnormality if not disease. If an
abnormal sex condition obtains it will surely sooner or later lead to
disease. We may therefore conclude that our study is worth while and of
priceless value to all young life.

The thoughtful study of this diagram convinces us beyond a peradventure
that _there is vast danger of harmful and perhaps dangerous sex
conditions obtaining without careful and intelligent guiding in the
early life of the child_.


                              SIX TO ONE

Even at fourteen years of age the proportion of feeling and physical to
intellect is as six to one. Where have you ever heard of a general who
went out to fight a war with ten thousand men when his enemy had sixty
thousand? He might make a momentary dash with such a force, but in the
end he would be overcome. Still we allow our children to grow up with
these odds against them and we seem to be entirely thoughtless as to
the danger they are in.


                     THE MELTING POWER OF THOUGHT

Are you asking, why the human organism was not so constructed that the
intellect would always be the dominant factor in the life? Had this
been done there would be no possibility of the organism ever coming to
perfection, for the impulses that are sent out from the inner life of
man through the brain at the upper end of the spine are so powerful and
so finely attenuated that they would entirely destroy the physical body
before it has time to become strong and tense and able to carry them.
_If the intellectual impulses of a grown man or woman were sent through
the life of a child the body would be melted just as the fine wire is
by a heavy voltage of electricity._

God was wise in creating this sex nerve center, or physical brain, by
which the organism builds and paints in glorious beauty and charming
grace the wonderful machine, the human body, and makes it strong and
tense so that when the work is complete the ego or spirit of man will
have a perfect instrument through which to manifest itself to the world
and perform its mission and live its life in highest nobleness upon the
earth. Because of these facts _God has wisely wrapped the intellectual
faculties of the child within its life, as he does the rose-buds in
the rose-bush, that when the body work is completed, that crown of all
His creation, the self conscious life of man, may manifest itself in
all its glory through a perfect instrument and that instrument remain
strong and proficient through the years_.

We may add this further suggestion to make our point clear. In our
statement of the slow growth of the intellect as compared to the other
two elements of being, we are dealing with the reasoning faculties and
not with memory, which is quite another element and is not dangerous to
the physical development, and may show a marked unfoldment at quite an
early age.


                         IMPULSE AND VIBRATION

Having got these relative proportions well in our minds we may for a
brief time give our attention to an important scientific fact which is
necessary to our study. Our lives are entirely controlled by impulses
which originate in various parts of our personalities. Sometimes the
impulse comes from our bodies; again the feelings are in control, and
at times the memory asserts itself. Then again the intellect is the
dominating factor. OF THIS WE MAY BE SURE, FROM WHATEVER ELEMENT OF
BEING COMES THE STRONGEST IMPULSE, THERE FOR THE TIME BEING IS THE
SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. We are also scientifically certain, _that the more
finely attenuated an impulse is, and the more rapid the vibrations
are which carry such an impulse, the more powerful it is and the more
surely will it prevail over the slower impulses carried at a lower rate
of vibration_. A current of electricity of high voltage will melt a bar
of steel.


                  THE FINEST ORGANS――THEIR FUNCTIONS

With the above thoughts well fixed in our minds we are ready to ask,
what are the two finest and most sensitive organs in the human body and
those capable of sending out the finest impulses? There is but one
answer to this question. 1. The brain, or mind nerve center. 2. The sex
nerve center. One of these nerve centers, the brain, is the instrument
of the intellect and the other nerve center is the instrument of
feeling, not of base and shameful feelings, as many people think, but
of the most exquisite and beautiful feelings of which a human being
is capable. _As the beautiful thoughts of man may be distorted into
vicious and sinful things, so may the exquisite feelings which flood
forth from the sex nerve center be debased and distorted into sins._

With these glorious possibilities and purposes of this nerve center
before us, what a horrid nightmare it is for anyone to think, as some
people do, that this sex nerve center is the organ of humiliation and
shame and is therefore not a proper subject of conversation in polite
society. Nothing can be farther from the truth than this.


