Episode 13 - What a Young Boy Ought to Know

Welcome back to the Forgotten Library; as always, I’m Nikki Gee. If you’re a regular listener, you might recall the very first episode of this show was on What a Young Girl Ought to Know, by Dr. Mary Wood-Allen. Today, we’re going to reach all the way to the back of the stacks, and take a look at what 19th century sex instruction was like for boys, by paging through What a Young Boy Ought to Know by Sylvanus Stall.

At the time, of course, these books were not referred to as “sex education,” and in fact, there was a tendency to eschew the word “sex” entirely, in favor of the terms “purity education” or “hygiene books.” The social purity movement, as it came to be known, originated in the 1880s, approximately, and was championed by mostly white, middle-class Christian evangelicals; this movement, fomented by such organizations as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Young Men’s and Women’s Christian Associations, and the White Cross Leagues, focused on abstinence, anti-prostitution, age of consent laws, and obscenity. In addition, these sex reformers felt that children should be taught . . . something about sex as a sort of prophylactic measure, but what, exactly, should they be taught? How far should the education go? What terms should they use so that body parts didn’t become inflamed with desire just from hearing certain words? You get the idea.

In addition to Mary Wood-Allen’s first book, What a Young Girl Ought to Know (which I covered in episode 1), the other book that helped to lay the groundwork was today’s selection by Sylvanus Stall, What a Young Boy Ought to Know, which was first published in 1897. Mary Wood-Allen was a doctor, but Sylvanus Stall was a reverend in the Lutheran church. While Stall published several texts with a more religious theme, such as Bible Selections for Daily Devotion and How to Pay Church Debts and How to Keep Churches Out of Debt, his more well-known books are the purity education books, which made up the backbone of his own publishing house, Vir (along with the ones marketed to the female audience by Dr. Wood-Allen, and later, Emma Drake). The multiple volumes would make up the Self and Sex Series of books under his imprint, and were actually marketed to various countries and translated into other languages in the ensuing years.

In addition to the contentious atmosphere already mentioned, one has to recall that Anthony Comstock was on the loose during this time. Comstock was the United States Postal Inspector, as well as secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; part of his job was to inspect materials that passed through the mail to ensure that all was decent: information about prophylactics, family planning, abortion, or any explicit sexual education or paraphernalia would be deemed obscene and the person responsible could be fined or even jailed. Therefore, even those sex reformers who might have wanted to describe sexual appendages and the act of coitus with more detail could not without facing serious repercussions from Comstock and the latter law named after him. People like Dr. Wood-Allen and Rev. Stall were able to continue publishing because, not only were they euphemistic, but also came from a place of conservative religious values – sex is for procreation only, that sort of thing.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

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As with Dr. Wood-Allen’s book, we begin with commendations from Eminent Men and Women. Apparently, this was a strategy used with most books touching on sexual subject matter, and the reason is twofold – one, it attracted consumers and two, it assured them that, despite the “impure” subject matter, this book was “pure” and wouldn’t engender sexual desire in the reader.

Joseph Cook, a doctor of divinity, hopes the young will find this book a “divine benediction.” Charles Thompson, another minister, opines that this book wasn’t written centuries ago, as it has been sorely needed. Kate Waller Barrett, a physician and a philanthropist who isn’t as well known today but was rather famous in her time, states that the book is scientific and yet, as readable as a “fairy story.” Ookay, we’ll see.

Alice Moqué, a journalist and apparently, one of the first female cyclists in America, says she is thankful for the book, as she has three sons. She goes on to say that the “truth properly told” doesn’t harm a child, while “silence and false shame” have harmed millions. I wonder if she really understood the irony of her statement . . .

Comstock himself lauds the book here, too. And there are a few others with similar platitudes; in all, about fifteen pages of such commendations from various well-known people of the day.

After a page advertising all the books in the Self and Sex series for men and women (which stop at age 45, by the way, as I presume after that they didn’t know what happened to your body because you were probably nearly dead), there is a portrait of Sylvanus Stall himself, who is bearded and bespectacled, with rather close-cropped dark hair. He kind of looks like he could be actor Michael Gross’ brother. Of note in the Table of Contents is that each new section is called “Cylinder,” rather than “Chapter,” as apparently, Rev. Stall also recorded this book on a series of wax cylinders for the phonograph. There are claims that this could be the first audiobook; however, I am unable to corroborate this anywhere.

