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  • THE FATHER’S RELATION TO THE HOME

    The father is the head of the home.—The character of the home determines the character of the church, society and the nation. The home is the most important of all earthly institutions. The problems of society, the church and the nation, if ever solved, must be largely solved in the home. The home is both a civil and divine institution. Civil and divine law place the husband and father at the head of the home. No teacher sustains a more vital relation toeacher sustains a more vital relation to society, no minister to his congregation, no king to his empire, or president to his republic, than does the conscientious father, who does his best to build an ideal home. He is truly serving God and his country, in the highest sense. In the work of building a home, he is serving society and the church in a higher sense than he would be, were he neglecting his family, by writing books, teaching school, delivering lectures or preaching sermons.

    His relation to his wife.—The relation of husband and wife is a partnership affair. In every sense they are equal partners. Their rights and privileges are equal. Their part in building a home is not, in all respects, the same. The service of one is as important as the other. Neither can build a home without the other. Their service is incomparable.

    He is to furnish financial support.—Nature has fitted man mentally and physically for devising means of earning a support for his family. Whatever occupation, calling or profession he may engage in, he should put forth the best effort of which he is capable to produce an income that will support his family decently.

    The amount of money he can furnish his wife, will depend upon his earnings. They should talk over this matter as partners. One has as much right to the income as the other. They should not spend more than is produced. If the income is small, both should economize. They should endeavor to save something each year, even if the income is small. Money is stored-up human energy. If the income is large, they should be more liberal in the use of it, but it is always a sin to waste money. The husband has no right to cause his wife to beg him for money, to meet her personal expenses or the expenses of the children. The money is not exclusively his own. Home building is a partnership in which every member of the home is interested in every dollar produced. Legally the father may spend his money on his selfish indulgences. Morally{ he has no right to spend the home company money in a way that will not benefit each member of the home. For a father to annually spend fifty or more dollars on tobacco or drink and refuse corresponding amounts to his wife and children to be spent needlessly by them, is as dishonest, as for a member of a firm, or the president of a bank to misappropriate the funds of a partner or a depositor.

    He is to furnish moral support.—For a man to build a reputation for honesty, truthfulness, sobriety and virtue and to possess a good character are of more value to his wife and children, as a home builder, than to be able to produce large earnings and to be free with the same. When a man assumes the responsibility of building a home, his family have a right to demand of him honesty, integrity, sobriety and virtue. He has no more right to rob them of one than the other.

    He is to love his wife.—While the romance of courtship and the honeymoon cannot be continued for life, yet he should always show her a deep respect, a manly courtesy, a true love and absolute loyalty to his marriage vow.

    The relation of the father to his children.—Each child born into the home is a new member added to the partnership. The children have financial, social and moral rights that should be respected by the parents. While civil law and God place the father at the head of the home, this does not give him special rights and privileges, or constitute him a boss or ruler, but he should so conduct himself that the family will regard him as their protector, supporter and adviser. He should not swear, tell vulgar stories, use tobacco or indulge in strong drink unless he is willing for each member of his family to follow his example. As partners in the home, they have the same moral rights as himself. He should be to his children a chum, a friend, a companion. He should constantly endeavor to make the children happy. There are times, in the home, when the father’s decision must be law. He must support his family. The law holds him responsible for their support and for their deportment as citizens. As long as they are under age, if they contract a debt or damage property, the law holds the father responsible. This responsibility makes it necessary for him to decide some things, in a way that a child may not wish to coincide. This should be done in a dignified and pleasant way.

    The father should never allow himself to become angry or to use hasty and abusive language in correcting a child. If he does, he demonstrates his own weakness and inability to be a real father. Punishment of some natural kind is sometimes necessary, but corporal punishment, as a rule, is brutal.

    The father should so conduct himself as to command the respect, reverence and love of his children. He should be sociable and gentle, as well as dignified and strong. He should have their complete confidence, so they will come to him with their problems and troubles. The sacred service of a true father in the home, can only be equaled by the service of the mother. The fathers who toil long and late, study and strive to support, educate and train a family of children to become good citizens and devoted Christians, will receive a rich reward here and a royal welcome yonder.

    Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

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  • THE ESSENTIALS OF A HOME

    The basic incentive for marriage.—A completed home embraces a father, mother and one or more children, bound together by natural love for each other. The initial step in home building is taken when a man and woman decide to assume the duties, responsibilities and functions of marriage. Courtship and marriage may be prompted by a number of motives. There is but one natural and worthy motive—LOVE. This motive may be a little out of date in some circles, but it remains essential to a normal home, a happy productive home. This expression of love is awakened to conscious activity through acquaintance and friendship, becomes a joyful reality in courtship, is consummated in marriage and is perpetuated through life, because{16} of a chaste, pure, unselfish sex preference of one man for one woman and that one woman for that one man. If for any reason, this sex preference is ever broken, the bonds of love between husband and wife will be weakened, if not severed for all time. This bond of union may be broken in a number of ways. There may be other causes of domestic inharmony, all of which can be adjusted so long as sex preference, or love, binds the two as one. Under the guidance of unselfish sex selection, few mistakes would ever be made, in the choice of a companion.

    The tests of true love.—A man and woman bound by pure love for each other, may live in a shack or a humble rented cottage, they may have to toil late and hard to support a family of growing children, but they and the children will be happy and usually healthy and strong, bound together by mutual love. They will remain true to each other through adversity, sickness and death.

    Mismated.—If husband and wife are not bound to each other by a natural sex preference, or love, though they may hold in their possession broad acres of land, railroad bonds and heavy deposits in the bank, live in a mansion and move in the élite circles of society, they will not love each other, their children, or be able to build a REAL home.

    Other incentives for marriage.—It is quite customary,{17}


    A Good Argument for Pure Living
    A Good Argument for Pure Living

    in some grades of society, to choose a life companion for social or financial advantage. Such unions are not natural. They are cold business transactions. A man prompted by these motives sees in a woman the qualities of a good housekeeper, a social queen, or a financial gain. A woman prompted by unnatural motives sees in a man opportunities for social prestige, a life of luxury and ease. They drift apart instead of their personalities blending, through love, as one. Soon he spends his days in his daily vocation and his evenings in the lodges. She finds her only pleasure in following the latest fashions and devoting her time to various social functions. Each have their secrets and manage to avoid public disgrace.

    Should a child be born into such an unnatural home, it would receive an unfortunate heredity and a still more unfortunate environment. The initial of its life was accidental, its prenatal rights were not regarded, its advent was not welcomed, it is now turned over to a hired nurse. Such a child is more unfortunate than an orphan. In no true sense has it a father or mother. This child, when visitors are about, or when the family is making a public display, may be petted, pampered and spoiled by its parents and on all occasions lavishly supplied with dress and toys; thus egotism will be stimulated and propensities gratified and this child will be placed at a decided disadvantage in life. Compared{19} with this child, the little ragged street urchin is to be congratulated.

    When the natural, God-designed and God-honored, sex instinct is perverted and base desire supplants love, in the choice of a companion, the home instinct is degraded, love dethroned and inharmony prevails.

    The Romance, of Courtship and the Honeymoon, is Transitory. There is a certain amount of the glamour, mystery, novelty, romance and poetry connected with courtship and the honeymoon, while perhaps natural at the time, but in the very nature of the case cannot be permanent. The plain, practical, everyday experiences of life must become prominent in every successful home. The fairyland, of flowery visions, rippling streams of sentiment, poetic fancies of bliss and the lunar and stellar raptures of love, must yield, after a period of such experiences, to mundane realities where these beautiful dreams terminate and air castles are destroyed and life once more becomes real.