                          THE BEAUTY IMPULSES

Stop for a moment and think; from whence come the beautiful impulses,
or thoughts OF HOME, MOTHERHOOD, FATHERHOOD, LOVE FOR AND PROTECTION
OF CHILDREN, THE ART OF HOMEBUILDING AND HOME ADORNMENT? Come they not
from this very nerve center? Destroy this nerve center in any young
child and its life will be void of all these glorious impulses.

In place then of this nerve center, or sex organ, being a blushing,
shame-faced spirit that mutins in the life of humanity, it is _the
producer of all highest physical beauty both in the human organism and
in its surroundings_.


                   THE MIND BRAIN AND THE BODY BRAIN

May I ask how many of you have ever told your boys and girls this? Not
one of you, because you never knew it before. You have always thought
that our sense of beauty originated in the nerve center, which we call
the brain. The mind of man directs, unifies and co-ordinates and should
control these beauty impulses as they flood out into the being, but
they have their origin in the sex nerve center.

THIS ORGAN, OR NERVE CENTER, IS THE BRAIN OF THE PURELY PHYSICAL LIFE,
AS TRULY AS THE GRAY MATTER, OR NERVE CENTER AT THE UPPER END OF THE
SPINE, which we call the brain, IS THE BRAIN OF THE EGO, OR INNER LIFE.
Through the sex organ, or nerve center, the physical life in its rarest
and most delicate beauty finds expression, as through the brain the
inner life, or ego, expresses itself in thought and will.

Do you ask for proof of this somewhat remarkable statement? Let me
answer by asking a question. When are the birds most beautiful in
plumage and sweetest in song? AT MATING TIME. _It cannot be said that
this is due to intellect, but upon the other hand it is the natural
upflooding of the beauty impulses from the physical brain, or sex nerve
center._

We cannot here enter into the deeper psychological question involved
in this somewhat unusual statement, that the sex nerve center is the
physical brain, but it must be evident to any thoughtful person that
the statement is not far out of the way, as is evidenced in its beauty
building power in the lives of the birds. There is an intelligence or
consciousness in this physical brain, but it is not a self-conscious
intelligence, such as functions through the brain at the upper end of
the spine.

Because of the above facts and many others that might be presented, we
feel justified in the statements we have made above.

When we contemplate all this may we not well pray, _Oh, God forgive
us our sins of ignorance and false modesty and help us rightly to
appreciate this, one of Thy greatest gifts to the human race!_


                        A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION

Let me bring to you an illustration to make this thought clear. Suppose
you could unsex every child in this city under six years of age; this
would be before the sex nerve center had time to flood the life with
the sense of beauty. Then build a wall about the city and leave these
children to themselves, simply supplying them with food and clothing,
but keeping away from them, as far as possible, all human beings, who
through sex impulses were filled with thoughts of beauty. What would be
the results and what kind of a city would you have here in forty years
from now? There would be little, if any, physical beauty among these
people as they grew up, for they would grow slatternly or slab-sided,
or fat and stuffy, and having lost the sense of beauty with their
unsexing they would let the buildings go to decay and the streets grow
up to weeds, and what a dreary waste this once beautiful city would be!


                  WHO HAS BEEN TEACHING THE CHILDREN?

Though the thought is new to you, do you not begin to see the truth and
beauty of what I have been saying about this wonderful nerve center, or
brain of the physical life?

What father or mother who may read this has ever felt it a religious
joy to teach their children the truth about this wonderful gift of God
to the human race?

I am not going to ask you how many of you were so taught, for I feel
very sure none of you were. Scarcely anyone has ever been taught any
thing right about it, but most, if not all, have been left to stumble
along in the dark, as you and I were, and if by chance they happened
to hit upon a plan, or stumbled onto knowledge, which enabled them to
live together happily after marriage, well and good; if not, the great
American juggernaut, the divorce mill, makes another revolution, and a
wrecked home and two broken lives are held up to public gaze, as the
result of its deadly work. There is not the slightest doubt in the mind
of the writer but that a large percent of the divorces of this country
grow out of the absolute ignorance of young people as to how to live
together happily.


                                 HELP!