In the preface, Stall says that he wished for a book like this as a young lad and basically, this book was ordained by god. He reminds parents that this book is written for a younger audience, so his aim is to be frank and truthful in plain and simple language. Each book in the series is written for the particular audience intended, so no reading ahead allowed!

Just like Dr. Wood-Allen’s book, What a Young Boy Ought to Know takes the form of a chat between parent and child, in this case, a boy named Harry. From the very first sentence, when Stall mentions that Harry has been listening to chapters from Talks with the King’s Children every evening (one of Stall’s previously published liturgical works), the reader knows the audience for the book – Christian, and therefore, white and middle-class, as well. Anyway, Harry comes home from school one day and, just like Nina in the female version, finds a baby in the house and inquires where it came from. So, the premise of the book is that Harry’s parents have engaged their friend the good reverend to speak to him about this subject; since he can’t be there in person, he has sent recordings instead, of short duration much like the mini-sermons he’s used to, presumably so the child’s attention doesn’t have a chance to wander and perhaps get lost on a pretty path that leads to corruption?

I’m not going to separate these into chapters, as they are so short, but the book is split into seven distinct parts.

Part I – God’s Purpose in Endowing Plants, Animals and Man with Reproductive Organs. Harry, you have asked the universal question, one that every intelligent being comes to ask at some point – how did we come to be? If you were to put the questions of how the steamship or the telephone came to be, we’d have to go to the origins of these inventions and their inventors, so that you could develop the full picture, right? Well, it’s the same with life on earth. We came from Adam and Eve, which story you should already be familiar with from your Bible, but let’s take a closer look.

Stall next natters on about “creating” something versus “making” something, giving the example of a carpenter. A carpenter builds something by putting together materials that were already in existence and made something new from the whole. It’s different with god, because the world had nothing, so all of the things in it had to be created – rocks, trees, the whole nine. He explains organic versus inorganic objects – those which have life and which do not; and that some of the creations can reproduce, or create new items like themselves.

He recounts the creation of Adam and Eve, and I have to chuckle at the fact that the Bible quotation is sure to mention that Adam was completely asleep before his rib was taken out and that the flesh was closed up afterward. Sure glad you didn’t omit that detail! Would have left a bit of a hole otherwise . . .

Stall tells “Harry” that this is a very beautiful account, and he is sure that he, Harry, would agree on this point. It reveals a part of God’s mind to us, in that he created a method by which all plants and animals and, subsequently, people, would “beget” others of their kind. And this is all perfectly natural, as no law of God’s would be impure, no, sir!

This creation story, nor any story that comes from god, shouldn’t make one blush, so neither should procreation, as that is ordained by god and as long as one thinks purely about such topics, they are not prurient or embarrassing; however, if one is not in the proper frame of mind to think about such topics, that is from Satan himself.

God gave the power to each creature to reproduce more of its own kind. And this is tremendous, for if he had not done so, peaches might have grown on apple trees, or trees might have created fish and birds! I guess he’s choosing to ignore Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin in this instance.

The next segment dives deeper into plants and birds but of course, since this is for boys, no mention of “sleepy little seed-children” or romantic feelings about orioles. Stall’s book is quite a bit duller than Dr. Wood-Allen’s; while both have the lens of religious instruction, at least the book for girls had some interesting allusions contained therein. I now regret mocking them – just a little bit. A teensy bit.

Step by incremental step, Rev. Stall goes into reproduction explanations of fish, and mammals, and the differences between seeds and eggs. Stall is only slightly more direct when he mentions semen. Dr. Wood-Allen delicately referred to it as the “product of life,” and he gets a bit more descriptive when he calls it a “slimy substance which also resembles the white portion of a raw hen’s egg.” Yeah, that’s about right. He tells “Harry” of the way baby oysters are produced, some of the lowest organisms on the planet.

I suppose as this is written for boy’s eyes, it’s perfectly okay for him to own that sometimes the baby birds will not be able to reproduce, because they are SHOT, right down in their prime! He admits that it is a bit heartless and cruel, so I would wager that he was not a hunter, or a very reluctant one.

Now, we are speshul higher life forms, so we are nurtured within the mother’s body, and we take a very long time to grow and develop into maturity, the fullness of which is reached, Stall says, at 25 years of age (!) But, this is ordained by God, so that we can be lord and master over everything. The men, anyway.

