From the standpoint of normal nature we have become so abnormal that there are some questions of fundamental and vital importance that have to do with the very perpetuity of the race itself, that are now considered indecent, improper, and "unmentionable."

Whenever the question of "sex" is raised in a mixed audience, the old grannies throw up their hands in holy horror, the middle-aged people look cold and unapprovingly at you, and the young people blush and look disturbed and silly.

You can talk on most any question but this one; here you are supposed to hold your tongue and keep whatever knowledge you possess, good or bad, to yourself.

I want to say right here that this attitude of mind is causing more trouble in the world than anything else I can mention; it is the height of folly, and it is time that sensible people refuse to hold their tongues when the very heavens cry out against the evils of the abnormal sex expression that is undermining the very foundation of civic life and individual character.

I boldly maintain that the question of sex and the propagation of the race is NOT an indecent question, except in an indecent mind, that has become so perverted that it can not hold a pure thought. It is important that proper knowledge be no longer suppressed, but that we come out boldly and call a spade a spade. Men and women should discuss these questions rationally with each other and their children, that the race may be governed by wisdom, and coming generations saved from the folly and disease that comes from the abuse of the sex functions.

The subject of sex is one that permeates all nature. The neuter gender seems to be only a grammatical phrase, for wherever there is created life there is sex - in the animal, the vegetable, and its counterpart even in the mineral world.

The purpose of nature in this matter, the propagation of the species, is of no less importance with regard to man than it is with regard to animals and vegetables, and yet our government spends hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly studying the question of the sex and breeding of hogs, and not a penny in trying to discover how to raise a noble specimen of manhood.

Should a chicken or a calf break out with some vile or dangerous disease, the government sends a dozen experts to study into the matter and try to devise a remedy. But the human race is affected by a score of vile and body-destroying diseases that come from the lack of knowledge of the proper functions of sex, and not a penny is spent in any systematic effort on the part of the people's representatives to find and eradicate the causes and get rid of the effects. The victims are left to the tender mercies of patent-medicine venders and quacks, not to mention the "regular" practicing physicians, who make a great part of their money in this way. There is no other class of disease where the victim pays so liberally for relief - and gets so little.

Admitted that the question is not an easy one to handle, this does not prove that no attempt should be made, and that helpful knowledge should be withheld, especially from the children, who contract all manner of wrong sex habits through ignorance, and through the harmful example and teaching of other children and grown people equally ignorant.

Admitted that if right knowledge was given out many would not follow it, still it would act as a check, and in the course of time right teaching will be followed by right acting. It could hardly be expected that a matter that has been permitted to grow into such grave and dangerous proportions is to be immediately brought back into right channels.

The start should be made with the children, who should be taught in the public schools the functions of sex and the danger of abusing the sex organs, and they should be taught this at a very early age, as early as the abuses commence to be manifested. The most careful text-books should be prepared and if necessary, special teachers employed who are capable of giving the proper knowledge on this most proper subject.

I once listened to a man who was lecturing under the auspices of "The League for Medical Freedom." I was much in sympathy with some of the purposes of the league, had even subscribed my name as a prospective member. After I heard this man, who was a high-up official in the movement, I was thoroughly disgusted. The greater part of his talk was taken up trying to prove that the movement to teach sex hygiene in the public schools is dangerous, and that such knowledge should be given children only by their parents.

Admitting that it would be desirable for the parents to give this knowledge, how are parents to give what they have not got. The parents of children are as much in need of being taught as the children, and the teachers should be given a chance to teach the parents through the children, if they can't be reached in any other manner, - and in my judgment the textbooks should be so designed that the interest and cooperation of the parents is also brought into action.

It could hardly be expected that in the brief space at my command I could go into an exhaustive treatment of this subject. There are numerous books that are procurable that will give any person desiring same the needed knowledge and warning regarding the sex nature. I would feel, however, that the purpose of these articles would not be subserved unless a few fundamental principles were elucidated.

In the first place there seems to be but one purpose of sex, as exemplified in nature, and that is the propagation of the species. If you will study through the animal kingdom, you will find that the sex functions are only brought into play for this specific reason, unless it is among the animals that have associated with man. The domestic animals have been known to become abnormal along sex lines, in fact they have been taught by man to be abnormal. But with thousands of years of abnormal breeding the chickens still average about as many roosters as hens, and the same is true of other animals where one male serves a number of females. You can change the size, the color, and the general form of the species; you can develop an animal or fowl that has no seeming resemblance to its progenitors, but you can't change a fundamental law of sex or even modify it, though you can pervert its immediate expression.