Section — Koch–Preuss
Section 3: The Duties of Parents to Their Children
If a marriage is blessed with children,1 parents and children together form the social community called family. The bond which unites its mem- bers is love, not by virtue of some secondary or artificial arrangement, but by the voice of nature and divine Revelation.2 The duties of parents to their children are manifold and various. St. Paul sums them up in the passage: “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.”3
1 Even aside from religious motives, a child has a “right,” as it were, to brothers and sisters. A recent non-Catholic writer (Mary Vida Clark) says on this subject: “If the plural is in all cases too much to demand, at least one ‘sibling’ should be a minimum concession. The liability of the only child to the danger of being ‘spoiled’ has been long and widely recognized. The expectation of moral life which can be calculated for an only child is about equal to that of the proverbial ‘minister’s son.’ But it is not only in the strictly moral sphere that to be an only child is an extra hazardous occupation. Our ultra-modern psychologists and psychiatrists are calling attention to previously unrecognized mental risks, and warning us that this way madness lies. The first decade of life is no longer pictured as a garden of delight, but as a field of battle where ‘invisible armies clash by night.’ It is in these infantile conflicts (‘conflict’ is the technical word) that those wounds of the spirit are acquired, which, after festering in ‘the unconscious’ for a few decades, break out in the neuroses and psychoses of middle life. One of our leading Freudians has produced a learned monograph entitled The Only or Favorite Child, a signpost pointing out the descensum Averno down which these preordained victims of infant damnation are pushed by the fatuous and doting parents who are called by an inscrutable Providence to do the work. According to this school of thought, the superior opportunity that the only child is afforded by his freedom from domestic competition is that of ending his days in an insane asylum—and being able to be a paying patient. But even without these lurid lights on this dark subject, we can feel our way to the sensible realization that an only child is at best a forlorn and unnatural object, arbitrarily and unjustly deprived of the company of his peers, and condemned to excessive and demoralizing association with rude-mannered adults, constantly intruding their unwelcome attentions, and making the unfortunate an object of ridicule to the more happily situated groups of brothers and sisters to be observed in the outer world. To fail to conform to the requirements of this abnormal environment, where one is the only one of his kind in his world, makes for immediate misery; and to conform, it now appears, results in even more serious disaster in the future. A cruel dilemma indeed for a guileless enterer in life’s handicap! And yet the senile speak of ‘childhood’s happy hours’! Consider next the child’s right to respectful treatment. The rudeness exhibited by most adults in their relations with children is fully recognized only by the victims themselves, who are too forbearing and well-mannered to speak out in their own defense. The child is a very serious-minded individual, engaged in a life and death struggle for existence and growth and knowledge, in a world ill adapted to meet his needs, to which he must by increasing and herculean effort learn to conform. Self-respect and consideration for others demand the repression, so far as possible, of external indications of the conflict going on within the soul; but to the combatant, conscious of the struggle, life and himself are very serious propositions. To the adult, however, whose growing pains have ceased and been forgotten with the conclusion of his stunted development, the child, because of a certain meretricious outer appearance of calm, seems for some inscrutable reason an object of hilarity, to be treated jocosely when not subjected to autocratic domination and suppression. A sense of humor, in cases where it exists at all, is a development of maturity, a thing not born but made. The child still regards life as real and earnest. Yet his serious observations on his discoveries in the natural and supernatural world are treated by thick-headed grown-ups as funny sayings to be bandied about for public entertainment. The child, naturally sensitive to ridicule, soon learns to keep to himself his queries and his discoveries, painfully and laboriously acquiring knowledge by putting two and two together through æons of time.” North American Review, Vol. 216, No. 3 (Sept. 1922), pp. 407 sqq.
2 Is. XLIX, 15; Matth. VII, 9–11; Luke XI, 11–13; cfr. John XVI, 21.—J. P. Gury, S. J., Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 378.—Tit. II, 4; cfr. Matth. X, 37; Luke XIV, 26.
