their children, nor
have they the least idea of what their children know, or what
their children talk about and do when away from them." The
parents guilty of this neglect to instruct their children, are,
Lindsey declares, traitors to their children. From his own
experience he judges that nine-tenths of the girls who "go
wrong," whether or not they sink in the world, do so owing to the
inattention of their parents, and that in the case of most
prostitutes the mischief is really done before the age of twelve;
"every wayward girl I have talked to has assured me of this
truth." He considers that nine-tenths of school-boys and
school-girls, in town or country, are very inquisitive regarding
matters of sex, and, to his own amazement, he has found that in
the girls this is as marked as in the boys.

It is the business of the girl's mother, at least as much as of the boy's,
to watch over her child from the earliest years and to win her confidence
in all the intimate and personal matters of sex. With these aspects the
school cannot properly meddle. But in matters of physical sexual hygiene,
notably menstruation, in regard to which all girls stand on the same
level, it is certainly the duty of the teacher to take an actively
watchful part, and, moreover, to direct the general work of education
accordingly, and to ensure that the pupil shall rest whenever that may
seem to be desirable. This is part of the very elements of the education
of girls. To disregard it should disqualify a teacher from taking further
share in educational work. Yet it is constantly and persistently
neglected. A large number of girls have not even been prepared by their
mothers or teachers for the first onset of the menstrual flow, sometimes
with disastrous results both to their bodily and mental health.[26]

"I know of no large girl's school," wrote a distinguished
gynaecologist, Sir W.S. Playfair ("Education and Training of Girls
at Puberty," _British Medical Journal_, Dec. 7, 1895), "in which
the absolute distinction which exists between boys and girls as
regards the dominant menstrual function is systematically cared
for and attended to. Indeed, the feeling of all schoolmistresses
is distinctly antagonistic to such an admission. The contention
is that there is no real difference between an adolescent male
and female, that what is good for one is good for the other,