urgently necessary (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 2, p. 91). It may
be added that medical opinion has long approved of this
enlightenment. Thus in England it was editorially stated in the
_British Medical Journal_ some years ago (June 9, 1894): "Most
medical men of an age to beget confidence in such affairs will be
able to recall instances in which an ignorance, which would have
been ludicrous if it had not been so sad, has been displayed on
matters regarding which every woman entering on married life
ought to have been accurately informed. There can, we think, be
little doubt that much unhappiness and a great deal of illness
would be prevented if young people of both sexes possessed a
little accurate knowledge regarding the sexual relations, and
were well impressed with the profound importance of selecting
healthy mates. Knowledge need not necessarily be nasty, but even
if it were, it certainly is not comparable in that respect with
the imaginings of ignorance." In America, also, where at an
annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. Denslow
Lewis, of Chicago, eloquently urged the need of teaching sexual
hygiene to youths and girls, all the subsequent nine speakers,
some of them physicians of worldwide fame, expressed their
essential agreement (_Medico-Legal Journal_, June-Sept., 1903).
Howard, again, at the end of his elaborate _History of
Matrimonial Institutions_ (vol. iii, p. 257) asserts the
necessity for education in matters of sex, as going to the root
of the marriage problem. "In the future educational programme,"
he remarks, "sex questions must hold an honorable place."

While, however, it is now widely recognized that children are entitled to
sexual enlightenment, it cannot be said that this belief is widely put
into practice. Many persons, who are fully persuaded that children should
sooner or later be enlightened concerning the sexual sources of life, are
somewhat nervously anxious as to the precise age at which this
enlightenment should begin. Their latent feeling seems to be that sex is
an evil, and enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however necessary,
and that the chief point is to ascertain the latest moment to which we can
safely postpone this necessary evil. Such an attitude is, however,
altogether wrong-headed. The child's desire for knowledge concerning the
origin of himself is a p