to be dealt with in all its
mysterious idiosyncrasy. One boy may be so reserved that it is better to
write to him than to talk face to face; another may find the greatest
possible strength and comfort in freedom of speech and the feeling that
there is no barrier between him and his mother with regard to being able
to tell her freely of any temptations that may assail him. Your mother's
instincts will be your best guide as to what method to adopt with each
of your boys.

If the father of the lad can be induced, at any rate before he enters a
boarding-school, to follow the advice of that remarkable man, Mr.
Thring, the founder of Uppingham School, in his address to our Church
Congress, and write a letter of plain warning and counsel to the lad, it
would be an unspeakable help. "My first statement," says Mr. Thring,
"is that all fathers ought to write such a letter to their sons. It is
not difficult, if done in a common-sense way."[15]

But now I come to what on all hands we must allow to be a point of
extreme difficulty. I think all head-masters, deeply concerned in the
moral welfare of the boys under their charge, would emphatically endorse
the following words of Dr. Butler's:

"It is certain, it must needs be, that boys should, at an early
period of their boyhood, come to hear of the nature of sexual
relations. From whom should they first learn it? Should it be with
every accompaniment of coarseness, of levity, of obscenity? From
some ribald groom in the stables? From some impure maidservant who
has stolen into the household and the nursery? From some brother
only a year or two older, who has just received his first
initiation in impurity at a private school and is too young to
understand its danger? Worst of all, from the idlest, and most
corrupt, and most worthless set of boys at this same private
school, who surround the newcomer within a few days, perhaps a few
hours, of his first joining, and, with knowing looks and enticing
words, try to probe his childish knowledge, and leave him
half-ashamed of himself and keenly inquisitive for full initiation,
if he finds that he knows nothing of this engrossing mystery? Is it
right, is it fair, is it consistent with religious duty or with
common-sense, that a little boy of eight, or ten, or twelve, should
be sent at this impressionable age to hear for the first time of
facts of