3 Eph. VI, 4.
- This bringing up,—education as we are wont to call it,—comprises a threefold care on the part of the parents, namely, a) Care for the physical life and well-being of their children. Parents are bound to protect their children against everything that is apt to prove injurious to their life and health. In positive terms this means that they must provide for them whatever they need to grow up and develop their physical powers. This duty begins long before the child is born, at the moment of its conception in the maternal womb. Hence parents commit a mortal sin if they deliberately induce abortion or expose their children to any other grave danger to life and health, either before or after birth.
b) In regard to support (victus), the first duty devolves upon the mother. She is bound to give the new-born infant the food which nature has provided for it, and if she is unable to do so, either because of ill health or for some other weighty reason, she must provide an adequate substitute for mother’s milk. After the infant is weaned, father and mother must share in his care by providing him with food, shelter, and clothing in accordance with their station in life, until the child is able to take care of himself.4
4 Col. III, 21. Cfr. Gury, Compend. Theol. Mor., I, n. 379–381.
The mother’s duty of nursing her babies obliges under pain of mortal sin, and it is a grievous mistake to think that compliance with this duty injures a woman’s health or mars her youthfulness. Under normal conditions the contrary is true: neglect to nurse her baby is apt to induce serious disturbances in the physical organism of the mother. It is foolish to regard nursing as immodest or degrading. But if a mother is really incapable of nursing her infant, which is nowadays unfortunately but too often the case, in consequence of unnatural habits continued through many generations, the best substitute that can be had is a wet nurse. In engaging a wet nurse preference should be given to healthy married women of good repute, not only for moral reasons, but also because unmarried mothers are more likely to transmit diseases.5
5 Lam. IV, 3.—Gury, op. cit., I, n. 381.—H. Noldin, S. J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, p. 310; H. Muckermann, S. J., Der biologische Wert der mütterlichen Stillpflicht, Freiburg 1918; J. Antonelli, Medicina Pastoralis, Vol. II, pp. 10 sqq.
A relatively large proportion of infants nowadays die of neglect. They are mostly the offspring of mothers who entrust their little ones to strangers while they, compelled by poverty, go out to work. This is a deplorable evil, which can not be effectively combatted by the erection of foundling asylums. Such institutions, even when conducted according to the most approved rules of Christian charity, cannot supply to the foundlings what their nature demands and their mothers refuse to give them. A certain monarch once suggested as an appropriate motto for a foundling asylum the words: “Ici on fait mourir les enfants—Here infants are made to die.” There is more truth than poetry in this inscription. Foundling asylums are not without their merits, but statistics show that the majority of the children entrusted to them either die prematurely or become degenerate in after life.
If possible, orphans should be entrusted to good Christian families, rather than to asylums, where they usually feel as if they were in prison. Still a well conducted orphanage is superior to a private home in which the children are allowed to grow up wild or are exploited for profit.
Experience teaches that men often abandon girls whom they have seduced and that the young unmarried mothers are unable to support their offspring with their meagre earnings. This condition of affairs is responsible for many crimes, such as abortion, child-murder, and suicide. Relief should be furnished by the State or municipality by erecting institutions for the proper care of such mothers and their children. Institutions for receiving girls about to become mothers are also a desideratum, especially in our large cities, and can do much good, not only by relieving such poor unfortunate creatures of worry, but likewise by leading them back to virtue. To accomplish this double end it is advisable that the girls should remain in these institutions for some time both before and after delivery. The charges should be moderate, and poor girls should be received and treated gratis. Upon being dismissed, the unmarried mother should be given an opportunity to leave her baby in a home connected with the institution and herself be provided with safe lodging if she is obliged to go out to work.6
6 F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, p. 646.—P. G. Kammerer, The Unmarried Mother, A Study of Five Hundred Cases, Boston 1918.—C. Bruehl in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. XXIII (1923), no. 10.
Motherhood insurance (against the risks of maternity) is a good thing because it secures to mothers proper care during and after confinement and enables them to nurse their babies if they are physically able to do so.
