t to care for them when care is needed, and they
may prove the greatest blessing you have ever known. They were given you
that you might become a mother, the highest office to which God has ever
called one of His creatures. Do not debase yourself and become lower than
the beasts of the field. If this habit has fastened itself upon any one of
our readers, stop it now. Do not allow yourself to think about it, give up
all evil associations, seek pure companions, and go to your mother, older
sister, or physician for advice.

30. "AND YOU, MOTHER, knowing the danger that besets your daughters at this
critical period, are you justified in keeping silent? Can you be held
guiltless if your daughter ruins body and mind because you were _too
modest_ to tell her the laws of her being? There is no love that is dearer
to your daughter than _yours_, no advice that is more respected than
_yours_, no one whose warning would be more potent. Fail not in your duty.
As motherhood has been your sweetest joy, so help your daughter to make it
hers."

* * * * *

{390}

Save the Boys.

PLAIN WORDS TO PARENTS.

[Illustration: YOUNG GARFIELD DRIVING TEAM ON THE CANAL.]

1. With a shy look, approaching his mother when she was alone, the boy of
fifteen said, "There are some things I want to ask you. I hear the boys
speak of them at school, and I don't understand, and a fellow doesn't like
to ask any one but his mother."

2. Drawing him down to her, in the darkness that was closing about them,
the mother spoke to her son and the son to his mother freely of things
which everybody must know sooner or later, and which no boy should learn
from "anyone but his mother" or father.

3. If you do not answer such a natural question, your boy will turn for
answer to others, and learn things, perhaps, which your cheeks may well
blush to have him know.

4. Our boys and girls are growing faster than we think. The world moves; we
can no longer put off our children {391} with the old nurses' tales; even
MacDonald's beautiful statement,

"Out of the everywhere into the there",

does not satisfy them when they reverse his question and ask, "Where did I
come from?"

5. They must be answered. If we put them off, they may be tempted to go
elsewhere for information, and hear half-truths, or whole truths so
distorted, so mingled with what is low and impure that, struggle against it
as they may in later years, their minds