This can best be done by the parents—­father or mother—­for since children (boys or girls) ripen and come to puberty, individually and independently, the parent is God’s choice for this task.  To group boys and girls together for this instruction is terribly wrong, as the group must contain those whose need for information varies.  To talk on these matters in mixed groups of boys and girls is to incite wrong impulses and is criminal.  The parent is God’s instructor in these things—­a father to the son and a mother to the daughter.  Anything else is second or third best and only to be done under great necessity.  Under unusual conditions a Christian physician may instruct small groups of like physiological age, but the parental way is best, because it is both natural and permanent and we seek both.

=Sunday School and Sex=

Parents must be trained for this high duty.  To this end Fathers’ and Mothers’ Meetings should be promoted separately by the Sunday school.  Not one merely but a series, so that every father and mother may be able to attend.  It would be well to promote these in small groups by invitation and acceptance until every father and mother was reached.  A regular course of education might be arranged, viz.: 

First Lecture—­How to meet the questions of children.

Second Lecture—­How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of puberty.

Third Lecture—­Adolescence:  The Physiology and Anatomy of the Sex Organs and Methods of Sex Instruction.

Fourth Lecture—­Hygiene:  Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.

These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night address by the pastor of the church.

The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a Christian Physician.

Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field—­boys and girls—­should be discussed.

The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers or publicity.  Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of the boy and girl that is in question.  Keep away from muck-raking, be constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.

The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we desire social health among our boys and girls.  The land is full of the plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools.  The street reeks with the smut and filth of wrong sex knowledge, and our boys and girls are getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral.  The Sunday school can help our common, public health by helping the parent.  It should major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.

=Sex Instruction for Boys=