c) Parents are further bound to aid their children in choosing a vocation or profession and in preparing them for it. This means, under modern conditions, that they have to accumulate a certain amount of money in order to enable the children to equip themselves properly for the battle of life. St. Paul expressly teaches that parents should lay up treasures for their children, not children for their parents.7 St. Thomas states the reason as follows: “Since a father stands in the relation of a principle, and his son in the relation of that which is from a principle, it is essentially fitting for a father to support his son, and consequently he is bound to support him not only for a time, but for all his life, and this is to lay by. On the other hand, for the son to bestow something on his father is accidental, arising from some momentary necessity, wherein he is bound to support him, but not to lay by as for a long time beforehand, because naturally parents are not the successors of their children, but children of their parents.”8
8 Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 101, art. 2, ad 2: “Since a father has the character of a principle, while a son has the character of one existing from a principle, it therefore belongs to the father in himself to assist his son; and for this reason he ought to assist him not only for the present hour, but for the whole of his life, which is to lay up treasure. But that a son should contribute something to his father is accidental, by reason of some pressing necessity in which he is bound to assist him, but not to lay up treasure as though for the distant future, because by nature parents are not the heirs of their children, but children are the heirs of their parents.”—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 382: “Finally, parents are bound to procure for their children a station in which they may someday live honorably according to their condition. Hence the following sin gravely: 1. Those who do not employ at least moderate diligence to acquire goods from which they may suitably support their children and provide for their future station, according to that saying of the Apostle (2 Cor. xii, 14): Children ought not to lay up treasure for their parents, but parents for their children; 2. Those who neither teach nor have their children taught a trade suited to their station or some other honorable manner of making a living; 3. All the more, those who dissipate the family property through sloth, negligence, drinking, feasting, games, and gravely imprudent transactions; 4. Those who without legitimate cause obstinately deny a daughter a suitable dowry for contracting marriage or entering religion.”
Parents are not, however, bound to go to extraordinary pains, or to impose privations upon themselves, in order to enrich their children. The best they can do for them is to fit them for a position where they can take care of themselves.
It is wrong for parents to spend money without stint to help along their sons and at the same time to make no provision for their unmarried daughters.
Just how much or how little a child needs to be properly provided for, cannot be definitely determined by any general rule. Often the sons of poor families become prosperous, nay wealthy, whereas the pampered scions of the rich grow poor. “To surround the young with what they ought themselves to achieve,” says Archbishop Spalding, “is to enfeeble and corrupt them. Happy is the poor man’s son, who, whithersoever he turns, sees the obstacles rise to challenge him to become a man; miserable the children of the rich, whose cursed-blessed fortune is an everpresent invitation to idleness and conceit. O mothers, you whose love is the best any of us have known, harden your sons and urge them on, not in the race for wealth, but in the steep and narrow way wherein, through self-conquest and self-knowledge, they rise toward God and all high things.”9
9 J. L. Spalding, Means and Ends of Education, 5th ed., Chicago 1909, pp. 124 sq.
A good education, or a trade or profession, is worth more than a large fortune. “He who hath a trade hath an estate,” says Poor Richard.
Parents are not obliged to go to the limit of their ability in providing for their children. For a good and appreciative child they will naturally do more than for a wicked and ungrateful one. “Parents cannot do too much for good children,” says Lessing; “but if a foolish father deprives himself of the necessaries of life to support a wayward son, love degenerates into folly.”
Among the duties of parents, says a recent writer on ethics, is that of training their children so that they will avoid sloth and pleasure-seeking, and teaching them to work diligently, to employ their time in useful pursuits, to be methodic and frugal, and to save money. To many a thriftless and prodigal parent might be applied the words of Homer’s Lycophron, when he says of the father of Mestra, that “he hath consumed everything.” They consume, i. e., waste everything, and not only fail to provide for their children, but abandon them to material and moral ruin. Pauperism with all its misery too often has its source in gross parental neglect.
- The most important duty which parents have towards their children is to educate and train them in the fear of God.10
10 Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 383: “Parents are bound chiefly to provide a spiritual education. The reason is that man, besides that material or bodily being which he has in common with the other animals, is endowed by God with a rational and most noble soul in the image of the divinity Himself, and was created to tend toward God as his final supernatural end; consequently he ought above all to be instructed and directed by his parents toward this end. For this reason Matrimony was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, that the offspring born might be reborn in Christ and prepared for eternal life. Hence the Apostle (1 Tim. V, 8) says: If anyone does not have care for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. For this education are required: 1. Instruction; 2. Correction; 3. Example.”—St. Augustine, De Bono Coniug., c. 17, n. 19: “For among them the desire for children itself is carnal; among them, however, it was spiritual, because it accorded with the sacrament of that time. Now indeed no one perfect in piety seeks to have children except spiritually; but then it was an operation of piety itself to propagate children also carnally.” (Migne, P. L., XL, 386 sq.).
