lfil your responsibility of being his moral teacher.

Let us begin with the simplest measure which you can take, and which can
present no difficulty to anyone. Before sending your boy to school get
him quietly by himself and say to him some such words as these: "My boy,
you know, or will come to know, that when boys get together they often
talk of nasty things, and even do nasty things. Give me your word of
honor as a Christian and a gentleman that you will never say or do
anything that you know you would be ashamed to tell me, that you know
would bring a blush to your sister's cheeks. Always remember that dirty
talk, and still more dirty deeds, are only fit for cads. Promise me
faithfully that you will never let any boy, especially an elder boy,
tell you 'secrets.' If you were to consent through curiosity, or because
you feel flattered at one of the elder fellows taking you up, be sure he
means you no good. Whatever you want to know ask me, and so far as I can
I will tell you." Some such words as these said solemnly to a boy the
day before he leaves home for the first time, either for a
boarding-school, or even a day school, will make your womanhood a sort
of external conscience to your boy, to guard him from those first
beginnings of impurity, in the shape of what are technically called
"secrets," which lead on to all the rest. I know one mother who, from
her boy's earliest years, has made a solemn pact with him, on the one
hand, if he would promise never to ask any questions about life and
birth of anyone but her, she, in her turn, would promise to tell him all
he wanted to know; and from first to last there has been that perfect
confidence and friendship between mother and son which is, and ever must
be, a boy's greatest safeguard.

Only remember that with young boys men who have had the greatest
experience are generally agreed that it is better not to put the stress
on religious motives. Practically, for a young boy, it is better to
treat the whole thing as dirty, nasty, and blackguardly. And the whole
subject must always be spoken of with reserve, without any emotion, and
with much "dry light."

With most lads I should go a step further; I should give the boy one of
the White Cross papers, "A Strange Companion."[14] It is impossible to
lay down hard and fast rules; it is impossible to make so many jam-pots
of even young humanity, to be tied up and labelled and arranged upon the
same shelf. Each individuality has