nd there, it isn't
nice." Immediately the wise mother called the caretaker to her and
reminded her that most children usually continue to investigate even
though they are told not to, and so the caretaker received this
instruction: "When you see Harry putting his hand to that particular
part of his body, just gently draw it away and divert his attention to
something else, and when he goes to sleep in his little bed teach him
to lie on his side and bring his little hands up under his chin or the
side of his face and remain near him telling him a beautiful story
until the eyes begin to get sleepy and pick him up immediately on
awaking in the morning."

This mother was quite unlike the mother who once came to my office,
saying: "Doctor Lena, I have done everything to prevent my boy's
handling himself, why every time he wakes up at night I am always
awake and I instantly say to him, Charlie where are your hands? You
see Doctor, I am doing the best I know how." Very likely it is
unnecessary to call the attention of the reader to the fact that this
mother was doing more harm than good in constantly calling his
attention to the fact that he did have a sexual side to his nature.

TRUTH VS. EXAGGERATION

And just here let us add that while masturbation is an unclean habit,
an impure habit, and a thing altogether to be shunned, we would not be
honest to ourselves and to our readers if we did not explain that
under no circumstances does it make foolish minds out of sound minds
or insane minds out of sane minds. If your boy or your girl is going
to grow up to be foolish or insane he had a through ticket for the
feebleminded institution or the insane asylum when he was born into
the world. The time when masturbation does affect the mind of the
child is when the mind awakens to the fact that it is allowing an
abnormal, unclean, or filthy habit to dominate mind, soul, and body,
and then, and usually not until then, does this bad habit begin to
cause mental depression and a host of other symptoms that so often
accompany masturbation.

In our worthy efforts to combat the evils of secret vice let us not go
to the other extreme and create such a condition of mind in the youth
of our generation as to lay the foundation for sexual neurasthenia
later on in life, as a result of the protracted worry, constant
brooding, and conscientious condemnation, which they so often
experience following some brief or trivial indulgence in early secr