AN INESCAPABLE PARENTAL DUTY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 4

AN INESCAPABLE PARENTAL DUTY

While there may be general agreement with the contention of the committee on post-primary education that the schools must accept some responsibility for sex education, it is important that the purport of this statement be properly weighed and appreciated. The committee’s report, as published, uses the words, “some responsibility, and goes on to say that there are “obvious limits to what the school in itself may achieve-’’ This is very‘true. No doubt the school can assist, or even guide, the sex education of adolescents, and the fact that certain schools have achieved a measure of success in so doing.is encouraging. But the part to be played by parents remains essential —perhaps decisive. In the majority of cases.that has always been so, and will remain so. The recommendation of the committee, would be the reverse of helpful to the community were it to be construed as a suggestion that parental responsibility can be lessened—let alone avoided—merely, by adjustment of the school syllabus so as to include sex instruction. Already in many departments of life there is too pronounced a tendency in this country to lean upon the State and State services. In recent years this way of thought and action (or inaction) has been fostered by our legislation—to the detriment of the independence and initiative of an increasingly large section of the people; and, in more than one direction to the discouragement of well-rooted, influential home and family life. A great need of our time is that healthy home influences and responsibilities, in respect to youth, should be strengthened and emphasized, rather than in any way dissipated. This applies particularly to moral upbringing, of which sex education is a part. Sex education caftnot sensibly be regarded as an educational subject, in the limited, scholastic meaning of thatvterm. It is education in life, which is absorbed in the years of childhood and adolescence, not simply at certain times or on certain occasions, but during the majority of waking hours. Environment plays an enormous part in determining the nature and quality of sex education. The school environment—while it is highly important, and might be made strongly influential, in this respect —contains the average child for less than one-third of his or her -waking time. Obviously the environment of the home, together with those outside associations which are under parental rather than school supervision, must continue to play a large if not dominant part in moulding the child’s appreciation of life, and with his understanding of both the practical and moral aspects of sex. The duty of parents, therefore,'is inescapable. The schools can, with probably very great advantage in many instances, co-operate. But, as the committee’s report implies, they cannot replace. That implication must not be lost sight of by parents or the community.