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  • Commitment and call to action: Global collaboration to accelerate new COVID-19 health technologies

    Commitment and call to action: Global collaboration to accelerate new COVID-19 health technologies

    Our Vision and Mission

    Grounded in a vision of a planet protected from human suffering
    and the devastating social and economic consequences of
    COVID-19, we, an initial group of global health actors (BMGF,
    CEPI, Gavi, Global Fund, UNITAID, Wellcome Trust, WHO) and
    private sector partners and other stakeholders, are launching
    a landmark, global and time-limited collaboration to accelerate the
    development, production and equitable global access to new COVID-19 essential health technologies.

    We know that as long as anyone is at risk from this virus, the entire
    world is at risk – every single person on the planet needs to be
    protected from this disease.

    We agree that alongside evidence-based public health measures,
    innovative COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines are
    needed – in record time and at record scale and access – to save
    millions of lives and countless trillions of dollars, and to return
    the world to a sense of ‘normalcy’.

    We recognize the significant amount of critical work, investment
    and initiatives already ongoing around the world to expedite
    the development and deployment of innovative COVID-19 related
    products and interventions.

    We appreciate that while development and deployment of
    innovative products is essential, it will not be enough. We must
    simultaneously and urgently accelerate the strengthening of
    sustainable health systems and capacities to enable delivery of
    the new COVID-19 tools to those who need them and to mitigate
    the knock-on impact on other diseases.

    We remember lessons from the past, which have shown that even
    when effective tools are available to the world, too often some
    are protected, while others are not. This inequity is unacceptable –
    all tools to address COVID-19 must be available to all. In the fight
    against COVID-19, no one should be left behind.

    We understand we cannot do this alone, and that we need to
    work together in unprecedented and inclusive partnership with all
    stakeholders – political leaders, public and private sector partners,
    civil society, academia, and all other stakeholders across society
    – jointly leveraging our comparative strengths and respective
    voices to drive towards collective solutions, an accelerated path,
    and access for all. We are stronger, faster and more effective
    working together.

    Our Mission is not only accelerated development and availability
    of new COVID-19 tools – it is to accelerate equitable global access
    to safe, quality, effective, and affordable COVID-19 diagnostics,
    therapeutics and vaccines, and thus to ensure that in the fight
    against COVID-19, no one is left behind.

    Our Commitment

    1. We commit to the shared aim of equitable global
      access to innovative tools for COVID-19 for all.
    2. We commit to an unprecedented level of partnership
      – proactively engaging stakeholders, aligning and
      coordinating efforts, building on existing collaborations, collectively devising solutions, and grounding
      our partnership in transparency, and science.
    3. We commit to create a strong unified voice to
      maximize impact, recognizing this is not about
      singular decision-making authority, but rather
      collective problem-solving, interconnectedness and
      inclusivity, where all stakeholders can connect and
      benefit from the expertise, knowledge and activities
      of this shared action-oriented platform.
    4. We commit to build on past experiences towards
      achieving this objective, including ensuring that
      every activity we undertake is executed through the
      lens of equitable global access, and that the voices
      of the communities most affected are heard.
    5. We commit to be accountable to the world, to
      communities, and to one another. We are coming
      together in the spirit of solidarity, and in the service
      of humanity, to achieve our mission and vision.

    Our Call

    We ask the global community and political leaders to
    support this landmark collaboration, and for donors to
    provide the necessary resources to accelerate achievement
    of the objectives of this global collaboration, capitalizing
    on the opportunity provided by the rolling pledging
    campaign that will start on 4 May 2020.

    Commitment and call to action: Global collaboration to accelerate new COVID-19 health technologies
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    https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/24-04-2020-commitment-and-call-to-action-global-collaboration-to-accelerate-new-covid-19-health-technologies

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  • THE RIGHT OF A CHILD TO A KNOWLEDGE OF SEX

    Social conditions of childhood changed.—The social conditions of childhood have changed much in the last fifty years. Just as our children have opportunities and possibilities far greater than had we when we were children; so they are exposed to temptations and dangers greater than were we, when we were children. The suggestive, and oft-times positively obscene pictures on post cards, in books and on billboards; the viciously immoral literature; the cheap moving picture shows of to-day, were not social problems threatening the purity of our childhood.

    Knowledge of self important.—There were ethical, biological and vital truths that our parents, because of mock modesty and a false and inadequate education, failed to give us in our childhood. This was a serious defect in our early education. We met with temptations, were often overcome by them and we are not what we might have been had we been safeguarded by a better knowledge of ourselves. But, because of the better social conditions of our childhood, we were better able to grow up without this information and with less injury to ourselves, than our children can, without this information, under present social conditions. If we would safeguard the character of the children of to-day and the youths of to-morrow and the manhood and the womanhood of the succeeding day we must give our children a correct knowledge of themselves.

    The confidence of childhood.—When children are born, they have a capacity for learning how to stand alone, crawl, walk, love and hate, speak and read, to judge of what is right and wrong. All they may come to know in the future, true or false, good or evil, they must learn. Coming into our homes without knowledge and utterly helpless, they naturally come to recognize their parents as their rightful teachers and to have absolute confidence in them. Ask a child from three to ten years old who he thinks is the best man in the world. The reply will be, “my papa.” Ask him who he thinks is the best woman in the world. The instinctive reply will be, “my mamma.” The answer may be true or false, but we do not question the sincerity of the child. The greatest calamity that can come to that child, comes when he is compelled by convincing evidence to reverse in his judgment this sincereand implicit faith in the goodness of his parents. No greater misfortune than this, can come to the parents. This natural and complete confidence and dependence of the child gives the parents a very decided advantage over all other teachers in the future training of the child.

    Inquisitiveness of childhood.—It is because of this natural confidence that the child goes to the parents with his many questions. The almost ceaseless activity and playfulness of a child, are in response to nature’s call for exercise in the natural and healthful development of every organ of the body. The many questions of a child are in response to nature’s call for exercise in the development of every faculty of the mind. The unfolding, growing, developing mind of a child naturally asks questions. It is for this reason that a child is said to be an animated interrogation point. Some of the questions of a child may perplex a philosopher, tax the patience of a Job, or embarrass a brass monkey; but the naturalness and sincerity of the child demand honesty, frankness and wisdom on the part of parents.

    How did I get into this world?—At the age of three, four and five the child will begin to ask questions as, “Where does the rain come from? Where does the snow come from? Where do the clouds come from?” When kittens, pups, pigs, a calf, a colt are born, the child very naturally asks about their origin. The child is told repeatedly that he is four, five or six years old; that he has had that number of birthdays and has seen that number of Christmases. He remembers only half of them. He listens with interest to his parents as they relate some thrilling event of years gone by. A bright inquiring child will naturally ask, “Mamma, was I in the world at that time?” The mamma replies, “No, darling, that happened six months before you were born.” How very natural it was for the child to ask, “Well, mamma, where was I at that time? How did I get into the world?” An angel could not be more sincere, or ask a purer question. This was no evidence of the child’s depravity. When I find a child of seven or eight years old who has not asked about his origin, I know that one of three conditions will explain this unusual mental state of the child. (1) The parents have not encouraged the child’s mental development by permitting him to be free in asking questions. (2) The child has heard the story of life told by vicious companions, in half truths, clothed in vulgar language and is keeping his information a secret from his parents. (3) The child is not developing quite as fast as I would like for my child to develop.

    The unsatisfied mind.—When the inquiring mind of a child has once become interested in this question, it is not possible for him to be satisfied until a plausible answer has been received. The child’s future, physical, mental and moral life more largely depends upon the answer given to this question, than to any other question of his childhood.

    The most vital part of a child’s education neglected.—In the past, parents, teachers, reformers and ministers have very largely held to the old theory, that, if children are to be kept pure and innocent, they must be kept ignorant of all information pertaining to sex. We have them learn the physiology, anatomy and hygiene of their brain, heart, lungs, digestive and nervous systems as if their very lives depended upon a correct knowledge of these parts; but we have allowed them to grow up in total ignorance concerning the sacred sanctuary and function of human reproduction, upon which so much of health, happiness and success in life depends.

