Great care should be exercised in the giving of sex instruction to boys of any age.  In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a right to approach the boy on the subject.  Even a father should make it his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before he becomes his boy’s teacher.  In the second place, books or pamphlets on the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the sex functions.  Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too sentimental.  There are a great many books on the market which had been better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned.  The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form, and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would have with his son about his studies or work.  The gush of sentiment plays havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the precipice, just to look over.  First, there should be the spoken word concerning the function of the sex organs; and then, if the need is urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way.  The less a boy thinks about these things the better.  The instruction should be for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not for the purpose of giving him expert advice.

Another thing is necessary for good sex instruction.  Up till a little while ago it was the custom of workers with boys to caution the lads against self-abuse.  They used all kinds of colored slides and fearful examples to impress on the boy the horror of the act, and very often inflamed the boy to exactly the thing they were shooing him from.  But today we are learning the fact that the positive is of more force than the negative, and that the “thou shalt” is better than the “thou shalt not.”  There is a real reason why the later adolescent boy should give no attention to the “thou shalt not,” and so fall into the snare of the negative; for it is the law of his being to “prove all things.”  It is far better to lay emphasis on the legitimate purposes of the boy’s sex life, the glory it gives him and the beauty of the self-sacrifice it begets, than to say a single word on the other side.

I have found it a good thing to refer to the practice of self-abuse of any kind as a sure sign of weak mentality, and this has produced a greater impression than anything else that I have formerly said.  Boys, it should be remembered, have brains and are really able to think.  When they act wrongly it is so often from lack of knowledge or because of wrong knowledge.  If I were to teach a boy my business I should tell him everything that would make the business better, and say nothing of how to put it “to the bad.”  Now what would we all do if our business was to help boys to live clean lives, speak truth, bless the community with unimpaired manhood and honor God with their united physical powers?