often sincerely puzzled as to how to go about it. No
matter how complete their education, it is very likely to fail them at
this critical point. For the benefit of such parents, let it be said
with all possible emphasis that the first and most important step must
be a change in their own mental attitude. If there is left within them
the shadow of embarrassment on the subject of sex, their children will
not fail to sense the situation at once. A feeling of hesitation or a
tendency to apologize for nature makes a far deeper impression on the
child-mind than do the most beautiful of half-believed words on the
subject. And this impression, subtle and elusive as it may seem, is a
real and vital experience which is quite likely to color the whole of
the child's life. If you would give your children a fair start, you
must first get rid of your own inner resistances. After that, all will
be clear sailing.

In the second place, take the earliest opportunity to bring up the
subject in a natural way. A young father told me recently that his
little daughter had asked her mother why she didn't have any lap any
more. "And of course your wife took that chance to tell her about the
baby that is coming," I said. "Oh, no," he answered, "she did nothing
of the kind. Mary is far too young to know about such things." There
are always chances if we are on the look out for them--and the earlier
the better. It has been noticed that children are never repelled by
the idea of any natural process unless the new idea runs counter to
some notion which has already been formed. The wise parent is the one
who gets in the right impression before some other child has had a
chance to plant the wrong one.

Then, too, we elders are judged quite as much by what we do not say as
by what we do. Happy is the child who is not left to draw his own
conclusions from the silence and evasiveness of his parents. The
sex-instruction which children are getting in the schools is often
good, but it usually comes too late--the damage is always done before
the sixth year.

When it comes to the exact words in which to explain the phenomena of
generation and birth each parent must naturally find his own way. The
main point is that we must tell the truth and not try to improve on
nature. If we say that the baby grows under the mother's heart and
later the child learns that this is not true, he inevitably gets the
idea that there is something not nice about the part of the