Stall next tells “Harry” how life would be very different if God had just created all people as full-sized adults, with no childhoods. There would be no homes, he says, because “all the relations of life upon which the home now rests would not exist.” Umm, adults still need shelter. And everyone would be alone because they would have no familial connections. Right, because you can’t make a tight-knit circle out of friends . . . All of this is to say that god’s plan, which includes the power of reproduction, should be treated with reverence and not spoken of in a lewd manner.

Much like other creatures, human life is also created from an egg, but in this case, it is very tiny, so much so that it cannot be seen except under a magnifying glass. Well, microscope, but I can’t tell if he’s misinformed or choosing more general language for the child; if it’s the latter, he uses spermatozoa in the next sentence, so . . . which, yes, is a correct word, but rather hefty for a young child. I’m rather surprised that he says it at all, as Dr. Wood-Allen never uses the word, and is never that explicit when it comes to bodily secretions.

Speaking of the doctor, Stall name-checks her here and lifts a portion of one of her pamphlets, a conversation between a mother and young son regarding his formation and gestation. The apple dumpling reference is once again made, as it was in Young Girl, but it seems to be weirder here, as would the fictive “son” know anything about the apple dumpling? Boys didn’t learn how to cook. So it seems like a reach for the sake of clarity.

The imaginary father of this piece sends a letter to Stall, asking for the talks to continue, so next, the good reverend discusses heredity, the little he understands of it. He makes an allusion to future talks regarding self-pollution, and I believe that’s in Part II, but he sets it up here by saying that unhealthy parents cannot beget healthy children, so that’s why it’s important to keep oneself healthy at all times, even while still a young boy. He includes mental attitudes in this as well – being cheerful and obedient to god and one’s parents, etc. If you have been blessed with good physical and intellectual characteristics, be thankful and do not think uncharitably of those who are not as endowed as yourself. Lastly in this section, he states that Heredity is not fatality, so remember – a strong body can become weak, and those who are “weaker” can overcome some deficits.

Part II – The Manner in Which the Reproductive Organs are Injured in Boys by Abuse. Ah, here we go, our favorite sets of warnings!

Man is an animal, albeit the highest one, and thus, god has endowed him with higher intellect and a moral sense; these powers given by the grace of his creator can be perverted, however, and debased. You can see examples of this when boys stop attending school, and eschew Sunday school for other ungodly pursuits of a Sabbath day. When a boy or man refuses to obey his conscience, it becomes easier to do so, and that eventually leads to having none at all!

While our anatomy is comparable to other animals, man is the only animal that was provided with a perfect hand. Man has done many great things with his hands, such as building and creating houses and literature, but also terrible things, like murdering his fellow humans, either with tools or with those self-same appendages. And of course, he uses those hands to defile himself, and Stall is under the impression that humans might be the only animals who do that, but we know that that is definitely not true!

As this is a book for boys, I suppose it is perfectly okay for Stall to tell us the real word, “masturbation.” He reiterates that God gave man hands to be used for higher purposes, not such debasing activities as self-pollution.

Man is one of the few animals with a member that permanently resides on the outside of his person; this means that God has put great confidence and trust in man’s moral sense and intelligence. But remember, boys, a wicked heart and the temptation of Satan can lead you down that road to solitary vice.

He allows that knowledge of masturbation, for many young boys, comes about from very innocent-seeming activities, such as sliding down bannisters or riding horses. Even constipation might lead to a sensitiveness in the local area and lead to masturbatory habits. I don’t fully comprehend how that might happen, unless you were, I dunno, writhing around to try to void your bowels and somehow brushed your member against the seat? Anyway, just like Dr. Howe in his book, he says that young boys teach this vice to each other, and also some nurses have inflicted this act upon young boys to quiet or distract them. I keep reading this in various places, but I have yet to find any corroborating evidence that this was really a thing, or just a way to blame women, once again, for tempting males into “impure” behavior.

Remember, your body can be polluted even if you aren’t touching yourself with your hands; listening to wicked stories, or looking at lewd pictures, are also ways your mind and heart can be sullied.

Part III – what are the consequences in boys of the abuse of the reproductive organs. If you start jackin’ it, you might play it off as no big deal at first. However, your conscience knows it’s wrong from the word “go,” as you certainly don’t attempt it in public, right? Well, most people . . . You go someplace secluded, by yourself; hence, why the practice is termed “solitary vice.” Stall says that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, which is why young boys need to know the consequences of such deeds as early as possible in order to avoid such consequences.