a) Children need instruction (doctrina), that they may acquire proficiency in the things a man needs to know in order to be enabled to take care of himself when he grows up and, in his turn, to provide for his own offspring. The most necessary and elementary branches of knowledge are the so-called three R’s, i. e., reading, writing, and arithmetic, commonly conveyed in elementary or grammar schools. To these Catholics are wont to add a fourth “R,”—namely religion. Hence parents, who are unable to instruct their children themselves, are bound to send them to a good Catholic school. If a boy is fit for and aspires to a higher education or profession, parents should cheerfully provide the means to achieve his ambition, but compulsion should never be exercised in the choice of a profession or occupation.
It would be a travesty of liberty and a suppression of rights if parents were prohibited from choosing their own schools for their children, where the latter will receive the kind of instruction that is in keeping with the parents’ outlook on life and their religious beliefs. Right gives way to might and liberty becomes tyranny when education is made a monopoly of the State and when thoughts and ideas are shaped and controlled by a party in power, by “vested” interests, or a hostile majority.
When a child shows signs of a vocation for the priesthood or for the religious life, the parents should encourage it, but they are not allowed to interfere with the child’s freedom of choice.11
11 Conc. Trid., Sess. XXV, De Regular. et Monial., c. 16–18; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 104, art. 5.
Parents who let a child grow up without giving him all the opportunities for mental development which they can command, or who oppose the child’s desire for a higher education and forcibly try to keep him in ignorance, commit a grievous sin, especially if they could give him the desired opportunities without great sacrifices on their part. A boy who shows a talent for a higher profession should not be denied an education on the plea that his help is needed at home and the family would have to deny itself certain luxuries if he quit working.
In all questions pertaining to education parents should above all remember that they may under no circumstances entrust their children to institutions in which faith or morals are exposed to direct danger.12
12 J. L. Spalding, Means and Ends of Education, pp. 151 sqq.; Linsenmann, Lehrb. der Moraltheol., p. 647. Cfr. Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 386; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 937 sqq.
b) So much for instruction. Of equal importance is moral and religious training (disciplina). It must comprise the intellect, the will, and the heart. The child must be instructed in its duties to God, to himself, and to his fellowmen, and taught to acquire a firm and enduring tendency toward moral goodness, in order that he may acquire true culture and nobility of character and attain to “the age of the fullness of Christ.”13 Consequently, parents are in duty bound to instruct their children at an early age in those moral and religious truths which are necessary for salvation, to accustom them to the daily practice of religion, to protect them against the danger of seduction arising from servants or companions, and particularly to train them in obedience and respect to authority.
13 Eph. IV, 13.—Cfr. Brother Azarias, Phases of Thought and Criticism, Boston 1896, pp. 72 sqq.
Some parents fancy that in sending their children to a religious school they have discharged all their obligations towards them. Even in secular quarters apprehension is growing on account of the remissness of parents at home in the matter of supplying a background for the teaching in the schools. Miss Sarah Louise Arnold, dean emeritus of Simmons College, recently registered the following complaint: “The modern American home is no longer filling its former place in the education of the child. We are leaving to the school the responsibilities of the home. Education is not for the school alone. Where can re- sponsibility and co-operation be taught, if not at home? The home is the environment that is natural for a proper training for responsible citizenship. But to-day our homes too often lack the permanence that made the homes of a generation ago so fundamental in training our present generation. To-day our homes, too, often lack the books and the chores and the duties toward the family.”
Still graver consequences than those which follow the state of affairs set forth by Miss Arnold are produced by faulty home environment and false standards of life. “In many a Catholic home,” says a current Catholic writer, “the inspiring and helpful teaching given to the children at school not only remains unencouraged, but principles and modes of action are stimulated which are directly opposed to what the child has learned while under the care of Catholic teachers. What is the result of this twofold standard, presented almost daily to the impressionable character of the young persons? They will be apt to follow the example, and to adopt the views of their elders at home. After all, the adolescent boy or girl understands quite well that it is not the school, but the home where father and mother and friends and neighbors meet, which really counts. In the minds of the young it is the home, and not the school that pre- sents a sample of what goes on in the great world around. The child looks upon the school as an episode to be gotten through with as soon as possible, in order to start real life.”