    Mistakes of the past.—In the past all faithful parents have loved their children as much as we have loved our children. They were as much interested in safeguarding the virtue of their children as are the parents of to-day. They endeavored to train their children in harmony with their ideals of right. Our parents, in their childhood, got the idea that all language and information concerning sex was essentially impure. All their information was received from vicious, ignorant sources. In matured life, they came to see that all the words and language they had heard pertaining to sex and all the mental and moral impressions they had received, had done them great harm. Their experience led them unwisely to conclude that all information of this kind is injurious to a child. They failed to see the difference between receiving only half-truths, expressed in vulgar words and phrases, taught by the vicious and ignorant; and in receiving the pure truth, in chaste language from the lips of a wise teacher, a noble father or a pure mother. A nugget of gold may be pure gold, whether found in a mud hole, a slop bucket, a tar bucket, or a clear stream of water. But, if you come in contact with the surroundings of the gold, your remaining clean, becoming cleaner, or becoming soiled, will depend on the place where you find the gold. The effects, good or bad, of sex knowledge, upon a child are largely determined by where and how he gets his information. If he gets this information from a careful and wise teacher no harm can come from it. If he gets the information from the misinformed and the impure, only harm will follow.

    To teach sex truths, two qualifications necessary.—You would not think of having your child taught mathematics by one, who, himself, was never properly taught, or who knew only half-truths about mathematics. You might not demand of him a moral qualification, if he possessed the intellectual equipment. But, in the teaching of sex, a moral qualification is even more necessary than the intellectual. But few adults are prepared to tell the story of life to a child, and fewer still are prepared to give additional instruction as the child grows older. For one to do this work successfully two qualifications are absolutely necessary. (1) Parents and teachers must have a moral qualification. They must regard the organs of sex and their functions as pure and sacred. If they have the taint of lasciviousness in their thoughts of the creative function, it would be a dangerous experiment for them to attempt to teach their children about the origin of life, or to give other instruction to those more advanced in years. The misinformation and false education they received in childhood and the consequent mock modesty, are the greatest difficulties in the way of their performing this sacred duty to their children. For this reason the adult classes are as much in need of correct instruction in sex as are the children. (2) Parents and teachers must have a mental qualification. One-fifth of the names referring to the organs of sex, their functions and their abuse, that adults are forced to use when they try to express their thoughts about sex, could not be found in the dictionary, and, one-half of those that could be found in the dictionary would not refer in their meaning, even remotely, to the sexual system. They picked up these words in childhood from ignorant schoolmates and companions whose minds were tainted with debasing thoughts of sex. The use of these vulgar words, in the presence of a boy who has heard them before, suggests to his mind that which is lascivious. Those who would teach these things, to the young or old, should be able to command a chaste, clean, plain, language.

    How a father failed.—During one of my courses of lectures, a cultured lawyer invited me to his office for an interview. He reproduced, in language and gesture as best he could, a speech he had made to his twelve-year old boy warning him of the dangers of the secret sin. I saw the lawyer was deeply interested in his boy. He loved him and was deeply concerned about his future. The language he used was the same he had learned when a boy and the same his boy had evidently heard on the playground. I question whether the father’s advice did his son much good. Here was a case where good service was neutralized by suggestive language.

    How a teacher failed.—A few months ago I lectured in a city where immorality was appalling. The superintendent of schools called into the chapel about six hundred boys, from ten to eighteen, and attempted to lecture them on social purity. He soon became embarrassed, used some street terms, excited lascivious thoughts, looks, smiles and laughter among the boys and utterly failed in his efforts. If this lawyer and teacher failed with the advantages and solicitude they must have had, would not the great mass of parents, teachers and ministers fail for the same reasons.

    Parents not wholly responsible.—A few editors, doctors and reformers have censured parents severely for not teaching their children the truth on these subjects. They should remember that ten years ago a very few parents had read a sane book or listened to an intelligent lecture on these subjects. Their only information had been gained from the playground and street on the sly. Courses of lectures, adapted to age and sex, should be given in every community. Ministers, teachers, physicians, merchants, parents, young and old, educated and uneducated, all should hear them. A few standard books on sex-hygiene and social purity should be put in every home. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” More people are in physical, mental and moral slavery because of ignorance concerning the laws of sex, than all other causes combined. It follows that those who have learned the truth should impart it to those who have it not.

    How children have been treated in the past.—We have seen how parents have been led in the past to conclude that all information as to the origin of life is injurious to a child. For a child to inquire, “Where was I before I was born? How did I get into this world?” was a sure sign of his depravity. As a result of these traditionary ideas some parents have slapped a child for asking about his origin. Still, others have scolded and ordered the child from the room, commanding him never to ask such ugly questions again. What must be the feelings of a child treated in such an unappreciative and heartless way! Such treatment has never satisfied the inquiring mind of any child. Under such treatment a child will go off alone, pained and puzzled to know what was wrong in that simple, natural, honest question. In most cases the child’s question has been evaded by some one of a hundred falsehoods about “swamps,” “sinkholes,” “hollow logs and stumps,” “bird nests,” “storks,” “old women,” “doctor’s satchel,” and “under a cabbage head.” When only a small boy, I was called from my bed early one spring morning to see a beautiful colt the mare had found. For awhile I looked at the colt with admiration and wonder. Then I very naturally inquired, “Where did the mare find her colt?” I was told that she found it in a nearby brush pile. For the next six months no brush pile escaped my eager eyes.

    An example.—On my second lecture trip through Canada, a father told me how he answered his little girl’s question, “Papa, how did I get into this world?” His answer was as follows: “Daughter, God dropped you out of heaven one day while it was raining. Papa saw you falling from a cloud and ran out and caught you in his arms and brought you into the house.” That father was boasting of his tact and wisdom.

    Another example.—A mother in the South, in reply to a similar question asked by her five-year-old boy, said: “Son, God sent you into this town on the Cotton Belt train, about three o’clock one afternoon. The doctor was at the depot and saw you. He knew that we wanted a little boy, so he put you in his satchel and brought you to mamma.” When this mother related this to me, her boy was nine years old and had not asked her another word about his origin. At the close of my lecture, with tears in her eyes, she said: “Professor, do you suppose that my little boy has been hearing vulgar stories and is keeping his information a secret from mamma?” “Yes, nine times out of ten, if you have a bright boy,” was my reply. Upon investigation she found that her boy had been hearing vulgar talk for about three years. How long do you suppose it will take that boy to eradicate from his mind and heart the evil effects of such training? It is not a question whether your child and mine shall get this information or not. That question is settled. The child will get the information. The questions for us to settle are: When shall this information be given? Who shall give it? What shall be given? How shall it be given?

    Results of the old method.—I shall not call in question the love, sincerity and honesty of these parents. In most cases they were sincere and did the best they knew how. I am concerned about the results of this time-honored method. Did the old method of deception, misleading and false replies ever satisfy the inquiring mind of a child? Did the old method ever make a child wiser? Did it ever lead a child to regard human reproduction as delicate, sacred and pure? Did it ever lead a child to greater love and faith in its parents? Only negative answers can be given to all these questions.

    How the child finds out.—As a rule, it is not long after a child becomes interested in his origin until some older child, a playmate or servant will say, “I know something that you do not know. You would like to know it. It is how little children come into this world. I will tell you all about it, if you will not tell your mamma and papa about it.” I do not care how good the child may be, how well trained, or how obedient: such is the intense interest of a child in the mystery of his life that he will agree to keep the story a secret. Now the child listens eagerly to the half-truths, couched in impure language and gets a perverted vision of the origin of life.

