It may be necessary to point out that every movement in this direction must be the spontaneous action of individuals directing their own lives according to the rules of an enlightened conscience, and cannot be initiated by the dictation of the community as a whole enforcing its commands by law.  In these matters law can only come in at the end, not at the beginning.  In the essential matters of marriage and procreation laws are primarily made in the brains and consciences of individuals for their own guidance.  Unless such laws are already embodied in the actual practice of the great majority of the community it is useless for parliaments to enact them by statute.  They will be ineffective or else they will be worse than ineffective by producing undesigned mischiefs.  We can only go to the root of the matter by insisting on education in moral responsibility and instruction, in matters of fact.

The question arises as to the best person to impart this instruction.  As we have seen there can be little doubt that before puberty the parents, and especially the mother, are the proper instructors of their children in esoteric knowledge.  But after puberty the case is altered.  The boy and the girl are becoming less amenable to parental influence, there is greater shyness on both sides, and the parents rarely possess the more technical knowledge that is now required.  At this stage it seems that the assistance of the physician, of the family doctor if he has the proper qualities for the task, should be called in.  The plan usually adopted, and now widely carried out, is that of lectures setting forth the main facts concerning venereal diseases, their dangers, and allied topics.[254] This method is quite excellent.  Such lectures should be delivered at intervals by medical lecturers at all urban, educational, manufacturing, military, and naval centres, wherever indeed a large number of young persons are gathered together.  It should be the business of the central educational authority either to carry them out or to enforce on those controlling or employing young persons the duty of providing such lectures.  The lectures should be free to all who have attained the age of sixteen.

In Germany the principle of instruction by lectures concerning venereal diseases seems to have become established, at all events so far as young men are concerned, and such lectures are constantly becoming more usual.  In 1907 the Minister of Education established courses of lectures by doctors on sexual hygiene and venereal diseases for higher schools and educational institutions, though attendance was not made compulsory.  The courses now frequently given by medical men to the higher classes in German secondary schools on the general principles of sexual anatomy and physiology nearly always include sexual hygiene with special reference to venereal diseases (see, e.g., Sexualpaedagogik, pp. 131-153).  In Austria, also, lectures on personal hygiene and