STORY OF SEX.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 April 1922, Page 7

STORY OF SEX.

“TELL THE CHILDREN.” “Sex Education” was the subject of a lecture given recently by Dr. W. H. Pettit at the Auckland Rotary Club’s luncheon. Dr. Pettit said the subject was one little thought about or understood, but one of the greatest importance to young men and women. A headmaster o-f Eton had declared that when sex knowledge had been properly imparted at home it equipped him to defy corruption at school or elsewhere.

“It is my conviction that as soon as a child is of an age to inquire into the matter of propagation he should be scientifically informed. If he is not he will get his information from corrupt sources.” This subject of the creation of immortal lives was of tha most fundamental importance to youth. A right conception of sex and the dignity, purity and power of life was of the greatest value. Yet the necessity for this education was still very imperfectly understood. At times groups of the teaching profession had seriously considered this matter and made recommendations to the education authorities, but the matter was still kept “in the dark.” Even the medical profession had done little in this matter to instruct the community. When the war was on (this would come as a surprise) the British Medical Association was asked to lend its name in support of lectures in camp on the sex question. It replied that whilst sex instruction to soldiers was all very well, the time had not arrived for indiscriminate lectures to the public. Modern life had added to the necessity to give to boys and girls a beacon to guide them through the dark paths of life. Then, again, the prevalence of venereal disease demanded that youths should be acquainted with what lay ahead, so that they might be warned of the perils. Ignorance was not purity, nor was knowledge impurity. No boy could grow up in these days without receiving the answers to the questions which arose in his mind. Here was the choice —to allow a boy to be instructed from pure sources or from sources of degradation. They were told that if they gave young people sex knowledge they would arouse a morbid curiosity. His answer to that was that every child, grew up with a perfectly natural curiosity concerning life and sex, and it was an act of folly to deceive a child when he must afterwards discover the truth from one source or the other. They were also told that knowledge in this respect to children would be misapplied. But a warning regarding the perils of sex was the thing that was needed. They would not send a boy ■to work in a powerhouse without warning him of the perils o-f electricity. He admitted that there were difficulties as to presenting this information to youth in an ideal way. But he had never met a man who said he had come to harm through this instruction being clearly imparted. 1 But he had met men who had suffered through their manner of learning these things, and who asked, “Why were we not taught these things at home or at school.” A child, he contended, should be warned of what danger lay ahead before it reached the age of puberty. Proper instruction in these matters would bring to the growing child a sense of the dignity and glory of parenthood as against the impurities with whieh it must inevitably come in contact.