    What are some of the results?—Five very sad misfortunes have come to the child. (1) The child has learned that his parents evaded his question; in most cases, he discovers the answer to have been a falsehood. (2) To the extent that the child comprehends the falsehood, does he lose confidence in his parents. (3) He has learned to keep these vital matters a secret from his parents. (4) The child cannot think of his parents’ relation to the initial of his life, except in terms of vulgarity. Early images do not easily leave the mind of a child. Ugly words, impure pictures, obscene language, with all their vile suggestiveness, ofttimes remain through life. (5) He regards the organs of sex and their functions as vile and sinful. God never planned that any human being should entertain any such degrading and demoralizing views of the divinely created organs and function of human reproduction. It is impossible to estimate the evil effects of this false training. Yet, there are many people, often very religious, who estimate their modesty, refinement and culture by the degree of conscious shame they have when questions of sex are referred to. Just to the extent that we fail to see that God is the author of sex, that sex is sacred and pure, our glory and not our shame, has a false training degraded us.

    Boys lose confidence in their parents.—You ask, does a child lose confidence in his parents when he has discovered that they have told him a falsehood about his origin? Certainly he does. In the past three years not fewer than seven hundred and fifty young men from eighteen to thirty-five have written me for advice in regard to their youthful indiscretions. One question I have invariably asked those young men, “Did your father ever warn you of your sexual dangers?” Only two have replied in the affirmative. Those young men were once as innocent and pure as your little boy. They first went to their parents for information about these delicate matters. They were treated as I have described. They received their information from sources and in a way that led to sexual abuse.

    Girls lose confidence in mother.—While on a seven thousand-mile lecture trip, in company with twenty other lecturers, conducting purity conventions in many of the large cities in the United States and Canada, after the evening sessions were over, in company with one or two detectives and other parties of our crowd, we visited the “red light” districts and saw several thousand erring girls from twelve to twenty years old. Those girls were once as innocent, pure and sweet as yours or mine. They first went to their mothers and asked about the origin of their lives. Those were golden opportunities for safeguarding the virtue of those girls. More easily than at any other time in life could those girls have been impressed with the sacredness of sex. At no other time in life is it so true that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Much more of Christian effort is put forth to rescue the fallen than to prevent the youths from falling. More churches are open to lectures on rescue work than on preventive work. More money can be raised for rescue work than can be raised to prevent youths from falling.

    Boys and girls want to know the real truth.—One morning a number of high school boys requested that I give them a lecture more advanced than the one I had given. While passing through the hall, at the close of this special lecture to the young men, I was approached by the lady principal with the request from the high school girls for a special lecture. She told me that fourteen had made the request and that several added: “We wish that Prof. Shannon was a lady lecturer. There are so many things we would like to know, but would hesitate to ask a gentleman lecturer.” Then the lady teacher added, “I said, girls, why do you not ask your mamma for such information?” With hands uplifted, a look of surprise, a gasp for breath, those girls replied: “I would not think of asking mamma such questions.” Why not? Let me tell you why. When they were little innocent girls they went to their mothers with their first questions of sex. They were treated as already indicated. Their inquiring minds and unsatisfied interests in the mysteries of life led them to go elsewhere for this information. It was at this point in their lives that a chasm started to form between themselves and their mothers. There is not one boy in twenty-five who will go voluntarily to his father for information or advice about his sex-nature. The same statement is almost as true about girls and their mothers.

    1,000,000 children adrift.—1,500,000 children are born annually in this Christian nation. One-third of this number die before they are ten years old. Annually one million children inquire, “How did I get into this world?” Not more than one in twenty receive a kind, truthful and intelligent reply. More than nine-tenths are treated in one of the following ways: (1) Told some one of fifty falsehoods. (2) A slap, with orders to clear out. (3) Some form of ridicule, such as “shame on you.” “Don’t let me hear you ask such an ugly question again.” “I am disgusted with you.” That settles it. The golden cords of confidence and influence are severed. Never again will those children go to their parents for information pertaining to sex. Elsewhere, they will find friends who will gladly give them the information. These children, one million strong, are now adrift on the storm-tossed sea of passion, without chart or compass; drifting, drifting, drifting for years toward ports, to them, unknown.
    Danger!
    Danger!

     

    The virtue of a quarter of a million of boys sacrificed.—Time passes. The boys are now sixteen to twenty-five. They have boon and base companions. Their imaginations are at fever heat with morbid interest and their ambitions are aflame with daring. One quarter of a million young men annually sacrifice the priceless gem of manhood’s virtue just here. Now, they are nearing the fearful rapids of vice where most of this number annually become diseased and many perish as sex-maniacs in the awful maelstrom of lust.

    60,000 girls annually.—With the passing of time, the girls from twelve to seventeen, many without the safeguard of knowledge, are associating freely, gayly with their boon male companions, exposed to all the temptations and dangers incident to young womanhood. Many, many thousand young women annually sacrifice the priceless gem of womanhood’s virtue just here. Owing to the double standard of morals, sixty thousand of this number are forced against their own wills into the public maelstroms of immorality.

    Who is to blame.—Thousands of poor prudish parents line the shores, and, with broken, bleeding hearts are crying out in anguish, “My God, my God, why has this awful blow fallen on us?” The poor, ignorant, diseased, exiled, passion-ridden children, in many cases beyond the reach of the home, society and the church, exclaim, “Oh, if I had only been told of these dangers!”

    All along the almost socially inaccessible rock-bound shores of this sea of human passion, the churches and philanthropists are building and maintaining rescue and foundling homes at an outlay of millions in money. They are not, and cannot, rescue one in twenty. The foundling homes are crowded to a dangerous, unsanitary overflowing with illegitimate children, whose mothers are out in the rapids of vice, or entirely lost in the maelstrom of immorality. Too long have the churches been satisfied with snatching, here and there, a piece of human wreckage from the waves of vice, instead of erecting a lighthouse system of properly warning and informing the childhood of the land.

    The new way.—We have seen the results of the old way of dealing with children in matters of sex. Is there a new and better way? We shall see. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” The new and better way is to tell the truth to the child.

    How shall a child be told.—One day when our little girls were four and six, wife said, “Husband, I am in trouble about our little girls. They are asking where they were before they were born and how they got into this world. How am I to answer them?” “Tell them the truth,” was my reply. “But, they are not old enough to be told the whole truth,” was her reply. We talked over the problem and arrived at the following solution of the problem: Since I had been a teacher of biology for years, and it was presumed that I was familiar with the stories of life among the plants and animals, it was agreed that I should at once tell them a nice little story about God’s beautiful plan of bringing all the little plants into the world. Six months later I was to tell them the story of life about the oysters and fish. Every six months to a year I was to tell them a more advanced story. As they were girls, wife reserved the right to tell them the last story to be told when they were nine and ten.

    These stories were all told in the order given. Our girls are now twelve and fourteen. We have never had an occasion to regret that we have followed this natural method of instructing them. They seem to have no morbid curiosity about questions of sex. They look upon the facts as being natural, sacred and pure. Wife and I can approach them on these subjects without embarrassment to them or us.

    When should a child be told?—The average boy should be told all these stories by the time he is eight, not later than nine. The average girl should be told all these stories by the time she is nine, not later than ten. The developing mind of the average child and the social influences to which he is exposed, demand that he be safeguarded by the whole truth, this early in life. While the girl and boy develop alike until they are ten or eleven, the boy being exposed to vicious companions more than is his sister, he should be told the story of life earlier than she. At the age of seven, boys know more about these things than the girls do at ten and twelve. You had better tell the child the truth at six, than to have him told by the vicious at the age of seven. If a child could understand the story of life at three, and was properly trained afterward, this information could not do him one particle of harm. This statement is either absolutely true, or God is the author of a plan of human increase, the knowledge of which is essentially sinful. Personally, I decline to believe the latter.

    If the child has been informed by vicious playmates or servants and his mind has been tainted, the only sane and safe method is to tell him the full truth as quickly as possible, regardless of his age.

    If the child has been allowed to grow up to the age of nine or ten, ignorant of the story of life, I would tell him all the stories, beginning with the first story, telling them only a few days apart. Where parents are not prepared to do this, I would advise them to place a suitable book, presenting these stories in a clear, chaste and interesting way, in the hands of the child, saying, “Here is a very interesting little book telling you just what you will be interested in knowing and what I would like for you to understand.”