But what shall I say? I do not know how to teach my children.

A most delightful book, which will put pure, noble, and instructive
words into every parent’s mouth with which to approach their children
from babyhood till they see them stand at the marriage altar, is “Four
Epochs of Life,” by Elizabeth Hamilton-Muncie, M. D., Ph. M., Graves
Publishing Co., New York. Let us ever remember that the education of
a child along these lines should begin as suggested in this charming
book, at a very early age, but it is better late than never, and if you
have neglected your children before begin now.


                          THE PHYSICAL BRAIN

Let us return now to this wonderful nerve center, or brain of the
physical life. When does it begin to send out _these finely attenuated
beauty impulses, which must move at very high rates of vibration_?

These impulses which give grace, form, and all other touches of
indescribable charm to the body of the child.

From the very beginning of its life to some small degree, and from
twelve years of age they begin to show themselves the dominant impulses
of the life. They rise in the body just like waves of heat on a summer
day. _They are flooding every fiber of the being, giving roundness
to the limbs, grace to the form, drawing beauty lines upon the face,
painting roses in the cheeks, putting sparkles in the depths of liquid
eyes._ All of this and more are these little builders, which we call
sex impulses, doing in the years from twelve to eighteen. Is it any
wonder with all this marvelous work to do, that like the sculptor who
is to make a statue out of a block of marble, they must take possession
of the body and become the dominant element in it? The heart, liver,
digestive organs, and even the brain itself are subject to these
outflooding impulses as they work out the beauty of the physical life.

Turn back to your chart now and note what a small part the intellect
plays in the life of the girl or boy between the ages of twelve and
eighteen. Just enough to be a willing servant of the sex impulses, as
they work out the plan of beauty, as given them by the hand of the
Master of all life. In fact the brain is largely an automaton in this
work, for the ego has not had time _to fully lay through the brain
that fine system of telephone connections and wires by which the brain
becomes a perfect instrument through which the ego or inner man may
reason out the problems of life_, so that up to eighteen there is
comparatively little reasoning ability in the life of children.


              IMPULSES MOVING AT RAPID RATES OF VIBRATION

These beauty building impulses are sent out in such abundance during
the teens, that they fairly cause the body to scintillate, the cheeks
to glow and the eyes to sparkle. Here they come, wave after wave,
_like shimmering light upon the mountains, trooping up through the
physical life like angels of the Eternal, making the body glow with
unspeakable beauty_.

They should be guided by the finest and holiest thought, for _they are
the elect angels of God to the physical life of man_. But what is done
with them? Oh, sad! The parents have been led to think it is not quite
the thing to talk to their children of these things and the child has
not developed sufficient brain activity to reason about them and to
understand them and translate them into elements of beauty and sacred
service. Here the young life stands like a beautiful deer before the
on-coming prairie fire, it feels the tremendous swish of the flood of
feelings and physical life, like the hissing of the flames behind the
deer. If only the deer can reach the lake for which he pants and swim
out into its cool depths he will be safe; and if the child could creep,
as it were, into the heart of father or mother and hear glorious,
tender, holy words spoken of this flood of feelings, which is all so
strange to it, and which sweeps up through its being like a storm in
the forest, and have an intelligence translate them into God’s own
beauty of life, what a joy it would be!

When I see the mighty army of beautiful youth standing unprotected and
in ignorance of the great danger before them, with no one to teach
them and the very parents that gave them being, indifferent, is it any
wonder that my heart cries out, Oh, sad?


                   IGNORANT PARENTS――RUINED CHILDREN

What usually happens if one of these elfs of human life has the
temerity to speak to father or mother about these strange impulses? A
blush of shame, perhaps, and the expression, “You better be thinking
of something else,” or “You should be ashamed to be talking of such
things,” ends the conversation.

A lady in high station said to the writer, when talking upon this
subject, “I went to my mother a few days before my marriage and asked
her to tell me about the marriage state. My mother was a good woman,
but all she said was, ‘You will find out soon enough.’” God forgive and
pity the ignorance of such mothers!

