Thus every movement of sexual hygiene necessarily clashes against an established convention which is itself an inharmonious clash of contradictory notions. This is especially the case if sexual hygiene is introduced by way of the school. It is very widely held by many who accept the arguments so ably set forth by Frau Maria Lischnewska, that the school is not only the best way of introducing sexual hygiene, but the only possible way, since through this channel alone is it possible to employ an antidote to the evil influences of the home and the world. 6
Yet to teach children what some of their parents consider as too sacred to be taught, and others as too disgusting, and to begin this teaching at an age when the children, having already imbibed these parental notions, are old enough to be morbidly curious and prurient, is to open the way to a complicated series of social reactions which demand great skill to adjust.
Largely, no doubt, from anxiety to counterbalance these dangers, there has been a tendency to emphasize, or rather to over-emphasize, the moral aspects of sexual hygiene. Rightly considered, indeed, it is not easy to over-value its moral significance. But in the actual teaching of such hygiene it is quite easy, and the error is often found, to make statements and to affirm doctrines—all in the interests of good morals and with the object of exhibiting to the utmost the beneficial tendencies of this teaching—which are dubious at the best and often at variance with actual experience. In such cases we seem to see that the sexual hygienist has indeed broken with the conventional conspiracy of silence in these matters, but he has not broken with the conventional morality which grew out of that ignorant silence. With the best intention in the world he sets forth, dogmatically and without qualification, ancient half-truths which to become truly moral need to be squarely faced with their complementary half-truths. The inevitable danger is that the pupil sooner or later grasps the one-sided exaggeration of this