    The ideal way.—The ideal way would be to start with the child when he first inquires about his origin, telling him the first story about the plants. Promise to tell him other stories about the oysters, fish, insects, birds, animals and man as he grows older and can understand them. Where a child is naturally very inquisitive and insists on knowing more, I would not hold him off too long for the next story.

    How to introduce each new story.—I would introduce each new story by reviewing the story of the plants and flowers. There are at least three reasons for this. (1) You can go into all the details of reproduction in the flower without danger of awakening the sex consciousness of the child. (2) It saves going into the detail when you have come to the higher animals and man. The child’s mind usually comprehends more than we give it credit for. If he understands the details of reproduction in the flower, his innocent fancy will fill in the details when he hears the other stories. (3) If he has been so unfortunate as to fall in with bad company at any time and his mind has been tainted with their stories, there is no means you can use in ridding his mind of impurity, quite so effectively, as by telling him the story of life in the flower.

    Teaching these truths in the public schools.—The violation of the laws of sex is the chief cause of physical, mental and moral degeneracy. The degenerate classes are increasing at an appalling rate. Correct sex-instruction in childhood is the most important and effective step in the solution of this problem. There is a growing conviction among the students of sociology that sex-hygiene should be taught in the public schools. There are some teachers in all departments of school work, who, in morals at least, are not fitted for this delicate work. At present, an extremely few have the educational qualification for this delicate work. When teachers are required to take a course of training in these subjects, there will still be but few who are possessed of the natural talent for effectively and wisely presenting these subjects to children of the different grades.

    Already colleges and universities and even a few high schools have begun to teach sex hygiene in a limited scientific way. This work will first be introduced into the high school work and later, gradually be introduced into the lower grades. Definite instruction will not be given, for many years at least, and possibly never, to boys under eight, and girls under ten or eleven. If this statement is true, it will be seen that the schools will have left the first and most important part of this training to be done in the home. The teaching of morals in the public school can never be substituted for the teaching of morals in the home. The present great awakening on these subjects will shortly result in three-fourths of the parents teaching these truths in their homes. Since one-fourth of the children do not get any moral instruction in the home and they do not go to Sunday school or church, the public school is the only place where they can be given moral training for citizenship.

    How this can be done.—In my opinion, the safest and most effective method of dealing with these questions in the public schools, for the present at least, would be for the school boards in two or three counties to select and employ a gentleman and a lady lecturer, having natural gifts, moral and educational qualifications, whose duty it shall be to lecture to all the boys and girls; the male lecturer, lecturing to the boys and the lady lecturer, lecturing to the girls. All other teachers should be required to be sufficiently versed in these matters to enable them to solve any individual problems that may arise in their social relations to the pupils in school.

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

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  • Network Interference: A Legal Guide

    Social media is a revolution in the way in which corporations communicate with consumers. This White Paper will help you to maximize the huge potential benefits of this revolution and protect against the inherent legal risks surrounding this phenomenon. In this document, you will find practical, action-oriented guidelines as to the state of law in the following areas: Advertising & Marketing; Commercial Litigation; Data Privacy & Security; Employment Practices; Government Contracts & Investigations;
    Insurance Recovery; Litigation, Evidence & Privilege; Product Liability; Securities; and Trademarks.

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    http://www.associationofmarketing.org/whitepapers/view.php?whitepaper_id=78

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  • Social Media Marketing GPS

    It had to happen?an entire book, one tweet a time, and yet it is a real book that will help you understand what SM is about.

    SMGPS will tell you the why & how of using social media, 1 tweet at a time. You?ll learn essentials in digestible little spoonfuls.

    The book will explain why old-school broadcast practices are waning and new conversational methods are on the rise.

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    http://www.associationofmarketing.org/whitepapers/view.php?whitepaper_id=79

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  • MAEPS quarantine centre in Serdang to receive Covid-19 patients next week

    MAEPS quarantine centre in Serdang to receive Covid-19 patients next week

    MAEPS quarantine centre in Serdang to receive Covid-19 patients next week 1

    KUALA LUMPUR: The Covid-19 Low-Risk Patient Quarantine and Treatment Centre at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) in Serdang near here is expected to receive patients next week.

    Mardi Corp Group chief executive officer Zaidi Shahrim however said so far, it had no information on the exact date when the authorities would send the Covid-19 patients there for quarantine.

    “MAEPS will receive low-risk Covid-19 patients from around the Klang Valley, Malacca and several areas in Perak,” he said last night in an interview via Skype that broadcast live on the Bernama 7.45 programme.

    On the challenges faced throughout the process of transforming MAEPS into a quarantine centre in just a short period of time, Zaidi said said it was difficult to get supplies from contractors as many were ‘bound’ by the Movement Control Order (MCO).

    “We received the instruction during the first phase of the MCO but Alhamdulillah, with the close cooperation between various government agencies such as the Ministry of Health (MOH), Nadma (the National Disaster Management Agency), the Fire and Rescue Department and private companies, we managed to realise it within four days,” he added.

    Zaidi said MAEPS is equipped with hospital-like facilities such as beds, bathrooms, dressing room, toilet, lounge and so on.

    Among the services provided at the centre are clinical services, ward for Covid-19 patients, resuscitation rooms to stabilise patients in emergency situations, ambulance, pharmacy, X-ray, and pathology laboratory services.

    The quarantine centre which has the capacity to place up to 600 patients at any one time is coordinated by Nadma with the cooperation of the MOH, the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Fire and Rescue Department, the Civil Defence Force, the Social Welfare Department and the Public Works Department. — Bernama

    MAEPS quarantine centre in Serdang to receive Covid-19 patients next week
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    https://www.thesundaily.my/local/maeps-quarantine-centre-in-serdang-to-receive-covid-19-patients-next-week-MB2245538

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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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  • THE ARGUMENT FOR BIRTH CONTROL

    THE ARGUMENT FOR BIRTH CONTROL

    Let us now consider the general and special arguments advanced in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control, as stated by the advocates thereof.

    General Argument. The general argument in favor of Birth Control may well be begun by the statement that rational and scientific Birth Control is not the fixing upon the race of a new and unfamiliar practice or policy, but is rather the scientific correction of a practice and policy which is now followed by the majority of married persons in civilized countries, though in a bungling, unscientific, and frequently a harmful manner. The modern advocates of scientific methods of Birth Control seek to replace these bungling, unscientific, and frequently harmful methods by sane, scientific, harmless methods, approved of by capable physicians and other experienced and capable authorities, and under the sanction of the law rather than contrary to it.

    The advocates of Birth Control seek to place upon a scientific basis, under cover and protection of the law, a subject which heretofore has been but imperfectly known, and more imperfectly practiced in some form by the majority of married couples, and which has heretofore been under condemnation of the law so far as concerned the actual dissemination of information concerning methods of contraception. They hold that it is the veriest hypocrisy to pretend ignorance of the fact that the great majority of married couples in civilized communities know and practice to some extent contraceptive methods—usually imperfectly and bunglingly, it must be added.

    One has but to consider the families of married couples, and to count their children, to become aware that at least some form of contraception has been known and practiced in many cases. This is particularly true of the more intelligent and cultured members of civilized society, among whom we find large families of children to be the exception, and small families to be the general rule. Among the less intelligent and uncultured classes the reverse of this condition is found.

    It is hypocritical folly to assert that these small families to be found among the more intelligent classes of society are due to the fact that the husbands and wives are physically incapable of procreating off-spring—the mere suggestion produces an incredulous smile from the reader. No one who is acquainted with the habits and customs of married people would in good faith offer such an explanation. Rather is it tacitly acknowledged by all thinking persons that such married couples practice some form of Birth Control, or else commit the crime of abortion. All physicians, particularly those who practice in the large cities, are fully informed as to the appalling facts concerning the prevalence of abortion among the women of the “respectable” classes, and are likewise fully informed as to the terrible consequences so frequently arising from this criminal course.

