Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN YOUTHin biology, covering the main facts of human life including,though with no undue insistence, sexgiven toall boys and girls. As a distinguished biologist, RugglesGates, has said: "Every schoolboy and girl should, as anessential part of their education, receive some instructionregarding the nature, structure, and action of plant andanimal organisms, as well as their relationships and re^actions upon each other. They should know something ofheredity, and realize that every organism inherits andtransmits itsgenetic peculiarities, down to the finestdetails of difference."That education, as it develops, leads upto a racialinitiation corresponding to the rites of more primitivepeoples. It is along these biological lines that we reacHthe modern conception of that aspect of sex which theancients regarded as sacred, for we must not, I would sayonce more, accept the notion of those foolish though wellmeaningpeople who wish to bring up children to regardsexuality as commonplace, on the same level as nutritionand excretion. Along the line of biology it is easy to understandthat sex is much more than that; it is not merelythe channel along which the race is maintained and Builtup,it is the foundation on which all dreams of the futureworld must be erected. There are other and more personalbutends to which the sexual impulse may be directed,there isalways this solid central fact.The other ends also remain important. The indifferenceand even contempt with which our educational systemshave treated the impulse of sex have blunted the farspreadingmotive powers of that impulse. Yet they haveat the same time rendered more urgent the need to cherishand develop the energies that reside in the impulse ofsex. Intelligence alone, indispensable as it always remains,is sterile;it has no vital and penetrating influence in the