    When the termination of this romantic period comes to the young wife, whose vision of marriage was received from sensational novels, fashion journals, the theater and gay social gatherings, and to the young husband, kid-gloved, well-starched and much-cravatted, it will be unexpected and very disastrous to their imaginary love. Cruel and prudish are they, who are responsible for creating artificial social{20} visions in the minds of the youth. But when the termination of romance comes to the young husband and wife, whose courtship and marriage have been true to nature, this will be supplanted by the dawning consciousness of life’s real mission in marriage and they will discover that the truest, sweetest and most enduring pleasures and joys of life have only begun.

    The first born.—Fortunate and happy is that young couple, who, before the romance of marriage is over, becomes aware that preparations must be made for the first little stranger into their home. If the faint prophecies, of the approaching advent of their first-born, thrill their lives with hopeful and joyful anticipations, marriage will now have a deeper significance, the bonds of love and dependence become stronger and the pleasures of life more real. The supremest moment of marriage comes when the young husband, who for the first time, in the birth chamber, stands by his wife’s side, holding her hands in his; stoops and kisses her lips, cheeks and brow, as she bravely and beautifully endures the throes of parturition. Such an experience is enough to transform a brute into a man. When the first-born is placed to the young mother’s breast, a deep, profound, but quiet happiness knows no bounds in two hearts that beat as one. This is the primary purpose of marriage. A cooing baby is nature’s own sequel to the honeymoon.{21}
    God’s Richest Blessing to a Home.
    God’s Richest Blessing to a Home.

    Health, happiness and life worth living is made possible through parenthood.

    If a child was intelligently planned for and warmly welcomed into every home, the first year of married life, then one by one at reasonable intervals until the family consists of four to eight healthy, happy, well-cared-for children, most of the problems of marriage would be solved.

    The childless homes.—All efforts to evade the fiat of nature and God, “multiply and replenish the earth,” not justified by the authors of this law, will lead to health blighted, happiness destroyed, a home wrecked and two souls will be arrested in their endless progress. In homes, voluntarily childless, and in homes where one or two little intruders were accidentally and unwillingly admitted, can be found the most serious and perplexing social problems.

    Childless homes made happy.—The involuntarily childless homes, and the homes voluntarily childless, because of justifiable reasons, need not be unhappy. Their paternal and maternal natures may be developed by adopting homeless children. In this land there are many such happy homes. If the mother love, in childless homes, annually wasted on poodle dogs, was expended on homeless children, there would soon be no childless homes, orphan homes and homeless children, and more happiness in the world.{22}

    How shall family troubles be solved?—While natural sex preference and the birth of children solve almost all the domestic problems and make possible the solution of all family troubles, they do not render the husband and wife immune to all differences, disagreements, incompatibilities and perplexities. It is not possible for the husband to see everything from his wife’s view point, or the wife to see everything from the husband’s point of view. If they differ in taste, retain their personalities, have lofty ambitions, possess sensitive natures and have their individual ideals, they will often differ in their opinions, and, occasionally very good people will find themselves in disastrous disputes. Commendable ideals and virtues, as well as faults, may become the sources of domestic trouble. What should they do—separate? No. Secure a divorce? Certainly not. Let these steps be the last possible resort. Where a family of children are to be scattered and injured by the disgrace, perhaps a divorce should not be sought, on any grounds. The bleeding hearts and blasted hopes caused by one divorce is greater than that caused by a score of deaths. Divorce degrades morals, withers ideals and causes untold human suffering. What is the remedy? Agree to let past differences, disagreements and quarrels remain in the past. Don’t bring the dead yesterdays over into the living to-days. Each{23} morning, give each other a clean slate. Resolve each morning to please, rather than to displease your partner. By doing this, irreconcilable differences will gradually disappear. This does not mean that they should lose their individualities, or compromise with their convictions. This is not a radical or expensive remedy, but one that works in nearly every case.

    Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

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  • Introduction to the EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

    The saddest thing in all this world is a human wreck,—a man or a woman, young or old, who is undone and who, in one or more walks of life, is a failure. There are so many of them! Mental wrecks, physical wrecks, nervous wrecks, social wrecks, business wrecks, character wrecks. The aspect of these derelicts is the more pitiable because of the possibilities before every well-born human being, who, with the endowment of intelligence and other gifts and powers bestowed upon him by a kind Creator, is capable of rising to heights of human perfection. Ample provision made for man’s every need and want by God, and yet we find misery where there ought to be happiness, poverty where there ought to be riches, darkness where there ought to be light, ignorance where there ought to be knowledge, vice where there ought to be virtue, and turmoil and strife where there ought to be peace. Only too accurately do the poet’s words apply:

    “Of all the sad words of tongue or pen,
    The saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”

    This problem of human wreckage becomes more depressing when we consider that in the breast of every person there is an innate desire to live true, to win success. The day dreams of every boy and girl picture themselves as the hero or the heroine in the story which weaves into its plot their ideal men and women. Their ideals may be low, that is the fault of their environment and training, but their ideals always represent their own highest conceptions of manhood and womanhood. But sooner or later struggle comes, appetite craves, and passion cries out, and if they are unprepared for life’s real conflict, they go down, and another failure is recorded and another wreck left to float and endanger every other craft upon life’s seas, until human wreckage is becoming so enormous that it is a question in the minds of scientists and sociologists as to how long humanity can keep up its present pace and survive the centuries.

    The causes of human wrecks are many, far too many to be tabulated or enumerated. In a sentence they result from the principle that it is easier to coast than to climb; so much easier to float than to struggle against the current. Like the weeds that kill out the crops, just so is humanity beset by enumerable temptations at every turn, social and economic customs force downward a great many who would otherwise rise to higher things, and, it is suspected, that in the very nature of man there is a strong tendency to evil which can be overcome only by divine grace. Appetite and passion are the two forces to which man’s higher aspirations most often give way. Intemperance and impurity, in their broader meaning, are the two bars upon which most human wrecks have stranded. Social impurity, or the abuse of the sex function and nature, is by far the most insidious, and with respect to the number and degradation of its victims, the greatest evil in the world to-day.

    This book is one of the most valuable ever written because it treats fully and wisely this question of personal and social purity; it points out the reefs, the bars, the snags, the icebergs, the shallow and dangerous places where human wrecks are made; it guides those who accept it as their pilot into the deep waters of an unobstructed channel where the voyage of life will be ever safe, successful, glorious. Here will be found an incentive to climb rather than to coast, an inspiration to struggle even against the current if in the struggle may be won some of the more valuable prizes of life. Here is a book that holds high the single standard of morality, and demands that men shall be as pure as women; it stands boldly for the education of the young in sex hygiene, and proclaims a truth that ought long ago to have been universally known, that it is the right of every person to know every knowable fact pertaining to themselves, and that such knowledge ought to be imparted to them before the lack of it has brought injury to their lives. This is a book that will help to forever banish that false modesty and prurient thinking which has made the tremendous growth of public vice a reality, until every girl is in danger of enslavement and every boy threatened with its corruption.

    This is not a pioneer book on these questions. Other most excellent works have preceded it, for which we should all be grateful, and have paved the way for this latest volume. The excellence of this work consists largely in its completeness. It is a book for the home, for every home, and for every member of the home. It tells exactly what ought to be known concerning the sex nature and life of the individual, and the normal relations of the family and society, and best of all it teaches parents how to impart this saving knowledge to their children. Any and every home that takes this book as a friend and counselor, and faithfully studies its pages, will fortify every person within the portals of that home against the baneful influences of impurity and vice.

    The writer has known Prof. T. W. Shannon, the talented author of this book, for some years, and we have watched his efforts with interest and admiration. A voluminous writer, a wide traveler, he has probably reached more people with his uplifting message of purity through his books and upon the platform than any other living man of the same age. His methods are never sensational and he does not stoop to uncovering all the cesspools of sin and vice, but he leads people upward by directing their minds and hearts to the beauty and rewards of pure living and right thinking. Through the strength of his personality and the profound truth in his message, he has helped thousands of college students and other young men to avoid the pitfalls which have brought disaster to so many young lives. By education and experience Prof. Shannon is eminently fitted to prepare just such a book as this and his authorship should at once entitle it to a high place among the standard works of the day dealing with these problems.

