ying to satisfy his curiosity elsewhere.

The question is often asked, Will not close companionship and sympathy
between mother and child in a general way produce the same result,
causing the child to confide in the mother in case of needing
information, without any previous talks on the subject?

Of course the closer the relationship between the two the more easily
will the child confide everything; yet with very many children, if this
one subject is avoided (and particularly is this true as the child grows
older), it will not be introduced by the child, no matter how much he
may desire the knowledge, or how intimate in other ways may be his talks
with his mother. The judicious mother can get a hold upon her son
through this subject that nothing else gives; she can keep him closer to
her, and oftentimes can guide him safely over difficult places. What is
true of the son is of course true of the daughter. The little girl will
respond as readily as her brother to confidences of this kind, and will
find them as helpful. She very often escapes much that her brother in
his freer life meets, yet undoubtedly in the great majority of cases the
instruction is as vitally necessary to her as to him.

While the earliest teachings seem to fall most naturally to the mother,
the father should also share the responsibility and the privilege,
talking with frank confidence upon the subject whenever occasion
offers.

The question is often asked, Is it not better for the father to talk to
the boys, the mother to the girls?

There no doubt are cases where this might be wise, but the mother,
understanding the close relationship between her son and herself that
may come through such talks,--a relationship continuing and increasing
in value as the years go on,--would feel that she could not afford to
lose anything so precious to both her boy and herself.

While the establishment of this relationship might be difficult or even
impossible later, it is easily begun in childhood and as easily
continued. Moreover, many boys are specially helped by talking with
their mother. They often feel in her a quicker sympathy and a more
perfect understanding of their needs; and as their instinctive desire is
to understand life from _her_ point of view as well, they often feel
something in her which is lacking in the father. On the other hand, the
boy who is talked to exclusively by the mother, particularly when he
begins to develop into manhood may say