    The question, then, to many intelligent persons is not so much that of “Should contraception be employed in order to avoid excessively large families?” as that of “Should not contraception be employed to obviate the crime of abortion with its terrible train of consequences?” And the Birth Control propaganda which is so vigorously underway in all civilized countries may be stated to be designed for the following purposes: (1) to replace abortion, and other harmful methods of restricting the size of families, with rational and scientific methods of contraception; and (2) to supply to married persons the best scientific knowledge concerning the regulation of the size of families, and the methods of producing the best kind of children, under the best conditions, and at the times best adapted for their proper care and well-being. These advocates of the Betterment of the Race face the facts of human nature and married life fearlessly, instead of trying to cover them over with pretty words and sentimental generalities. They take “things as they are,” and not as certain persons insist that “they should be”—they live in a world of facts and try to better things as they find them, instead of trying to live in a fool’s paradise and contenting themselves with denying the existence of the facts which they consider “ugly.”

    Dr. William J. Robinson, one of the leading American workers in the field of Birth Control, ably presents the main contention of the Birth Control advocates as follows:

    “We believe that under any conditions, and particularly under our present economic conditions, human beings should be able to control the number of our offspring.They should be able to decide how many children they want to have, and when they want to have them. And to accomplish this result we demand that the knowledge of controlling the number of offspring, in other and plainer words, the knowledge of preventing undesirable conception, should not be considered criminal knowledge, that its dissemination should not be considered a criminal offense punishable by hard labor in Federal prisons, but that it should be considered knowledge useful and necessary to the welfare of the race and of the individual; and that its dissemination should be permissible and as respectable as is the dissemination of any hygienic, sanitary or eugenic knowledge.

    “There is no element of force in our teachings; that is, we would not force any family to limit the number of children against their will, though we would endeavor to create a public opinion which would consider it a disgrace for any family to have more children than they can bring up and educate properly. We would consider it a disgrace, an anti-social act, for any family to bring children into the world which they must send out at an early age into the mills, shops, and streets to earn a living, or must fall back upon public charity to save them from starvation.

    “Public opinion is stronger than any laws, and in time people would be as much ashamed of having children whom they could not bring up properly in every sense of the word, as they are now ashamed of having their children turn out criminals. Now, no disgrace can attach to any poor family, no matter how many children they have, because they have not got the knowledge, because society prevents them from having the knowledge of how to limit the number of children. But if that knowledge became easily accessible, and people still refused to avail themselves of it, then they would properly be considered as anti-social, as criminal members of society. As far as couples are concerned who are well-to-do, who love children, and who are well capable of taking care of a large number, we, that is, we American limitationists, would put no limit. On the contrary, we would say: ‘God bless you, have as many children as you want to; there is plenty of room yet for all of you.’”

    Another writer, a celebrated English thinker along these lines, has said of the general argument in favor of Birth Control:

    “It used to be thought that small families were immoral. We now begin to see that it was the large families of old which were immoral. The excessive birth-rate of the early industrial period was directly stimulated by selfishness. There were no laws against child-labor; children were produced that they might be sent out, when little more than babies, to the factories and the mines to increase their parents’ incomes. The diminished birth-rate has accomplished higher moral transformation. It has introduced a finer economy into life, diminished death, disease, and misery. It is indirectly, and even directly, improving the quality of the race. The very fact that children are born at longer intervals is not only beneficial to the mother’s health, and therefore to the children’s general welfare, but it has been proved to have a marked and prolonged influence on the physical development of children.

    “Social progress, and a higher civilization, we thus see, involve a reduced birth-rate and a reduced death-rate. The fewer the children born, the fewer the risks of death, disease, and misery to the children that are born. The fact that civilization involves small families is clearly shown by the tendency of the educated and upper social classes to have small families. As the proletariat class becomes educated and elevated, disciplined to refinement and to foresight—as it were aristocratised—it also has small families. Civilizational progress is here on a line with biological progress. The lower organisms spawn their progeny in thousands, the higher mammals produce but one or two at a time. The higher the race, the fewer the offspring.

    “Thus diminution in quantity is throughout associated with augmentation in quality. Quality rather than quantity is the racial ideal now set before us, and it is an ideal which, as we are beginning to learn, it is possible to cultivate, both individually and socially. That is why the new science of eugenics or racial hygiene is acquiring so immense an importance. In the past, racial selection has been carried out crudely by the destructive, wasteful, and expensive method of elimination, through death. In the future, it will be carried out far more effectively by conscious and deliberate selection, exercised not merely before birth, but before conception and even before mating. Galton, who recognized the futility of mere legislation to elevate the race, believed that the hope of the future lay in eugenics becoming a part of religion. The good of the race lies, not in the production of a super-man, but of a super-humanity. This can only be attained through personal individual development, the increase of knowledge, the sense of responsibility toward the race, enabling men to act in accordance with responsibility. The leadership in civilization belongs not to the nation with the highest birth-rate, but to the nation which has thus learnt to produce the finest men and women.”

    Let us now proceed to a consideration of the special arguments in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control as advanced by its leading advocates.

    The advocates of rational and scientific Birth Control have presented the strongest points of their case in their replies to those opposing the general idea, and without positively taking the stand that the burden of the proof in the argument concerning Birth Control rested upon those opposing the idea, have practically assumed that position. They claim that the right to Birth Control is so self-evident, and its application so generally recognized (though usually sought to be smothered with silence) that the case in favor of Birth Control is really quite apparent to anyone seriously considering the same without prejudice. The opposing side of the question is held by them to be represented principally by statements based on prejudice and disingenuous statements, which are capable of being turned against those advancing them.

    And, the present writer, likewise is of the opinion that the strongest possible case for Birth Control is presented in the answer to the arguments advanced by the opponents thereof. But, before proceeding to the latter phase of the argument, it may be well to examine briefly the several leading points of argument advanced by the advocates of rational and scientific Birth Control, in order to clear the way for the answers to the opposite side of the question. The reader is, therefore, invited to consider the said points, briefly presented in the following paragraphs:

    Birth Control Encourages Marriage. The advocates of Birth Control hold that a scientific knowledge of contraception would speedily result in a large increase of marriages, particularly among persons of limited incomes. Persons who have not been able to accumulate the “little nest egg” which prudent persons consider a requisite on the part of those contemplating marriage and the responsibilities of rearing a family of children, are in many cases caused to hesitate about contracting marriage, and often relinquish the idea altogether. Many of these persons are well adapted for marriage, being of the domestic temperament and having the home ideal prominent in their mental makeup.

    The increasing number of bachelors and unmarried women past thirty years of age, who are in evidence in all large centers of population at the present time, is undoubtedly due to a great extent to the fear on the part of these men and women regarding the proper support of a family of children. Many men and women feel that the man is able to earn enough to support himself and wife comfortably, by the exercise of economy, but that the said earnings are not sufficient to provide properly for a family of children. Some would be willing to have one or two children, born after the couple have well established themselves, but are appalled at the thought of bringing into the world a practically unlimited number of little children for whom they would not be able to provide properly.

    These people shrink at the idea of abortion, and doubt the efficacy of the popular so-called contraceptive methods of which their friends tell them, and they either defer the marriage until later in life, or else give up the idea altogether as being impossible for them under the existing circumstances. A scientific knowledge of the subject would give to such persons—and there are many thousands of such—an assurance of their ability to safely and properly control and regulate the size of their families, and would lead to many a marriage which would otherwise be out of the question.

    If it is agreed that the marriage state is the one normal to the average man and woman, and that marriages are in the interests of society—and few would seek to dispute this—then it would seem that anything that would tend to encourage marriage among the right kind of persons should receive the encouragement of society and be fully protected by the laws of society; and that the old prejudice against the subject, and the laws which discourage the same, and place a penalty upon the dissemination of scientific methods leading to the said result, are unworthy of civilized society and modern thought.

    Earlier Marriages and Curb on Prostitution. It is generally conceded by students of sociology that earlier marriages tend to decrease the causes of the evil of prostitution, illicit sexual relations, and general sexual morality; and the consequent spread and existence of the venereal diseases which have followed in the trail of such relations. And it is likewise conceded that prostitution is an evil, and a cancer spot upon modern social life, and that venereal diseases constitute a frightful menace to the health and physical welfare of the race. Therefore, it would seem that anything which would promote early marriages among healthy, intelligent young men and women would be a blessing to the race and to society. And as these earlier marriages are unquestionably prevented in a great number of cases by reasons of the fear of inadequate financial support for large families of children, it would seem to follow that the best interests of society would be served by the encouragement by public opinion, under the protection of the law, of the teaching by competent authorities upon the subject of rational and scientific methods of Birth Control.

