Youth and Sex

"Youth and Sex As Taught in the Year 1919" is written in two parts. The first part of the book is written by Mary Scharlieb for girls and young women. The second half of "Youth and Sex As Taught in the Year 1919" is written by F. Arthur Sibly for boys and young men. "Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually strongly denounce. While I have my own views as to the best method to adopt, I am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method is infinitely superior to no method at all Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public teaching. Some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a matter-of-fact science subject. Some wish the parent to give the teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially trained for this purpose. Good results have been obtained by every one of these methods. During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in these pages, and I am confident that of boys who have been wisely guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated with those who are generally and openly corrupt. I must, however, emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his devotion to the Right. "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power." Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most difficult of all virtues." F. Arthur Sibly