Rebuffed at home, what happens? This child goes out upon the streets
and from vulgar playmates, older than it is, through vulgar stories
and suggestions, gets a base and lewd conception of all this in his or
her life which God meant for beauty, for His glory and the glory of
the race, or what is almost as bad, remains in stupid and dangerous
ignorance till some vile octopus throws his tentacles about this dream
of beauty and sparkling, buoyant youth, and the end of the tragedy is
a ruined life, or what more often happens, two of these ignorant young
people get together and because of their ignorance commit those acts
against chastity which bring ruin and disgrace.

“But,” you say, “such cases as you depict above are the exception and
not the rule and I am not afraid of my child being caught in such ways.”


                        YOUR CHILD IS NOT SAFE

I grant you this and hope by all means it is so. But do not because of
this, settle back into comfortable indifference, for there are greater
dangers than those stated above from which you cannot say your children
are so free.

As children grow up in the home, if it is a right home, they often see
father and mother kiss each other, and perhaps they see the mother
sometimes lovingly drop down upon the lap of father and put her arms
about his neck. The natural question that comes to the mind of the
child is, “why does she do that?” No one has ever taken the trouble to
anticipate this unspoken question and answer it, and the child goes out
to mingle with its playmates of both sexes with this unspoken question
unanswered.

The natural outcome of the child reasoning will be, if one woman can
kiss a man and sit upon his lap, then all women can kiss men and sit
upon their laps. Why not reason in this way? No one has ever taken the
trouble to explain the difference between the married and the unmarried
state and the rights and privileges that belong to the wedded pair,
which rights are recognized by both God and the laws of our land.


                            NATURAL MATING

If you will observe them, children mate as naturally as the birds do.
Here they are dancing about us like the sunbeams in the forest, in
pairs of natural selection. You may notice them in the home, in the
school and on the streets. Innocent little things they are in these
childish matings and might remain so to the end of life if some kind
intelligence were directing them. But no such intelligence is at hand.
The mothers joke about these matings and tease the children about them
and that is the end of the parents’ relation to this gravest question
in all life.

These children grow to fourteen or fifteen years of age and the
impulses from the sex nerve center begin to flood themselves out in
a perfect submergence of the life. They get hold of some silly love
stories, that have been written by some heartless person for so much
per line, and were never intended for any normal person to believe or
think possible, but to their childish minds it is a chapter from real
life, for they are not in any sense normal beings at this age as you
will see by a look at the triangle. At this age _the intelligence is
but a mere pigmy_ in their lives as compared to the giants of feeling
and physical life.


                         IGNORANCE BRINGS RUIN

Seeing and knowing no danger in it, they follow out the natural sex
impulse to touch one another and to caress each other. Why not? Have
they not read in the love story of the lover and the sweetheart kissing
and caressing each other, and furthermore, and _the strongest possible
evidence in the case, have they not seen father and mother kiss and
caress each other_? Is it not the most natural thing, under these
conditions, for these children to enter into such familiar relations as
will lead to serious consequences in many cases?

I know many a girl has lived through this period of ignorant familiarity
with young men without having her character wholly ruined, and she
appears before those of us who know the danger through which she has
passed, as a living miracle.

But having escaped these dangers herself, what has she done for the
young man with whom she has had these familiar relations? She has,
unwittingly of course, multiplied the sex impulses in his life till
they sweep over him like a fire in the forest. He is a manly young
fellow and would scorn the thought even of allowing these impulses to
expend themselves upon the one who had awakened them and increased
their outflooding. In the midst of these experiences he falls in
with some young man older than himself, and they talk it over. This
fellow prides himself on being worldly wise, and so the younger man
is influenced by him. The result is that he goes to someone who will
receive him for a money consideration. Then comes the awful awakening,
and he recognizes the fact, that the blighting leprosy of the sin of
lewdness has fastened itself upon him. But after the first shock his
heart is lightened, because some physician assures him that he can cure
him. But that man is either ignorant or he is wilfully deceiving this
young man, for the Almighty himself cannot assure him that this plague
will ever entirely leave his body. God will forgive his soul, but no
one can honestly assure him that his body is not damned for all time.
It is true some men seem to recover entirely, but no one can give them
any assurance in this matter. The best medical science tells us that
these germs may remain in the body for years and then show themselves
in various forms and diseases.