    Health of Wives. The advocates of Birth Control lay considerable stress upon the fact that a scientific knowledge of Birth Control would practically obviate the state of broken-down health so common among married women, particularly among those who have been compelled to bear large numbers of children during the first few years of married life. Many a young married woman is in bad health—often reaching the state of chronic invalidism—as the result of having had to bear too many children, and in too close succession.

    Not only is the above the case, but there is to be found on all sides many cases of invalidism and shattered health caused by the horrible practice of criminal abortion. It is doubted whether anyone outside of medical circles can even faintly begin to realize the frequency of this practice of abortion among the well-to-do, and those in “comfortable circumstances”—not to speak of the countless deaths which arise from the prevalence of this curse. Were a physician to even faintly indicate the number of cases coming under his personal professional attention, in which the patient is suffering from the effects of one or more abortions, he would be accused of gross exaggeration, and would be condemned as a sensationalist.

    Without going into detail concerning these things, the writer states that it is a matter of common knowledge among physicians that in every large city there are thousands of unscrupulous (including those who call themselves physicians) who are kept busy every week in the year performing criminal operations designed to produce abortions. Some of these practitioners have many regular patients—women who visit them regularly for the purpose of having abortions produced by criminal operations. It seems almost incredible, but it is a veritable fact, that there are to be found many women in the large cities who actually boast to their friends of the number of operations of this kind they have had performed on them.

    Surely, any instruction which would prevent the physical breakdown of so many women by reason of excessive child-bearing on the one hand, and abortion on the other hand, would seem to be worthy of the hearty support of society, and the encouragement of its laws, rather than the reverse. So true does this seem, that it is difficult to realize that there are any intelligent persons who would condemn such instruction as evil and harmful to society. That such persons do exist is a striking proof of the persistence of ancient superstitions and the survival and tenacity of old prejudices.

    Morality of Married Men. It is a matter of common knowledge among physicians, and students of sociology, that many married men, particularly those living in the large cities, indulge in extra-marital or illicit sexual relations, with prostitutes and other women of loose morals, and this not because these men are naturally vicious, depraved or licentious, but rather because they fear causing their wives to bear them more children—the wives either being in delicate or broken-down health, or else the family already too large to be reared properly in justice to the children.

    Many persons who would see only what “ought to be,” and who refuse to see “things as they are” in modern society, will be disposed to pooh-pooh the above statement, and to accuse those making it to be sensational or even morbid on the subject. But those who are brought in close contact with men and women, as are family physicians and specialists, as well as honest students of sociology, know only too well that the above is not an over-statement, but is rather a very conservative recital of certain unpleasant, but true, facts of human society.

    Justice to the Children. The advocates of scientific Birth Control hold that a scientific knowledge along the lines favored by them would prevent the gross injustice to children which is now only too obvious to anyone who candidly considers the matter without prejudice. The child brought into the world, unwanted, undesired, unprepared for, and unprovided for before and after birth, is handicapped from the very start of its existence upon earth. The present state of affairs works a terrible injustice upon countless children brought into the world in such conditions. Nothing that the present writer could put into words would state this fact more concisely and clearly than the following statement made by Dr. Wm. J. Robinson, a leading authority along these lines, who has said:

    “The responsibility of bringing a child into the world under our present social and economic conditions is a very great one. The primitive savage or the coarse ignorant man does not care. It does not bother him what becomes of his offspring; if they get an education, if they have enough to eat, if they learn a trade or a profession, well—if they don’t, also well; if they achieve a competence or a decent social position, he is satisfied—if not, he can’t help it. God willed it so. But, on the other hand, the cultured, refined man and woman look at the matter differently. The thought of bringing into the world a human being which may be physically handicapped, which may be mentally inferior, which may have a hard struggle through life, which may have to go through endless misery and suffering, fills them with anguish. * * * * *

    “We see about us millions of working men and women who go through life, from cradle to grave, without a ray of joy, without anything that makes life worth living. In the higher classes we see a constant, hard, infuriated struggle to make a living, to make a career, and the spectre of poverty is almost as unremittingly before the eyes of the middle and professional classes as it is before the eyes of the laborer. And all over we see ignorance, superstition, beliefs bordering on insanity, hardness, coarseness, rowdyism, brutality, crime and prostitution; prostitution of the body, and what is worse, prostitution of the mind, the hiding or selling of one’s convictions for a mess of pottage. And our prisons, asylums, and hospitals are not decreasing, but increasing in number and inmates.

    “It is my sincerest and deepest conviction that we could accomplish incomparably more if only a small part of the energy and money now spent on philanthropic efforts were expended in teaching the women, the married women of the poor, how to limit the number of their children; in other words, how to prevent conception. It would work a wonderful reform in the lives of the poor, and our slums would be metamorphosed in ten years. * * * It is we who are to blame now for the large families of the poor, and for this reason we are morally obligated to give them the financial and medical aid that they demand. But when effectual means are put into their hands for limiting the number of their offspring, then they, and not we, will be to blame if they do not make use of them. * * * *

    “The rich and the upper-middle classes, those to whom several children would be the least burden, are quite familiar with the various means of prevention. The poorer middle classes use preventives recommended by their friends; these preventives sometimes succeed, sometimes fail, and sometimes ruin the woman’s health. While the very poor, the wage-earners, those who can least afford to have unlimited progeny, knowing no means of prevention, go on breeding to their own and to the community’s detriment. The result, as you can plainly see, is a general lowering of the physical and mental stamina of the race. For if the cultured and the well-to-do do not breed, or have only a few children, while the poor and the ignorant go on having a numerous progeny for which they cannot well provide, and which they cannot afford to educate properly, it stands to reason that the percentage of the uneducated, the unfit and the criminal, must go on constantly increasing. And this is something that no lover of humanity can look upon with equanimity.”

    Surely the above recited special points of argument in favor of Birth Control seem to be statements of self-evident facts to the unprejudiced mind, do they not? And the person of this kind who considers them carefully for the first time usually finds himself wondering what rational argument can be fairly urged on the other side of this important question. And, when he acquaints himself with the arguments of “the other side” he usually finds himself even more established in the belief that scientific Birth Control is advisable, sane, and along the lines of the mental evolution of the race. At any rate, it is difficult to escape the conviction that the burden of proof needed to controvert a proposition so nearly self-evident as intelligent and scientific Birth Control, must be placed squarely upon the shoulders of those opposing the proposition.

    PRIVATE Sex Advice to Women By R. B. Armitage, M. D.

    For Young Wives and those who Expect to be Married.

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  • THE FETICH OF THE BIRTH-RATE

    THE FETICH OF THE BIRTH-RATE

    To the student of the progress of the human race the consideration of the state of public opinion regarding the Birth-rate of nations is of great interest. To the careful observer there is evident the gradual evolution of intelligent public opinion on this subject even in the comparatively short space of time in which the present generation has played its part on the great stage of human development.

    Public opinion on this subject during the period named may be said to have passed through three general stages. These stages are, of course, more clearly defined among the peoples of the most prosperous and intelligent countries, as for instance, in Western Europe and America, and particularly in England, France, and the United States. While the peoples of certain of these countries have passed through these stages somewhat more rapidly than have others, still it is perceived that each of these peoples have in the main followed the same general course.

    The first stage of this evolution of popular opinion may be said to have been begun about 1850, and to have ended about 1880. In this stage the ideal of a large and rapidly increasing birth-rate became a popular fetich before which all men and women were supposed to fall down and render worship. In this period public opinion manifested great satisfaction and joy in the evidences of a high and rapidly increasing birth-rate. It was held that this increasing birth-rate tended toward the success and glory of the particular nation, and incidentally to the race as a whole. The idea of Quantity was elevated to the throne of public favor, and the question of Quality was ignored or overlooked.