When it becomes necessary to correct or punish their children, parents must proceed with prudence and moderation. Punishment, especially corporal chastisement, when applied in anger or to excess, produces discouragement, bitterness, and contempt of authority, and is apt to prove an obstacle rather than a help to education. “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.”14
14 Eph. VI, 4; cfr. Col. III, 21; Prov. XIII, 24; XXIII, 13 sq.; Ecclus. XXII, 6; XLII, 5.—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 385.
No partiality should ever be shown, because it is a hindrance to the right development of character.
The best and most effective means of training a child, especially in religion, is good example.15 Parents are, therefore, under a particular obligation to fulfill their religious duties regularly and conscientiously. “You will give [your daughter] very much if you give her nothing but your [good] example,” says Seneca; and Horace: “The virtue of good parents is a rich dowry.”16
15 St. Jerome, Epist., 107 (al. 7), n. 9: “Let her have you as her teacher; let her inexperienced childhood imitate (admire) you. Let her see nothing in you and in her father which, if she does it, she sins. Remember that you are the parents of a virgin, and that she can be taught by examples more than by voice. . . . Let her never go out in public without you. . . . Let our little virgin so celebrate the days of vigils and solemn night watches that she does not depart from her mother even by the breadth of a fingernail.” (Migne, P. L., XXII, 875).—St. Gregory the Great, Regula Past., p. 3, c. 4 (al. 28): “Let these [fathers] learn how also to furnish outwardly to those committed to them examples of living well. Prelates must also know that if ever they perpetrate perverse deeds, they are worthy of as many deaths as the examples of perdition which they transmit to their subjects. Hence it is necessary that they guard themselves from fault all the more cautiously, since through the evil things which they do, not only do they themselves die, but they are guilty of the souls of others, which they have destroyed by evil examples.” (P. L., LXXVII, 54).
16 Seneca, De Consol. ad Helviam, XVIII, 8: “You will give her much, even if you give her nothing except an example.”—Horace, Carm., l. III, c. 24, 21: “The virtue of parents is a great dowry.”
“Education,” says Archbishop Spalding, “is always the result of personal influence. A mother, a father in the home, a pure and loving heart at the altar, a true man or woman in the school, a noble mind uttering itself in literature, which is personal thought and expression, these are the forces which educate. Life proceeds from life, and religion, which is the highest power of life, can proceed only from God and religious souls. Not by preaching and teaching, but by living the life, can we make ourselves centres of spiritual influence.”17
17 Means and Ends of Education, p. 125.
The dread which prevents so many parents from being strict with their children is not a sign of a humane disposition, but rather a proof of mental unsteadiness, moral weakness, and lack of principle. They hesitate to impose a law upon their children because they themselves have no law to guide them, and because father and mother proceed on different principles, or have no principles at all. Parental discipline, to be effective, must be concerted, reasonable, moderate, and uniform. Though the father is stricter than the mother, both should communicate to each other their experiences and observations and never let the children notice any difference of opinion that may arise between them. There should be no partiality in the treatment of children, yet, on the other hand, each should be dealt with according to his or her individual character, with due regard to his or her idiosyncrasies, and all should be made to know and feel that they are equally dear to their progenitors. That parents love those of their children who cause them trouble with a special tenderness seems to be natural, but to treat the younger children more leniently than the older is neither just nor prudent.18