Is it not time for those of us who know of the awfulness of this dread
plague to “cry aloud from the housetops,” if by chance we may awaken
the fathers and mothers who sleep in ignorance and false modesty?


                         AN APPALLING INSTANCE

Will it help you any if I tell you of a single instance, which came
under my notice some time ago, and is but one out of many that chills
my blood as I write. A young girl came to a certain city and secured
employment in one of the business houses of the city. She was of
inferior intellect and had but little chance for development of that
side of her nature, but the sex brain, or nerve center, had done much
for her and built in her body lines of remarkable grace, had painted
her cheeks with marvelous color and given unusual brilliancy to her
eyes. A foul miscreant, in the form of a man of older years, saw this
beautiful human creature and decoyed her into improper relations with
him. His body was full of the leprosy of lewdness and he imparted it
to this ignorant young creature. But sad as it would be it would not
be so bad if the tragedy had stopped there, but it did not. Think of
it friends! EIGHT OF THE UNTAUGHT AND UNPROTECTED BOYS OF THE HIGH
SCHOOL OF THAT CITY, WHO HAD BEEN ALLOWED THE FREEDOM OF KISSES AND
EMBRACES OF YOUNG GIRLS, AS IGNORANT AND UNPROTECTED AS THEY, saw this
young creature and were drawn into improper relations with her and the
leprosy was passed on to each of them. This is not an illustration
merely, but a statement of fact, for I had the facts direct from the
physicians who treated these boys.

If this was your High School would you be alarmed? And would you cast
aside your false modesty and in the name of God be frank and true to
your children?

Though it may not be your High School there are always dangers enough
that if realized should make parents earnest and anxious for the safety
of their loved ones.


                     IGNORANCE AND A WRECKED HOME

May I give you a single illustration of the wrecking of two lives,
through the ignorance of a boy touching these grave questions?
This sad story was told me by a medical friend, who was personally
acquainted with these young people, and while an interne in a hospital,
in one of our eastern cities, assisted in the operation referred to.

A young boy of sixteen, of one of the refined and cultured families of
the city, had grown up in ignorance as to sex relations and instincts.
He was invited to a week-end party, at the home of friends, and while
there, with a houseful of guests, fell in with a woman older than
himself, who enticed him into improper relations with her. Whether she
knew it or not, she was afflicted with the leprosy of lewdness and
she passed it on to this boy. As soon as he discovered his condition
he went to his father and told him about this incident and was taken
to one of the best physicians in this country, who lived in the city.
This physician treated the young man till he was twenty-four years
old and assured him, so far as medical science could determine, he
seemed to be entirely cured. The young man had become awakened by
this sad experience and through this awakening learned of the awful
fatality which attaches itself to this leprosy, so to be sure he went
to another specialist and was examined and treated by him for a year.
During these years, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, he had
fallen in love with a beautiful young woman of one of the refined homes
of the city; but so much of dread had he that he deferred his marriage
for a year to make sure that the last vestige of the plague was gone.
At last they were married with all the joys and delights of that hour.

Vain hope was his, for in less than a year after their marriage the
physicians were compelled to perform an operation to save the young
woman’s life, which forever left that home childless and the young
husband carrying in his heart an awful shadow which would never lift
till the grave received him.

This is not an isolated case, for such tragedies are multiplied by
thousands all over this fair land of ours. And the appalling facts are
that a large majority of them can be charged to a lack of education by
the parents. Thousands of dollars are spent to educate the children in
books and music, but not a moment of time given to teach them the truth
about this one most important subject.


                           THE AROUSED SOUL

Are you startled and does your heart cry out, “What can I do? Oh! what
can I do?”


                              THE HELPER

YOU CAN BE FRANK, INTELLIGENT AND HUMAN WITH YOUR CHILDREN. Let me tell
you, if I may, some things you can do. Let us think of the daughter
first, but not because she needs more protection than the son, for God
knows they are both in need of all the protection loving, intelligent
parents can give them.

