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The President, The Treasurer and The Secretary, ex officio

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Entered as Second Class Mail Matter at Lyons, N. Y. Copyrighted, 1914, by The Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.

THE SOCIETY OF SANITARY AND MORAL PROPHYLAXIS

VOL. V.

APRIL, 1914

No. 2.

A REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF SANITARY AND MORAL PROPHYLAXIS WAS HELD AT THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, 17 WEST 43D STREET, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1913.

THE FOLLOWING PAPERS WERE READ:

THE DRAMA AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SEX EDUCATION
Joyce Kilmer

THE PRESENT-DAY THEATRE AND THE SEX PROBLEM
Jules Eckert Goodman

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DISCUSSION

Rev. Charles K. Gilbert

Mrs. Charles H. Israels

Rabbi Maurice H. Harris
Miss Marguerite Merington

Mr. Hans von Kaltenborn

A REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF SANITARY AND MORAL PROPHYLAXIS WAS HELD AT THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, 17 WEST 43D STREET, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1914.

THE FOLLOWING PAPERS WERE READ:

THE AMERICAN SOCIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION; AN EXPERI-
MENT IN PREVENTIVE MEDICINE AND "Curative” MORALS
William F. Snow, M.D.

SEX EDUCATION IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Max J. Exner, M.D.

DISCUSSION

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Prof. Maurice A. Bigelow

Prof. Frank D. Watson

George L. Meylan, M.D.

THE DRAMA AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SEX EDUCATION

JOYCE KILMER

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is platitude. That is, it is a perfect expression of a universal and eternal truth. And it is the expression of a truth which has direct bearing on the subject now under discussion. For the main charge against the plays which have recently been held up to our admiration, as instruments of sex education, seems to me to be that they make sexual immorality and the evils which accompany and follow it, things not hideous and terrible but tawdry, commonplace—as unreal and contemptible as any of the ordinary phenomena of the theatre.

This is only one of the counts against the modern play dealing with morbid sex relationship. But it is the chief positive charge. Before considering it in detail, it may be well to look at the negative side of the question. Let us recall the wording of the subject of tonight's discussion. It is "The Drama as a Factor in Sex Education." Now education is defined by the Standard Dictionary as "the systematic development and cultivation of the normal powers of intellect, feeling and conduct, so as to render them efficient in some particular form of living or for life in general." Can anyone here present honestly say that Mr. Scarborough's forceful drama "The Lure" or Mr. Bayard Veiller's "The Fight" or M. Brieux's "Damaged Goods" has really developed and cultivated his powers of intellect, feeling and conduct in regard to sexual matters? Can anyone even say that all these three plays together and the two white slave moving picture shows thrown in have really given him a single item of information on sexual matters that he did not possess before? I doubt it. I doubt very much that any blithe young libertine tripped gayly into the Fulton Theatre and learned to his consternation that certain painful and disgusting diseases were frequently the result of sexual immorality. I doubt if anyone learned for the first time from "The Lure" or "The Fight" that the life of a daughter of

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