18 Linsenmann, Moraltheologie, pp. 647 sqq.
Though instruction in matters of sex may be necessary in some cases, it cannot be regarded as a general duty incumbent upon all parents, for three reasons: First, not all are able to give this sort of instruction effectively; secondly, a great many children, in consequence of temperament, education, or environment, do not require such instruction, at least not in childhood; third, it is not at all certain that instruction in matters of sex always produces the desired effect, but experience teaches that, on the contrary, this sort of enlightenment, no matter how well-intentioned, often entails great danger.19 For very good reasons drawn from personal experience many moralists, pedagogues, and parents oppose this new fad. The words of the noble Bishop Sailer20 remain as true to-day as when they were spoken nearly a century ago: “The lure of curiosity and forbidden desire, aided by the imagination, often overcomes the trained reason of the adult man; what will they do to the boy whose reason is so very weak and whose imagination is so immensely strong? Hence sexual instruction must not be the rule. Whether it may be employed beneficially in exceptional cases, must be left to the judgment of the wise and prudent lover of youth.”21 Consequently, there can be no duty in this matter for parents except in individual and exceptional cases, when such instruction appears necessary, and even then only to the extent in which it is necessary. The general rule is that parents should instruct their children in the unchangeable principles of Christian morality, inculcate especially the necessity of watchfulness and prayer against the temptations of the flesh, train the children to be chaste and modest, and instil into them at an early age fear of God and a deep aversion for the sins against the Sixth Commandment.22
19 Cfr. F. Damian, “Eine aktuelle Frage,” in the Theologisch-prakt. Quartalschrift, of Linz, 1906, pp. 750 sqq.; F. Tischler, Prinzipielle Gesichtspunkte zur sexuellen Aufklärung, ibid., 1908, pp. 783 sqq.; Th. J. Gerard, The Church and Eugenics, London 1921, pp. 61 sqq.
20 On Sailer see the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 328.
21 Schmetz, Das Glück im Heim, p. 191. Cfr. F. W. Foerster, Sexualethik, 3rd ed., pp. 183 sqq.
22 L. Auer, Die Einführung in ein richtiges Geschlechtsleben, Donauwörth 1907, pp. 22 sqq.; M. Gatterer and F. Krus, Die Erziehung zur Keuschheit, 2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1910, pp. 4 sqq. (English edition by Van der Donckt).
Father Thomas J. Gerrard, a very competent authority, says that parents and teachers have to steer between Scylla and Charybdis in this matter of sex instruction:
“The difficulty arises from this, that there is an intimate nervous connection between the imagination and the bodily functions; so that knowledge may cause keen physical sensations and they in turn may become a source of temptation and sin. If the knowledge is gained before the mind can rightly grasp the motives for self-control or the will acquire the habit, the removal of ignorance may mean the loss of innocence as well. Whereas if when knowledge is due it is withheld, an unhealthy curiosity may seek gratification in wrong ways or be suppressed by an equally unhealthy prudery.
“Once the necessity of this instruction is admitted, the solution of the problem must take the form of an answer to the questions—Who? When? and How? Who is the proper person to give the instruction? As the parent stands in the closest relation to the child and is primarily responsible for its moral education, it is clearly the parental duty to see that the offspring gets the requisite knowledge neither too early nor too late. It is never too early to begin to train children in habits of modesty as regards themselves and others, but the time will come when that training must be supplemented and confirmed by a disclosure of the rational and religious grounds for those habits. Of the parents, the mother is normally the best fitted in herself and in her opportunities to undertake this duty, but if she for some reason cannot do it, she is bound to provide an efficient substitute.
“As to the when and how, clearly the disclosure must be gradual. As generally it is the phenomenon of birth that first arouses the child’s curiosity, the mother should be prepared to use the analogy of reproduction amongst irrational animals, such as cats and rabbits, to illustrate such part of the human process as concerns herself. Answers to some questions may readily be deferred for a time, especially if the child leads a sheltered life, but false information should never be given. God’s share in the process, both in ordaining it and actually creating the rational soul, should be emphasized, so as to show its essential sacredness, and, whilst it is described as too intimate to be discussed with others, care must be taken not to let the child think that there is anything improper in the function itself. Not until much later, when the occurrence of the phenomena of puberty seems likely to arouse youthful curiosity again, should the part the father takes be indicated. Then it is time that the growing youths should learn other reasons, besides God’s stern prohibition, for preserving continence, such as reverence for the purity of others and the personal and social harm of indulgence.