    As the volume has received my own endorsement, even so I trust it may be most cordially received into the homes of America, that our sons and our daughters may be fortified through the truth, presented in an attractive and safe and sane manner, against the temptations which constantly meet them; that human wrecks may be fewer, and that every life may have a fair chance to attain all for which it was created.

    B. S. Steadwell.

    La Crosse, Wisconsin,
    December 18, 1912.

    Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

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  • Preface to the EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

    Truth like gold is unaffected in quality by its environment, but the environment of truth does affect the character of the person receiving it. Half truths clothed in obscene language and imparted by the ignorant or vicious have made mental, moral and physical wrecks of millions. The same truth received from a pure mother, noble father, a good book or a wise teacher, safeguards the youth and accomplishes untold good.

    The purpose of this book is not only to enable parents, teachers and all matured people, to inform themselves more fully concerning the vital facts of life, but it furnishes a specific guide to all parents, who would know how to tell their children the sacred story of life, and counsel intelligently with their sons and daughters at the ages of greatest danger and give them clean, concise and scientific sex instruction with a view to safeguarding them against the demoralizing half truths of vicious or ignorant schoolmates, servants or companions; and to all others of sufficient age, who have an opportunity for service to innocent and helpless children, who would have a wise word at the right time; and to the young man and young woman, married or single, who would avoid the pit-falls lying in the pathway of those ignorant of God’s sacred laws of nature; and to all mankind who seek to make the world better by more intelligent and better living.

    The author of this book is sacrificing home life, financial interests, and much that is dear to all human hearts, to humanity’s cause. He lectures by day and works and travels by night and is unable to meet half of the calls for service. During engagements of two or three days he labors at night without money and without price in private interviews with young men after his lectures until midnight, one, two, three and four o’clock in the morning, hoping thereby to lend a helping hand to thousands to the end of nobler, purer and better living. In this work he has met with marvelous success. He now hopes to send his vital messages to the four corners of the earth in book form in order that the influence of his work may be felt in wider circles than he may ever hope to reach in personal endeavors. The spirit in which this book has been written is best expressed in the words of Henry Van Dyke:

    “There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. There is a nobler character than that which is merely incorruptible. It is the character which acts as an antidote and preventive of corruption. Fearlessly to speak the words which bear witness to righteousness and truth and purity; patiently to do the deeds which strengthen virtue and kindle hope in your fellow men; generously to lend a hand to those who are trying to climb upward; faithfully to give your support and your personal help to the efforts which are making to elevate and purify the social life of the world.”

    Prof. Shannon observes that the spirit of society and the attitude of our government has been to protect our forests, inspect our swine and neglect our children, but that a wiser and more hopeful day is dawning. More interest in the study and application of the laws of Heredity has been taken in the past ten years than in the previous ninety. Newspapers and magazines contain articles by leaders of eugenic thought; purity organizations are springing up throughout the country and sounding the word of warning against the prevailing ignorance of these subjects; books are being written; sermons and lectures delivered and the masses are becoming interested. In this Prof. Shannon is doing his part. The sale of his books to date have reached in excess of a quarter of a million copies with no organized effort behind them. Each copy sold seems to sell two others, and with the business growing by leaps and bounds and getting beyond his control, the present publishers with a sales system unexcelled, were selected as a medium for placing his messages literally into the homes of millions.

    Prof. Shannon is a member of the Advisory Board of the World’s Purity Federation and lectures under the auspices of this movement. Eight years as teacher of Biology, after his graduation from college, his experience in writing eight other purity books and years of research and lecturing on these subjects have eminently qualified him for the high position he holds to-day with the World’s Purity Federation, and as author of a number of books on moral, social and reform topics which are to-day meeting with such an enormous sale. He sends forth this volume on its mission of usefulness to the human race with the implicit faith that it will be the means of safeguarding the youth wherever it goes and make thousands of homes happier and brighter and the world a better place to live.

    The Publishers.

    Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon

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