Education and the Good Life

a thing in recent years. I think most people recognize nowadays that a virtue dependent upon ignorance is worthless, and that girls have the same right to knowledge as boys. If there are any who still fail to recognize this, they are not likely to read the present work, so that it is not worth while to argue with them. I do not propose to discuss the teaching of sexual morality in the narrower sense. This is a matter as to which a variety of opinions exist.[218] Christians differ from Mohammedans, Catholics from Protestants who tolerate divorce, freethinkers from mediævalists. Parents will all wish their children taught the particular brand of sexual morality in which they believe themselves, and I should not wish the State to interfere with them. But without going into vexed questions, there is a good deal that might be common ground. There is first of all hygiene. Young people must know about venereal disease before they run the risk of it. They should be taught about it truthfully, without the exaggerations which some people practise in the interests of morals. They should learn both how to avoid it, and how to cure it. It is a mistake to give only such instruction as is needed by the perfectly virtuous, and to regard the misfortunes which happen to others as a just punishment of sin. We might as well refuse to help a man who has been injured in a motoring accident, on the ground that careless driving is a sin. Moreover, in the one case as in the other, the punishment may fall upon the innocent; no one can maintain that children born with syphilis are wicked, any more than that a man is wicked if a careless motorist runs over him. Young people should be led to realize that it is a very serious matter to have a child, and that it should not be undertaken unless the child[219] has a reasonable prospect of health and happiness. The traditional view was that, within marriage, it is always justifiable to have children, even if they come so fast that the mother’s health is ruined, even if the children are diseased or insane, even if there is no prospect of their having enough to eat. This view is now only maintained by heartless dogmatists, who think that everything disgraceful to humanity redounds to the glory of God. People who care for children, or do not enjoy inflicting misery upon the helpless, rebel against the ruthless dogmas which justify this cruelty. A care for the rights and importance of children, with all that is implied, should be an essential part of moral education. Girls should be taught to expect that one day they are likely to be mothers, and they should acquire some rudiments of the knowledge that may be useful to them in that capacity. Of course both boys and girls ought to learn something of physiology and something of hygiene. It should be made clear that no one can be a good parent without parental affection, but that even with parental affection a great deal of knowledge is required as well. Instinct without knowledge is as inadequate in dealing with children as knowledge without instinct. The more the necessity of knowledge is understood, the more intelligent women will feel attracted[220] to motherhood. At present, many highly educated women despise it, thinking that it does not give scope for the exercise of their intellectual faculties; this is a great misfortune, since they are capable of being the best mothers, if their thoughts were turned in that direction. One other thing is essential in teaching about sex-love. Jealousy must not be regarded as a justifiable insistence upon rights, but as a misfortune to the one who feels it and a wrong towards its object. Where possessive elements intrude upon love, it loses its vivifying power and eats up personality; where they are absent, it fulfils personality and brings a greater intensity of life. In former days, parents ruined their relations with their children by preaching love as a duty; husbands and wives still too often ruin their relations to each other by the same mistake. Love cannot be a duty, because it is not subject to the will. It is a gift from heaven, the best that heaven has to bestow. Those who shut it up in a cage destroy the beauty and joy which it can only display while it is free and spontaneous. Here, again, fear is the enemy. He who fears to lose what makes the happiness of his life has already lost it. In this, as in other things, fearlessness is the essence of wisdom. For this reason, in teaching my own children, I shall try to prevent them from learning a moral[221] code which I regard as harmful. Some people who themselves hold liberal views are willing that their children shall first acquire conventional morals, and become emancipated only later, if at all. I cannot agree to this, because I hold that the traditional code not only forbids what is innocent, but also commends what is harmful. Those who have been taught conventionally will almost inevitably believe themselves justified in indulging jealousy when occasion arises; moreover they will probably be obsessed by sex either positively or negatively. I shall not teach that faithfulness to our partner through life is in any way desirable, or that a permanent marriage should be regarded as excluding temporary episodes. So long as jealousy is regarded as virtuous, such episodes cause grave friction; but they do not do so where a less restrictive morality is accepted on both sides. Relations involving children should be permanent if possible, but should not necessarily on that account be exclusive. Where there is mutual freedom and no pecuniary motive, love is good; where these conditions fail, it may often be bad. It is because they fail so frequently in the conventional marriage that a morality which is positive rather than restrictive, based upon hope rather than fear, is compelled, if it is logical, to disagree with the received code in matters of sex. And there can[222] be no excuse for allowing our children to be taught a morality which we ourselves believe to be pernicious. Finally, the attitude displayed by parents and teachers towards sex should be scientific, not emotional or dogmatic. For example, when it is said of a mother speaking to her daughter; “Let her tell nature’s plan, in a spirit of reverence”; and of a father instructing his son: “The father should, in a spirit of reverence, explain nature’s plan for the starting of a new life”—such sayings may be passed over by the reader as embodying nothing questionable. But to my mind there should be no more occasion for “reverence” than in explaining the construction of a steam-engine. “Reverence” means a special tone of voice from which the boy or girl infers that there is some peculiar quality about sex. From this to prurience and indecency is only a step. We shall never secure decency in matters of sex until we cease to treat the subject as different from any other. It follows that we must not advance dogmas for which there is no evidence, and which most impartial students question, such as: “After maturity is reached the ideal social relationship of the sexes is monogamous wedlock, to which relationship both parties should live in absolute fidelity” (ib. p. 310). This proposition may or may not be true; at present there is certainly[223] no evidence sufficient to prove it true. By teaching it as something unquestionable, we abandon the scientific attitude, and do what we can to inhibit rational thought upon a most important matter. So long as this dogmatism persists in teachers, it is not to be hoped that their pupils will apply reason to any question upon which they feel strongly. And the only alternative to reason is violence.