d flowers are living things that are beautiful and are male
and female. The child may be shown how the bees carry the pollen from
flower to flower, and how other plants and flowers are produced in
that way.

He can be taught the wonder of seed, and its consequences. He can be
shown the birds in their mating, and the marvel of the egg, and why it
can produce a chicken. And thus the child, boy or girl, may be led on,
through the gradations, to a study of the human body, and how
reproduction is provided for there as in the bodies of all other
living things, vegetable or animal.

Before the child, boy or girl, has reached the age of ten, long before
the sex instinct has been aroused, the sexual lesson will have been
learned innocently and thoroughly and, when the change comes, it will
be as no bewildering, exciting thing, but something anticipated, and
received with a sense of understanding and responsibility.

This knowledge almost unknowingly acquired as a child, will mean
health of mind and of body, and the avoidance of what may result most
evilly.

How is sexual instruction given now? In tens of thousands of
instances--no doubt in the majority--not at all. Lectures to youth of
either sex are given sometimes, but only when they have reached what
is called "the age of understanding."

Here is where parents err, and seriously. The teaching has been
deferred too long. The young of either sex, long before puberty, have
acquired some knowledge of the mystery--which should have been no
mystery at all--and late teaching, however sound and wise, but gives
an added and inviting direction to the subject suddenly made to assume
a new and startling importance. It arouses curiosity, and more. It may
sometimes be harmful.

As for the youth never taught at all, those who acquire their
knowledge only through accidental sources--usually incapable, and too
often vicious--their case could not be worse. They are unprepared for
one of the tests and demands for life. Their parents are guilty.

There is nothing impure in nature. To guard the children, to prepare
them for every phase of life, is the parents' duty. The child is pure,
and to the child all things are pure. Teach the child, simply as a
matter of course, all about the ways of reproduction, and to the boy
or girl purity will remain when the age of sexual sway and impulse
comes. This is the only law in the case. Let it be followed, and the
generation to follow will be clearer