There should be no delay in dealing with the last recommendation. A strong President of the Board of Education could, by an order of his pen, give instruction in an afternoon, and start arrangements which could introduce such teaching in all schools. It is, however, another matter whether there would be teachers capable to give the instruction. It is doubtful also whether sex teaching, introduced in this way as something apart from the usual educational course, could ever safeguard from sin.
I need, however, say little in this chapter on the important and difficult question of sexual education, as the whole of the last section of my book deals with that subject. I shall there try to show that the greater number of the evils connected with marriage and motherhood are due to false ideals and wrong methods of training in early life. I am, in particular, convinced of the mistakes we have been making in the education of girls—mistakes which prevent them as young women from having any clear aim to guide their lives, and act, as I believe, disastrously on their whole nature as well as spoiling their happiness. This public recommendation for a recognition of the sexual life and the problems connected with it as being of vital importance in the training of the young generation fills me with strong hope. But everything will depend on how such instruction is going to be given. Unwisely undertaken, it may easily lead to more harm than good. To be really efficacious it will need a sweeping change in the home and a revolution in the school. Now is the appointed time to act; if the opportunity be allowed to pass, it may not come again. The force of tradition and the convention of silence has been broken as it has not been broken before. We are all convinced that the time to change has come and to do something; when so many are agreed upon what ought to be done, the danger lies chiefly in the dispersion of energy by the weariness brought on by endless discussions on the way to give the education—a subject which unfortunately lends itself to much talking and disagreement.
But to return to the Royal Commission Report. Recommendations (1) and (2) cannot be carried out without special legislation. To obtain the support of the House of Commons for measures which would necessarily be opposed by some persons in every constituency, which have no vote-catching value and have not been chewed to pulp by long-continued party platform oratory, is a difficult task. The ordinary member of Parliament feels afraid to have convictions which are unsupported by powerful organisations; convictions which may cost him much opposition at election times. Probably such a measure to safeguard marriage could be more easily initiated by a vigorous and fearless member of the House of Lords. The House of Commons at the present time, even apart from the Great War and its urgency, is often busy for months with intricate Government measures, which take up nearly all the time available. Marriage laws cannot be dealt with in half an hour on a Friday evening.