    This period was one of an unusual expansion of industry, and the rising birth-rate was regarded as a token that the world was destined to be exploited and eventually governed by the people of those nations who were able to demonstrate the greatest efficiency in industrial pursuits, and who at the same time were wise enough to increase their respective populations by an increasing birth-rate. The populace were excited by the idea of the dominance and prosperity of their own countrymen, while the leaders of industry were delighted with the idea of an increasing supply of laborers which would tend to keep down the rate of wages which otherwise would have reached proportions which would have interfered with competition with other countries. At the same time, the militarists were secretly delighted by the signs of an increasing supply of military material with which to build up gigantic armies.

    A writer on the state of public opinion on this subject during this period has well said: “It seemed to the more exuberant spirits that a vast British Empire, or a mighty Pan-German, might be expected to cover the whole world. France, with its low and falling birth-rate, was looked down at with a contempt as a decadent country inhabited with a degenerate population. No attempt to analyze the birth-rate, to ascertain what are really the biological, social, and economic accompaniments of a high birth-rate, made any impression on the popular mind. They were drowned in a general shout of exultation.”

    But this period of uncritical optimism was followed by a natural reaction. The pendulum stopped in its course, and soon began to swing in the opposite direction. Here, about 1880, the second stage may be said to have begun. Public opinion began to manifest a subtle change, and this mental attitude was accompanied by a physical manifestation in the form of a decreasing birth-rate. The rate of births began to fall rapidly, and has continued to fall steadily since that time.

    The writer above quoted from says of this second period: “In France the birth-rate fell slowly, in Italy more rapidly, and in England and Prussia still more rapidly. As, however, the fall began earliest in France, the birth-rate was lower there than in the other countries named. For the same reason it was lower in England than in Prussia, although England stands in this respect at almost exactly the same distance from Prussia today (1917) as thirty years ago, the fall having occurred at the same rate in both countries. It is quite possible that in the future it may become more rapid in Prussia than in England, for the birth-rate of Berlin is lower than the birth-rate of London, and urbanization is proceeding at a more rapid rate in Germany than in England.”

    It is not difficult to arrive at the psychological reason underlying this great change in public opinion, as manifested in this second stage. In the first place, the wonderful era of world-expansion was arrested, by natural causes well understood by students of sociology. The ambitious dreams of world-empires were rudely interrupted. Moreover, public opinion was being affected by a quiet education along the lines of sociology and economics.

    The working classes began to perceive, on the one hand, the tendency of overpopulation to hold down, or even decrease, the scale of wages. The evils of over-production, and of under-consumption were dimly perceived. And, on the other hand, the capitalists began to perceive that another factor was at work—one which they had failed to include in their optimistic calculations. Instead of the cheaper wage rate which they had expected by reason of the over-abundance of human material, they found that the growth of popular education in the democratic countries had caused the working classes to demand greater comforts of life, and to oppose the cheapening of human labor. And at the same time, the masses began to revolt against the idea of raising children to become “cannon fodder” for ambitious autocratic rulers. The masses began to protest against selling their labor and their lives so cheaply.

    These changed viewpoints of the working classes began to result in attempts on their part to form associations to resist the tendency on the part of capitalists to force down the scale of wages to fit the increased population. Trade unions flourished and became powerful, and the same impulse carried many into the ranks of socialism, and still beyond into the fold of anarchism and syndicalism. And, here note this significant fact, with these new perceptions and these new movements among the masses, the birth-rate began to fall rapidly.

    The writer above quoted from says of this period: “The pessimists were faced by horrors on both sides. On the one hand, they saw that the ever-increasing rate of human production which seemed to them the essential condition of national, social, even moral progress, had not only stopped but was steadily diminishing. On the other hand, they saw that, even so far as it was maintained, it involved, under modern conditions, nothing but social commotion and economic disturbance. There are still many pessimists of this class alive among us even today, alike in England and Germany, but a new generation is growing up, and this question is now entering another phase.”

    It would seem that the race is now well started in the third period, phase, or stage of this conception of the birth-rate. Even the Great War is not likely to seriouslyinterrupt its ultimate progress, though conditions in all civilized countries will unquestionably be disturbed by the unusual conditions now prevailing and caused by the great conflict. The spirit of this third stage seems to be that the Truth is to be found between the two extremes, viz.: (1) the extreme of passive optimism of the first stage; and (2) the extreme of passive pessimism of the second stage. It realizes that there is excellent ground for hope in better things; but it equally realizes that hope alone is vain, and will accomplish nothing unless it is accompanied with and directed by a clear intellectual vision manifested in individual and social action based on that clear intellectual vision.

    The writer above quoted from says of this developing period: “It is today beginning to be seen that the old notion of progress by means of reckless multiplication is vain. It can only be effected at a ruinous cost of death, disease, poverty, and misery. We see this in the past history of Western Europe, as we still see it in the history of Russia. Any progress effected along that line—if ‘progress’ it can be called—is now barred, for it is utterly opposed to those democratic conceptions which are ever gaining greater influence among us. Moreover, we are now better able to analyze demographic phenomena, and are no longer satisfied with any crude statements regarding the birth-rate. We realize that they need interpretation. They have to be considered in relation to the sex-constitution and the age-constitution of the population, and above all, they must be viewed in relation to the infant mortality rate.

    “The bad aspect of the French birth-rate is not so much its lowness as that it is accompanied by a high infantile mortality. The fact that the German birth-rate is higher than the English ceases to be a matter of satisfaction when it is realized that German infantile mortality is vastly greater than English. A high birth-rate is no sign of a high civilization. But we are beginning to feel that a high infantile death-rate is a sign of a very inferior civilization. A low birth-rate with a low infant death-rate not only produces the same increase in population as a high birth-rate with a high death-rate, which always accompanies it (for there are no examples of a high birth-rate with a low death-rate), but it produces it in a way which is far more worthy of our admiration in this matter than the way of Russia and China where opposite conditions prevail.”

    The evolutionary process which all students of sociology clearly perceive to have been underway in the matter of the attitude of public opinion toward the birth-rate, and which is now underway with increased impetus, is perceived to be a natural process. It is a natural process which has been underway from the beginning of the living world. For a long time it operated and manifested along unconscious and instinctive lines of activity, but now it has emerged into the light of human consciousness and manifests along the lines of conscious, voluntary, and deliberate human action.

    In its present state of evolutionary progress human thought along these lines has found expression in what is generally known as “Birth Control.” The process which has been working slowly through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth destined to be carried out voluntarily, in the light of human reason, foresight, and self-restraint. The rise of Birth Control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed an essential part of that movement.

    The new doctrine of Birth Control is now firmly established in all the most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France and England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very high, Birth Control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during the present century. In Holland its principles and practice are freely taught by physicians and nurses to the mothers of the people, with the result that there is in Holland no longer any necessity for unwanted babies, and this small country possesses the proud privilege of the lowest death-rate in Europe.

    In the free and enlightened Democratic communities on the other side of the globe, in Australia and New Zealand, the same principles and practice are generally accepted, with the same beneficent results. On the other hand, in the more backward and ignorant countries of Europe, Birth Control is still little known, and death and disease flourish. This is the case in those eight European countries which come at the bottom of the list of the Birth Control scale, and in which the birth-rate is the highest and the death-rate the heaviest—the two rates maintaining such a constant correspondence as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that they are associated as cause and effect.

    But even in the more progressive countries Birth Control has not been established without a struggle, which has frequently ended in a hypocritical compromise, its principles being publicly ignored or denied and its practice privately accepted. For, at the great and vitally important point in human progress which Birth-Control represents, we see really the conflict of two moralities. The morality of the ancient world is here confronted by the morality of the new world.

    The old morality, knowing nothing of science and the process of Nature as worked out in the evolution of life, contented itself with assuming as a basis the early chapters of Genesis in which the children of Noah are represented as entering an empty earth which it is their business to populate diligently. So it came about that for this morality, still innocent of eugenics, recklessness was almost a virtue. Children were held to be given by God; if they died or were afflicted by congenital disease, it was the dispensation of God, and, whatever imprudence the parents might commit, the pathetic faith still ruled that “God will provide.”