“So much for what we may call home instruction, normally indispensable if the moral character is to be duly developed. But it should always be accompanied or followed up by that training in religion by which young minds are best enlightened and young wills best strengthened against sexual sin. The explanation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, if given clearly and fully, should, by indicating precisely what is wrong, and the penalties which are assigned by God to transgression, suffice to preserve any Catholic child from unconsciously forming habits of vice. Unfortunately, as every confessor can testify, owing to a mistaken reticence on the part of parents or to the difficulties attending class instruction in so delicate a subject, many children are allowed to grow up and to leave school inadequately or even wrongly informed as to what is and what is not sinful. Such ignorance is widespread outside the Catholic Church, but, with Catechism instruction as a basis of enlightenment, it should be impossible for a Catholic child to be misinformed on so vital a matter. It is the grave duty of those entrusted with the task of teaching the Catechism to see that the nature of the obligations imposed by these two commandments, and the reason for them, are clearly understood by their pupils. This obviously cannot be done by questioning in public, both because of the nature of the subject and the different degrees of precocity exhibited even by children of the same age and standing. For this reason, detailed class instruction in this matter is strongly to be deprecated. The state of the child’s knowledge is best ascertained by judicious questioning in private with the view to removing misapprehensions, and correcting, if need be, both laxity and scrupulosity of conscience.”
Closely akin to this question, and equally important, is when and how to tell the young of the harmful physical effects of sexual indulgence. It is a pressing question to-day when the looseness of morals, induced by the Great War, has greatly increased the incidence of venereal disease. The medical profession are seriously alarmed at the spread of this racial poison, which affects the innocent as well as the guilty, and are casting about for means of checking its ravages. One of these means is the diffusion of knowledge both as to the painful and health-shattering character of veneric diseases, and as to the methods by which they can be cured once they have been incurred. “In the conveyance of this information,” says Fr. Gerrard, “the moralists (and genuine eugenics put morality foremost) see a double effect: the revelation of the terrible nature of the infection is clearly a deterrent, whilst the indication of a ready means of recovery tends to make the sinner more reckless. However, the need of promoting public health and of protecting the innocent from loathsome complaints, outweighs the possible danger of making the way of the transgressor less hard; and, the crisis being what it is, no Catholic moralist would refuse to second the efforts of the health authorities, both to warn the public and to heal, as speedily as may be, those who do not heed the warning.
“Again, the risk attending public instruction of adults must necessarily be run, if only because of the impossibility of conveying the knowledge otherwise. Members of non-Catholic bodies, deprived of explicit moral teach- ing and the counsels of the confessional, must be treated thus en masse and appealed to mainly on physical and social grounds. But we hold out against such instruction being given publicly in schools, and we insist on the religious motive as being the highest and most permanent in fighting this great evil. Religion, as we said above, is the only eugenic force in the world capable of realizing the final aim of eugenics.”23
23 The Church and Eugenics, Appendix.
All further explanations may, as a rule, be postponed to the time immediately preceding marriage.24 Innocence of mind and heart has this great advantage that it turns away the imagination of the adolescent boy or girl from the sexual organs and their functions, which in not a few cases is of greater advantage than the most profound knowledge concerning these things.
24 See the excellent specimen instruction for bridal couples by Dean J. H. Keim in Dr. F. Schulze’s Pastoral Theology, 3rd ed., St. Louis 1923, Appendix II.
A Catholic lay writer on these subjects says that the instruction which he and his bride received from an experienced and pious priest immediately before marriage, was of greater benefit to them than all professed instruction in matters of sex could possibly have been. Given in the confessional, such instructions are frequently even more effective, because they turn the attention to the sacred purpose of Matrimony at a time when and in a place where the mind is most receptive to such things.
READINGS.—Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 2nd ed., pp. 794 sqq.—Elbel-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 3rd ed., pp. 730 sqq.—Reuter-Lehmkuhl, Neoconfessarius, pp. 166 sqq.—J. M. Sailer and J. Baier, Über Erziehung für Erzieher, Freiburg 1899, pp. 160 sqq.—D. Dupanloup, L’Éducation, Paris 1850.—W. Becker, S.J., Die christl. Erziehung oder Pflichten der Eltern, 3rd ed., Freiburg 1907.—F. A. Göpfert, Moraltheologie, Vol. II, pp. 419.
—T. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 274 sqq.—Th. Meyer, S.J., Inst. Iuris Nat., Vol. II, pp. 101 sqq.—J. E. Ross, Christian Ethics, pp. 386 sqq.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 307 sqq.—F. Walter, Die sexuelle Aufklärung der Jugend, Donauwörth 1907.—T. J. Gerrard, The Church and Eugenics, London 1921, pp. 61 sqq.—A. Vermeersch, S.J., De Castitate, nn. 134, 172, 175, 196, 199, 242.