Problems of sex / by J.A. Thomson and Patrick Geddes.

  • Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur), 1861-1933
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Problems of sex / by J.A. Thomson and Patrick Geddes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/68 (page 43)
    First, then, the robust common-sense counsels of the family doctor : look after the health of the body, let the youth endure hardness, let him learn to play well, scout well, and work well, and let him have a share of the real respon- sibilities of his parents and elders, not merely minor and semi-fictitious ones. And similarly, with reasonable adjustments, for girls. . Secondly, there is much also to be said for the correlated advice of every true educator, to store the mind with no mere information, whether conned in the schools of humanities or of sciences, but with good and vital things, to thrill it with noble examples, and, for our present purpose here, above all to call in the help of the artist, the poet, the musician, and of the truly religious, to keep out or live down all unworthy images by those ennobling to love and life. The youth may and must thus be encouraged to feel “ My mind to me a kingdom is ” ; and once awakened to deal with this kingdom’s many and compelling interests, with its developing resources and powers within, its new argosies ever arriving from without, he may still stumble, but he is not likely to go basely wrong. Ugly disclosures of incontinence and vice are too frequently forced upon the eye both in town and country, imprinting memories which stimulate even in dreams ; but one main counteractive, at least, is to have the mind not only stored with noble pictures from the vast heritage of culture, but accustomed to some power of selection and