    But in the new morality it is realized that in these matters Divine action can only be made manifest in human action, that is to say through the operation of our own enlightened reason and resolved will. Prudence, foresight, self-restraint—virtues which old morality looked down upon with benevolent contempt—assume a position of first importance. In the eyes of the new morality the ideal woman is no longer the meek drudge condemned to endless and often ineffectual child-bearing, but the free and instructed woman, able to look before and after, trained in a sense of responsibility alike to herself and to the race, and determined to have no children but the best.

    Such were the two moralities which came into conflict during the nineteenth century. They are irreconcilable and each firmly rooted, one in ancient religion and tradition, the other in progressive science and reason. Nothing was possible in such a clash of opposing ideas but a feeble and confused compromise such as we find still prevailing in various countries of Old Europe. This is not a satisfactory solution, however inevitable, and is especially unsatisfactory by the consequent obscurantism which placed difficulties in the way of spreading a knowledge of the methods of Birth Control among the masses of the population. For the result has been that while the more enlightened and educated have exercised a control over the size of their families, the poorer and more ignorant—those who should have been offered every facility and encouragement to follow in the same path—have been left, through a conspiracy of silence, to carry on helplessly the bad customs of their forefathers. This social neglect has had the result that the superior family stocks have been tampered by the recklessness of the inferior stocks.

    In America, we find the two moralities in active conflict today. Until recently America has meekly accepted at the hand of Old Europe the traditional prescription. On the surface, the ancient morality had been complacently, almost unquestionably, accepted in America, even to the extent of tacitly permitting the existence of a vast extension of abortion, under the surface of society— a criminal practice which ever flourishes where Birth Control is neglected.

    But today, a new movement is perceptible in America. It would seem that, almost in a flash, America has awakened to the true significance of the issue. With that direct vision of hers, that swift practicality of action, and above all, that sense of the democratic nature of all social progress, we see her resolutely beginning to face this great problem. In her vigorous tongue she is demanding “What is all this secrecy about, anyway? Let us turn on the Light!” And the best authorities agree that America’s answer to the demand will be of the greatest importance, and of immense significance to the whole world.

    In concluding this portion of our discussion, I ask my readers to consider the following quotations from writers who have touched upon the question of the stimulation of the birth-rate by the State, for the purpose of military policy. These quotations speak for themselves, and need but little comment.

    The first authority, a German, whose name has escaped me for the moment, laments the falling birth-rate in his country, and urges his own nation to stimulate it by offering bounties; he says: “Woe to us if we follow the example of the wicked and degenerate people of other nations. Our nation needs men. We have to populate the earth, and to carry the blessings of our Kultur all over the world. In executing that high mission we cannot have too much human material in defending ourselves against the aggression of other nations who are jealous of us and our achievements and progress. Let us promote parentage by law; let us repress by law every influence which may encourage a falling birth-rate; otherwise there is nothing left us but speedy national disaster, complete and irremediable.”

    Havelock Ellis, an Englishman, says: “In Germany for years past it has been difficult to take up a serious periodical without finding some anxiously statistical article about the falling birth-rate, and some wild recommendations for its arrest. For it is the militaristic German who of all Europeans is most worried by this fall; indeed Germans often even refuse to recognize it. Thus today we find Professor Gruber declaring that if the population of the German Empire continues to grow at the rate of the first five years of the present century, it will have reached 250,000,000 at the end of the century. By such a vast increase in population, the Professor complacently concludes, ‘Germany will be rendered invulnerable.’ But Gruber’s estimate is entirely fallacious. German births have fallen, roughly speaking, about 1 per 1,000 of the population, every year since the beginning of the century, and it would be equally reasonable to estimate that if they continue to fall at the present rate (which we cannot, of course, anticipate) births will altogether have ceased in Germany before the end of the century. The German birth-rate reached its climax forty years ago (1871-1880) with 40.7 per 1,000; in 1906 it was 34 per 1,000; in 1909 it was 31 per 1,000; in 1912 it was 28 per 1,000; in an almost measurable period of time, in all probability before the end of the century, it will have reached the same low level as that of France, when there will be but little difference between the ‘invulnerability’ of France and of Germany, a consummation which, for the world’s sake, is far more devoutly to be wished than that anticipated by Gruber.”

    Writers of Teutonic sympathies have asserted that the aggressive attitude of Germany at the beginning of the Great War was to be legitimately explained and apologized for on the ground that the War was the inevitable expansive outcome of the abnormally high birth-rate of Germany in recent times. Dr. Dernburg, the German statesman, said not very long ago: “The expansion of the German nation has been so extraordinary during the past twenty-five years that the conditions existing before the war had become insupportable.” Another writer has said: “Of later years there has arisen a movement among German women for bringing abortion into honor and repute, so that it may be carried out openly and with the aid of the best physicians. This movement has been supported by lawyers and social reformers of high position.”

    Thus, it would seem that a birth-rate stimulated by unusual circumstances or by deliberate State encouragement, seemingly draws upon it the operation of natural laws which tend to increase its death-rate by War, as well as by an increased number of abortions, and an increased death-rate. It would seem as natural laws operate to bring down the population to normal by war if the other factors do not operate sufficiently rapidly and efficiently.

    Havelock Ellis makes the following interesting statement: “If we survey the belligerent nations in the war we may say that those who took the initiative in drawing it on, or at all events were most prepared to welcome it, were Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Russia—all nations with a high birth-rate, and in which the fall of the birth-rate has not yet had time to permeate. On the other hand, of the belligerent peoples of today, all indications point to the French as the people most intolerant, silently but deeply, of the war they are so ably and heroically waging. Yet the France of the present, with the lowest birth-rate, was a century ago the France of a birth-rate higher than that of Germany today, and at that time the most militarist and aggressive of nations, a perpetual menace to Europe.”

    Finally, let us quote Havelock Ellis once more; he says: “When we realize these facts we are also enabled to realize how futile, how misplaced and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of ‘Race Suicide.’ It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilization. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population is not a matter of birth-rate alone, but of the birth-rate combined with the death-rate, and while we cannot expect to touch the former we can influence the latter. It is mischievous because by fighting against a tendency which is not only inevitable but altogether beneficial, we blind ourselves to the advance of civilization and risk the misdirection of our energies. How far this blindness may be carried we see in the false patriotism of those who in the decline of the birth-rate, fancy they see the ruin of their own particular country, oblivious of the fact that we are concerned with a phenomenon of world-wide extension. The whole tendency of civilization is to reduce the birth-rate. We may go further, and assert with the distinguished German economist, Roscher, that the chief cause of the superiority of a highly civilized state over lower stages of civilization is precisely a greater degree of forethought and self-control in marriage and child-bearing. Instead of talking about Race Suicide, we should do well to observe at what an appalling rate, even yet, the population is increasing; and we should note that it is everywhere the poorest and most primitive countries, and in every country (as in Germany) the poorest regions, which show the highest birth-rate.”

    The same authority says: “One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social classes unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and unfit, with whom we could well dispense, but by the very best classes in the community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark, at once, that a social change initiated by its best social class is scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among the most educated classes, is any process of amelioration to be initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline of the birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working classes, and has only failed to touch the lowest stratum of all, too weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives. The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in favor of procreation—a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very class which we wish to sterilize—but rather by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum.”

    PRIVATE Sex Advice to Women By R. B. Armitage, M. D.

    For Young Wives and those who Expect to be Married.

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  • Social Media Trends For 2012 & Beyond

    Although social media marketing is a small component of our service offerings at Anvil & Formic, we?re constantly asked our opinions and advice on the matter. I?ve personally helped clients develop, implement, manage and measure social media campaigns since 1998 (no, that?s not a typo). Since then, I?ve kept a finger on the pulse of the social media industry, and I fear we?re near cardiac arrest. Regardless, I?ve put together the following social media marketing predictions and trends for 2012 and beyond.

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    http://www.associationofmarketing.org/articles/view.php?article_id=5331

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