e nude in classic and early Italian art
should be combined at puberty with an equal familiarity with
photographs of beautiful and naturally developed nude models. In
former years books containing such pictures in a suitable and
attractive manner to place before the young were difficult to
procure. Now this difficulty no longer exists. Dr. C.H. Stratz,
of The Hague, has been the pioneer in this matter, and in a
series of beautiful books (notably in _Der Koerper des Kindes, Die
Schoenheit des Weiblichen Koerpers_ and _Die Rassenschoenheit des
Weibes_, all published by Enke in Stuttgart), he has brought
together a large number of admirably selected photographs of nude
but entirely chaste figures. More recently Dr. Shufeldt, of
Washington (who dedicates his work to Stratz), has published his
_Studies of the Human Form_ in which, in the same spirit, he has
brought together the results of his own studies of the naked
human form during many years. It is necessary to correct the
impressions received from classic sources by good photographic
illustrations on account of the false conventions prevailing in
classic works, though those conventions were not necessarily
false for the artists who originated them. The omission of the
pudendal hair, in representations of the nude was, for instance,
quite natural for the people of countries still under Oriental
influence are accustomed to remove the hair from the body. If,
however, under quite different conditions, we perpetuate that
artistic convention to-day, we put ourselves into a perverse
relation to nature. There is ample evidence of this. "There is
one convention so ancient, so necessary, so universal," writes
Mr. Frederic Harrison (_Nineteenth Century and After_, Aug.,
1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may arouse the bile
of the least squeamish of men and should make women withdraw at
once." If boys and girls were brought up at their mother's knees
in familiarity with pictures of beautiful and natural nakedness,
it would be impossible for anyone to write such silly and
shameful words as these.

There can be no doubt that among ourselves the simple and direct
attitude of the child towards nakedness is so early crushed out
of him that intelligent education is necessary in order that he
may be enabled to discern what is and wha