One’s moral nature is the first to suffer; indulge in masturbation, and suddenly, you will be calling everything into question: the wisdom of god, pleasure in books, going to Sunday school, and so on. This spirit of rebellion will cause you to become irritable and disobedient, as your palm gains the “upper hand,” in a manner of speaking.

Next, the nervous system is dealt a heavy blow. Masturbation has an enervating effect on the nervous system, and prolonged abuse will cause a permanent depletion. Your memory will not be as elastic as it was formerly. Your eyes, your skin, your muscles will all lose tone, and luster, and strength. He admits that some of these things can be caused by other disorders, but a well-trained doctor will be able to spot the cause immediately. Yeah, by cowing his patients into admitting they jerk off, right?

While the body weakens, the desire to masturbate becomes ever stronger, and some boys have needed to be tied to their beds, or put into straitjackets, in order to separate their hands from their members. In addition, the boy is not the only one who suffers, no! Your parents, who have done EVERYTHING for you, suffer to see their once bright child, full of promise, become a shattered, nervous, peevish disappointment, now at the bottom of his class because he likes to play pocket-pool! Even your sister won’t be able to look you in the eye, or “crown and bless your manhood,” as Stall says, and if that doesn’t sound like a sexual thing, I don’t rightly know what does!

Even further, if you should happen to make it to manhood, and somehow catch a woman who agrees to marry you, your children will also be inferior specimens, due to your habits! I suppose this is how they explained mental and physical disabilities in this time period – obviously the father was too busy whaling on his dork instead of preserving his precious seminal vesicles for god’s true work.

Part IV – how boys may preserve their entire bodies in purity and strength. Cleanliness, not just of your body, but your mind and heart. Keep your thoughts pure, don’t read trashy books, make sure those you associate with are also pure and good. Fully bathe at least once a week; twice a week is even better. The good reverend states a habit that he started when he was a young boy was a hand bath in cold water every morning before dressing – I presume that’s akin to a sponge bath? He advises a brisk rubbing afterwards with a towel, and then a vigorous rub all over with your hands . . . hmm, sounds a bit suspicious!

He advises circumcision to keep penises clean; it’s less likely for one to accrue smegma under a foreskin that no longer exists, right? The accumulation of this crud has a tendency to irritate, and thus, how some young men end up stepping a foot on that path of solitary vice. So, make sure you clean your peen thoroughly, but as a pure act of business as usual, and not as an act of pleasurable impurity. Make sure you void your bladder and bowels fully and often.

Eat wholesome foods, properly cooked, as opposed to say, maggot-riddled meat. Some boys AND girls develop an appetite for vinegar, salt, cloves, coffee, slate pencils, and other substances that lead to bad habits such as solitary vice. PENCILS? WTF?

Pure water is the best drink; tea and coffee can stunt your growth. Never drink liquor, for even the Bible says that wine is no good . . . but, didn’t Jesus turn water into wine at the wedding in Cana? Don’t smoke, either, for it is injurious to your health. Well, he got that one right, at least.

Work, work, work. It does a body good. And exercise. A boy’s room, no matter how humble, shows a boy is full of “hope and promise” if it has a Bible, a few well-chosen other books, and some free weights in it. Sounds really sparse, there, cuz; get thee to IKEA.

By the way, Dr. Stall wants to tell you that masturbation is not going to enlarge your penis; that’s what those pills are for.

Read wholesome books, like histories and biographies, not trash, like “stories.” There are so many good books out there! We’ve heard all this before. Here are six rules, or guidelines, about amusements. 1. Amusement is a diversion, and shouldn’t cost a lot of money, so don’t indulge if it’s going to be expensive. 2. Choose amusements that aren’t just for fun, but have good character and are relaxing. 3. Your amusement should not interfere with the rights of others. 4. If said amusement takes up all of your time and leads you to neglect your duties, avoid it. 5. Any amusement that makes one dislike his normal workaday world is injurious to your health and well-being and should be stopped immediately. 6. Anything that “arrays vice in attractive robes” should not be partaken of. Does he mean prostitutes? He also says it arouses passion and “benumbs the moral sense.” Yeah, he means prostitutes.

