PART II.: BOYS.
BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
My contribution to this little book was originally intended for the eyes of
parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. Since 1913, when the book was first
published, it has been my privilege to receive from these so many letters of
warm appreciation that it seems needless to retain the apologetic preface which
I then wrote. The object which I had in view at that time was the hastening of a
supremely important reform. I have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my
words have carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless
boys.
One result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. It did not occur to
me, as I wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young men. It was not
written at all for this purpose. In some respects its influence over them has,
however, been increased by this obvious fact. In this book boys have, as it
were, overheard a confidential conversation about themselves carried on by
adults anxious for their welfare, and some at least are evidently more impressed by this conversation than by a direct appeal—in
which they are liable to suspect exaggeration.
I have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. These confirm in
every way the conclusions set forth in this book, and prove that the need
for guidance in sex matters is acute and universal. The relief and assistance
which many boys have experienced from correspondence with me, and the interest
which I find in their letters have caused me—spite of the extreme preoccupation
of a strenuous life—to issue a special invitation to those who may feel inclined
to write to me.
Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex
instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are curiously blind
to the merits of other methods, which they usually strongly denounce. While I
have my own views as to the best method to adopt, I am quite sure that each one
of very many methods can, in suitable hands, produce great good, and that the
very poorest method is infinitely superior to no method at all.
Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some favour
confidential individual teaching, others collective public teaching. Some would
try to make sex a sacred subject; some would prefer to keep the emotional
element out and treat reproduction as a matter-of-fact science subject. Some
wish the parent to give the teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a
lecturer specially trained for this purpose. Good results
have been obtained by every one of these methods.
During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my hands of
the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in these pages, and I am
confident that of boys who have been wisely guided and trained, few fail to lead
clean lives even when associated with those who are generally and openly
corrupt. I must, however, emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's
life depends ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his
devotion to the Right.
"Self-reverence, self-knowledge,
self-control,
These three alone lead
life to sovereign power."
Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most difficult of
all virtues.
F. ARTHUR SIBLY.
WYCLIFFE, STONEHOUSE, GLOS.
September
1918.