by an American school teacher in 1892.
It was a most charming and delicately written book, which could
not have offended the innocence of the most sensitive maiden.
Nothing, however, is sacred to prurience, and it was easy for the
prurient to capture the law and obtain (in 1897) legal
condemnation of this book as "obscene." Anything which sexually
excites a prurient mind is, it is true, "obscene" for that mind,
for, as Mr. Theodore Schroeder remarks, obscenity is "the
contribution of the reading mind," but we need such books as this
in order to diminish the number of prurient minds, and the
condemnation of so entirely admirable a book makes, not for
morality, but for immorality. I am told that the book was
subsequently issued anew with most of its best portions omitted,
and it is stated by Schroeder (_Liberty of Speech and Press
Essential to Purity Propaganda_, p. 34) that the author was
compelled to resign his position as a public school principal.
Maria Lischnewska's _Geschlechtliche Belehrung der Kinder_
(reprinted from _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4 and 5) is a most
admirable and thorough discussion of the whole question of sexual
education, though the writer is more interested in the teacher's
share in this question than in the mother's. Suggestions to
mothers are contained in Hugo Salus, _Wo kommen die Kinder her?_,
E. Stiehl, _Eine Mutterpflicht_, and many other books. Dr. Alfred
Kind strongly recommends Ludwig Gurlitt's _Der Verkehr mit meinem
Kindern_, more especially in its combination of sexual education
with artistic education. Many similar books are referred to by
Bloch, in his _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. xxvi.

I have enumerated the names of these little books because they
are frequently issued in a semi-private manner, and are seldom
easy to procure or to hear of. The propagation of such books
seems to be felt to be almost a disgraceful action, only to be
performed by stealth. And such a feeling seems not unnatural when
we see, as in the case of the author of _Almost Fourteen_, that a
nominally civilized country, instead of loading with honors a man
who has worked for its moral and physical welfare, seeks so far
as it can to ruin him.

I may add that while it would usually be very helpful to a mother
to be acquainted with a few of the booklets I have named