Part V – Our Duty to Others to Avoid Pernicious Habits and to Retain or Regain their Purity and Strength. Essentially, now that you know all of these things, you can be a good influence and inform other boys, so that they might also be rescued from the clutches of evil males how might want to pervert their minds and/or bodies. You can also try to help those who have already started down that path, but it is vastly easier to prevent such doings rather than help one to recover. He recommends some further reading on the topic: Kapff’s Admonitions, Almost a Man by Mary Wood-Allen, and Confidential Talks with Young Men by Dr. Lyman Sperry.

Part VI – How Purity and Strength May Be Measurably Regained. Boys can be rescued from their solitary vice, and even regain some of their strength, but the extent is dependent of how pernicious their masturbatory habit truly is. In addition, the boy must place his trust and faith in god, for only through this working relationship can restoration happen. He entreats Harry to recall what he said about pure minds and hearts, and keeping one’s body healthy. Restoration will not happen overnight, and it might take a long time, but the boy needs to fully commit to the process. He recommends the hand bath again and adds that if the boy’s member is particular sensitive or feverish, that he bathes it in cold water in the evening, as well; the best way is to crouch over a bowl on the floor, he says. [haha dangly parts] If sensitivity persists, especially in the glans, or tip, the boy may need to request the assistance of his parents and perhaps the good family physician can give appropriate counsel . . . .like removing your foreskin. And don’t be ashamed to go to your parents if you’re having issues with your penis – it’s a body part just like anything else. [it’s true]

Stall also advises, in addition to the avoidance of coffee and tea, to sleep on hard beds rather than feather mattresses, and take cushions off chairs. I suppose this was meant to “harden” the body? They were also super-weird about food and what it supposedly did to your body. Milk and vegetables help one to master his sexual urges, but of course, manly men eat MEAT, as well. Fish is okay, eggs in moderation. Pork and salted meats are bad. No pepper, no pickles, no condiments of any kind – ew, how bland. Pies and cakes will disorder your stomach, and candy, if you partake in it at all, should be in very limited quantities.

And of course, make sure your trousers aren’t so tight they massage your manhood whilst you move about; avoid temptation and false immodest friends; and seek god’s help in your endeavors.

Part VII – The Age of Puberty, and its Attendant Changes. Ah, the What’s Happening to My Body? Talk. Well, you will remain a boy a few more years yet, and then, around the age of fourteen or so, your sexual organs will begin to make the changes that spread throughout your body. These changes will continue until you’re about twenty-five, but the ages of fourteen through eighteen are the most trying. Your body will begin to grow, and so will hair in places you haven’t seen before! Your voice will crack and break as it tries to adapt to your burgeoning adulthood. This is will lead to awkwardness, and perhaps you will become shy before all these changes. Especially as now your mind will turn to items of a sexual nature, and it is here where the path to manhood is the most fraught with danger, young Harry; if your mental fortitude is not as it should be, or you are under the influence of evil companions, this is where many boys turn to the crooked overgrown path filled with solitary vice, whores, and then consumption and death!

Puberty might hit a little earlier or later than the ages he states; that could be dependent on many factors, but “science” shows that those boys not in the peak of physical condition tend to start to change earlier than their peers. He also mentions black children develop faster than white children, the only reference to race in this entire book, but obviously rather telling. And then he repeats his various dicta regarding exercise, and not masturbating, and cleanliness, etc., etc., so that it’s fully drilled into the boy how he should act and what to expect. And then, when you get to age fifteen or so, buy my next book, called What a Young Man Ought to Know, which will be at booksellers soon!

In closing, he entreats Harry not to defer until later all of this advice, thinking that he can just do whatever he wants now and correct it later. Start today, this very minute – the instant this phonograph record ends, go to your closet and pray for god to forgive all your sins and give you a clean and loving heart. The End.

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Man, that was distinctly hard to make amusing, and for that, my apologies. According to publishing records, this dry, overly religious little book was quite popular in its day, which may seem surprising until you recall that this was just the right time for informative books about sexual education of the young, that somehow did not invoke the ire of Anthony Comstock or parents concerned about stoking a prurient interest in their preteens.

Prior to Stall and Wood-Allen’s books, the choices were even slimmer. Plain Facts for Old and Young by John Harvey Kellogg was published in 1877; yes, the cereal guy who was quite a . . . colorful character. Kellogg was a medical doctor and cornflakes were invented as an anaphrodisiac, which is meant to cool the passions, rather than inflame them. Kellogg had some innovative ideas for his time, such as soy milk, nut butters, and light therapy, but was also a scaremongerer, an advocate of genital mutilation to curb masturbatory habits in boys AND girls, and a eugenicist. Even taking all of that away, Plain Facts had information for everyone, not just children, so it was written for an older audience. In the same year as Stall’s book, Havelock Ellis published his first volume of Studies in the Psychology of Sex, but it doesn’t appear to have been penned for a general audience, and certainly not for kids.

