Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/241

 PUBERAL HYGIENE 227

strength of modern Germans, in comparison with the old ones, the earlier sexual intercourse.

Too early indulgence in sexual pleasures has besides a deteri- orating influence upon the moral character, which cannot enjoy its regular evolution.

At the first awakening of love in the boy, his sweetheart appears to him as a divine being fit to be adored, and for whom he fancies he could make every sacrifice, even that of his life ; the least thought of possession would be driven from him as a profanation. It is only later that sexual desires make them- selves known, and that the woman is wished as an object of amusement. It is from such elaboration of sentiment that social virtues draw their origin and that the character comes to perfec- tion. If possession comes too early, without the preceding period of courting and unselfish love, the young man becomes a mere dissolute, cruel, and profligate being, who seeks nothing but luxury and gratifications. The excitations which affect the central nervous system from generative organs in activity of development, instead of being collected in tonic power to awaken and support the young man in the performance of his duties and the acquirement of the qualities which would make him agreeable to his beloved, come to arouse the atavistic dispositions to violence and fight, either in the struggles against rivals or in the purchase of means to ingratiate himself with the woman. Thence come the violent criminality from one side, and the crimes of theft and rapine from the other, when a suit- able education in the first age could lead the young men to sub- stitute for violence the methods of the civilized man, instead of cheating either parents or strangers.

It is therefore to be desired that young people grow without indulging in sexual pleasures till they have reached their full development in the physical as well as in the moral organism, and one ought to employ all means suggested by a modernized hygiene, in order to hinder the too early awakening of sexual stimulus. The means recommended to attain such an aim are of different kinds, and one can say that sexual hygiene extends itself over the whole life of the youth, to the food as well as