If the streets are sloppy and you want to protect your daughter, what
do you advise her? To wear her rubbers, of course. If she has a cold
and there is a raw wind blowing what do you advise her? Wrap up well
and see that her throat is protected. Why do you give this advice?
Because on the sloppy streets the feet are the points of attack, and in
the raw wind the throat is the point of attack.

Why not be just as sane in dealing with your daughter when you come to
teach her to protect her character and self respect?

At what points do these outflooding impulses of glorious womanhood
manifest themselves at the surface of the body? The answer is
self-evident, the lips and the bosom. You have known this all the time
and you have sat idly by and seen your daughters go out into dangers
far more deadly than wet feet or inflamed throat without ever saying a
word to them about how to protect themselves. Why not sit down by your
daughter of fourteen and tell her these truths; tell her there is a
vital connection between the bosom and the sex nerve center which is
more sensitive than the most delicate electric impulse and explain to
her how wonderfully God has arranged the body of woman and why? Why
not tell her the same truth as to her lips? _Tell her that unless God
had made a vital connection between the lips of a woman and the sex
nerve center she could not kiss love and nobleness into the life of her
children during those glorious days of motherhood._ Tell her, with all
the love a mother can put into the words, that will live forever in the
heart of every true child, that because of these wonderful truths every
_true young woman should protect her lips and bosom as she would the
engagement ring, the pledge of love and approaching marriage_. Tell
her, with the wifely love upflooding from your heart, why her father
has a right to kiss and embrace you and _why it will mean the lowering
of her character, if not its ultimate loss, for her to give these
jewels of hers, even for a moment, into the hands of any man other than
he who will be her husband, and as such has the loving right to them_.

Why not teach your son the sacredness of womanhood and the manliness
of protecting it? Pardon me, if I say I am not writing a theory, but
am speaking out of my own heart. I commenced teaching my own son
when he was twelve years old and had my last talk with him a month
before he was married. He grew up to be a clean young man and I felt
a thousand times repaid for my effort when his wife came to her new
mother a short time after their marriage and told her with such delight
how thoughtful, kind, gentle and refined her lover was in all their
relations.


                       THE DANCE AND ITS DANGERS

I may at this point call attention to the dangers of the dance. Every
girl who enjoys dancing, and most of them do, should be shown the
dangers to both herself and the man in allowing herself to be drawn up
too close to the person of the man she is dancing with. She should not
only be told that she must not do so, but told plainly and lovingly
why. There may be nothing impure in the thought of either, for when
they are dancing they are usually not thinking. Music tends to quiet
thought and under such conditions they will follow the sex impulse and
unconsciously draw near to each other, and they are far more sure to do
so while ignorant of the dangers in it. In like manner boys should be
taught to carefully respect the person of girls and told in a plain,
frank way the truth about their relations to the opposite sex.

I believe, as a rule young people love to dance with the purest of
motives. They are attracted to this form of amusement because of their
love for music and the natural desire to keep time to it. The most
zealous religionist finds himself patting his foot when a bit of lively
music is played, which is but an evidence of the natural desire of any
human being to keep time to music.

Is there someone asking, “If it is true that young people have the
purest of motives in their desire to dance, how comes it then that so
many frightful mistakes are made as a result of the dance?” I might
answer in a single word, by saying, IGNORANCE.

It is the conviction of the writer, however, that no more mistakes are
made in proportion, and perhaps not so many, as the result of the dance
as by long night rides in buggies, or sitting in the shadow of trees in
public parks. But the facts are more people dance than ride in buggies.


                      THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DANCE

The great danger in the dance is, to my mind, _a psychological one_,
which might be overcome by knowledge upon the subject. Let us examine
this thought for a time, for here is the crux of the whole matter.
When your attention is called to it, you cannot think of more perfect
relations existing between two persons for hypnosis, or hypnotic
suggestion to take place than that which exists in the dance. To get
this clearly before us let us note the steps taken by the hypnotist.
He has his subject relax his body, and put his mind at rest and then
he prefers to have soft music played. Under these conditions he most
easily gets control of the mind of his subject.