The Self and Sex series, penned by Stall, Wood-Allen, and Drake were in print continuously from 1897-1936, selling millions of copies in the United States as well as internationally. His religious background as a minister helped to cultivate the idea that his book would be a pure product guided by the divine hand of providence. In addition, his books acknowledged science and technology, albeit as the human use of god-given gifts of intelligence and creativity. By mentioning “the storm and stress” of the teen years, what we now recognize as the hallmarks of adolescent behavior, more recent scholarship views this as further proof that Stall was making his best attempts to stay current with the literature of his time with regards to medicine and even psychology.

However, let’s also be frank about the fact that he enlisted a passel of men and women to peddle the series door-to-door, and wrote and provided a pamphlet on how best to go about this, even providing instructions of how to manipulate their own copy to show it as used frequently but not shabby-looking. It wasn’t just pretense, however, as he did entreat his salespeople to read the books thoroughly so that they could have knowledgeable conversations with putative buyers about the subject matter; he told them that they were all working for a noble purpose, the crusade for personal and social purity.

The main aim was to make money, of course, so the book on how to sell the series also included responses to refusals, and a hot tip to meet with the minister in a new town, so that he could entreat his congregation to buy the books – but DON’T make the first sale to the minister, as then he’ll probably just lend it to his congregants and you’ll never see another sale.

The success of the Self and Sex series spawned imitators, of course, hoping to cash in in the same manner. Some even had very similar titles, but jettisoned the religious allusions. By this time, Comstock had died and condoms had been decriminalized, so newer books had a few less restrictions on their content than Stall’s works. Nevertheless, the Self and Sex Series was slightly modified to keep with the times and continued to sell until 1937.

Not everyone was pleased. I leave you with a contemporary review of What a Young Boy Ought to Know, published in the original Life magazine of June 1906, by one J.B. Kerfoot:

<blockquote>What a Young Boy Ought to Know is the untruthful title of a series of disclosures supposed, by the gratuitous up-to-dateness of the reverend author, to have been made to the receiver of a phonograph and sent by mail to a curious young acquaintance. Starting with the assumption that there are certain questions which the young are prone to ask and that these questions should receive simple and deceptive answers, Sylvanus Stall, D.D., the promulgator of the volume, proceeds to patronize God and to put prurient ideas into the minds of His diminutive images. The notion of these “talks,” reeking with that smug consciousness of evil which only the unco’ guid can achieve, being delivered in the self-complacent nasal of the phonograph to a gaping circle of enquiring youth, is enough to make the hardened unregenerate put back their ears and show their teeth.</blockquote>

This is the last episode of 2020. What a hell of a year, huh? Fewer episodes than I wanted to put out, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Anyway, a new year is coming soon, and with that some more fun stuff. And I’d like to thank YOU, dear listener, for your ratings and kind comments. It warms my old cynical heart to know that this little project I dreamed up is enjoyed by others.

Well, that’s the show. Please like, subscribe, rate, all that good stuff. The Forgotten Library is available on most podcast aggregators. There’s a Twitter account and now a Tumblr for side projects and other little bits that won’t fit other places, so please check it out. Transcripts and source materials are available on the website, and if you enjoy what I do and would like to show some appreciation, you can Buy Me a Coffee – think of it as a little tip jar that takes Paypal and Stripe. Links for all of this are in the show description.

Happy New Year, stay safe, wear a mask, and I’ll see ya in 2021. Until next time, I’m Nikki Gee, your intrepid library haunter.

References

Engs, R. (2003). The Progressive Era's Health Reform Movement: A Historical Dictionary (228-229). Praeger Publishing.

Kerfoot, J.B. (June 28, 1906). Review of What a Young Boy Ought to Know. Life, 788.

Pierce, J. (2011). What Young Readers Ought to Know: The Successful Selling of Sexual Health Texts in the Early Twentieth Century. Book History, 14, 110-136. DOI: 10.1353/bh.2011.0009

Sethna, C. (2010). Animal sex: purity education and the abstinence agenda. Sex Education, 10(3), 267-279. DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2010.491636

Stall, S. (1897). What a Young Boy Ought to Know. Vir Publishing.