Let us now study the couple dancing. The body must be in a more or less
relaxed state, for graceful motion would not be possible with a rigid
body. The mind is at rest, because the music lulls it into quiet and
makes the dominant element in the life the feelings, for _we do not
think music, we feel it_. Just here you must recall, that the sex nerve
center is the brain of the physical life and continually sends forth
the most exquisite impulses of feeling, which manifest themselves in
all the glory and beauty of bodily charm and these _must of necessity
mingle in their outgoings with the vibrations of the music and the
feelings which it induces_.

Now you have these two persons, _with bodies relaxed, minds at rest,
just floating over the floor, and carried, as it were, on waves of
music_. Under just these conditions many an uninstructed and ignorant
girl has passed under a hypnotic spell in which she has been led to do
that which ruined her life and which she would have surrendered her
life rather than have done, had she been in her normal state.

Let me give you an instance in point. Some years ago I was lecturing on
the psychic question, and among other things I spoke of _the psychology
of the dance_. The next morning I met one of the fine, clean young
men of the little city, who was teller in one of the banks. He said
to me, “Doctor I enjoyed your lecture very much last night, and I
believe you have the right idea as to the psychology of the dance.” He
said, “Sometime ago I was dancing with one of the finest young ladies
in this city, one who is absolutely above reproach. As you said, ‘we
were just floating along over the floor charmed by the music.’ I was
looking down at her (he was a tall man), and thinking what a nice young
woman she was, when all at once she laid her face against mine. She did
not excuse herself then and she has not apologized since and I do not
believe she knew that she did it.” This is the conclusion of a sane,
thoughtful young man, as he pondered over an unusual experience with a
pure-minded and irreproachable young woman.

May I here give the testimony of an educated, thoughtful young man of
thirty? In a frank talk with me, he said: “There have been a few times
in my life when I have found it necessary to stop dancing with certain
ladies.”

There might not have been the slightest wrong thought in the minds of
this young man or the lady he was dancing with, but the outflooding
impulses from the sex nerve center in the life of the lady might just
at that time have been so vital and have been carried at such rapid
rates of vibration as to make themselves felt in the atmosphere about
her. This, my friends, might happen _without an evil thought upon the
part of either, for this brain of the physical life may and does send
out these impulses without the recognition of the intellect_.

Had this young man observed these ladies he would have noted a charming
and unusual color of the skin of the face and an unusual and bewitching
sparkle in the eyes, both of which indicate marked activity of the sex
brain, or nerve center.


                    SHOULD THE DANCE BE ABOLISHED?

There are many good people who would like to abolish the dance, and
because of the ignorance of the larger number of people who engage in
this amusement, I think I would join with them, but in all probability
we will never be able to do it, so long as people love music and
instinctively keep time to it.

It may be in our zeal in this matter we are making a mistake and
taking a wrong view of the question and by vicious, and sometimes
senseless, attacks upon many good young people and this particular
form of amusement in which they engage, doing both them and ourselves
an injustice and keeping many of them out of the Kingdom. Of this I am
sure, if young people are to dance _they should have proper chaperonage
and a right knowledge of the possible dangers and how to avoid them_.
NO GREATER MISTAKE COULD BE MADE THAN TO ALLOW YOUNG PEOPLE TO ATTEND
PUBLIC DANCES.

May I close this little message then, which goes out with a prayer
for God’s blessings to rest upon all who read it, that it may be a
helpful message to them; by urging frankness and candor upon the part
of you, the parents, with your children, and if you are uninstructed
inform yourselves and put such books in the hands of your children as
will give them pure, wholesome information upon this most important
subject in all the world, and God will bless you and them, and in joy
and thankfulness you will see them grow up in the purity and nobleness
of strong, helpful men and women. BE ASSURED OF THIS, IF YOU DO NOT
EDUCATE THEM THE STREETS WILL.


       *       *       *       *       *


 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.



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