best friend of his own age; let your moralizing be so rare that it is
effective for that very reason. If the occasion needs moral reflection
at all--and that seldom happens--the wise way is to lead the child to
do his own reflecting; to arrive at his own conclusions, and if you
must lead him, by all means do so as invisibly as possible. For the
most part it is safe to take the confessions lightly, and well to keep
your own mind young by looking at things from the boy's point of view.

[Sidenote: The Subject of Sex]

If, however, there is to be perfect confidence between you, the
one subject which is usually kept out of speech between mothers and
children must be no forbidden subject between them; you must not
refuse to answer questions about the mystery of sex. If you are not
the fit person to teach your child these important facts, who is?
Certainly not the school-mates and servants from whom he is likely
to learn them if you refuse to furnish the information. Usually it is
sufficient simply to answer the child's honest questions honestly; but
any mother who finds herself unable to cope with this simple matter
in this simple spirit, will find help in Margaret Morley's "Song
of Life," in the Wood-Allen Publications, and the books of the Rev.
Sylvanus Stall.[B]

In respect to these matters more than in respect to others, but also
in respect to all matters, children often do not know that they are
doing wrong, even when it it very difficult for parents to believe
that they do not intend wrong-doing. As we have seen from our analysis
of truthfulness, the child may very often lie without a qualm of
conscience, and he may still more readily break the unwritten rules
of courtesy, asking abrupt and even cruel questions of strangers, and
haul the family skeleton out of its closet at critical moments. Such
things cannot be wholly guarded against, even by the exercise of the
utmost wisdom, but the habit of reasoning things out for himself is
the greatest help a child can have.

[Sidenote: Righteousness]

The formation of the bent of the child's nature as a whole is a matter
of unconscious education, but as he grows in the power to reason,
conscious education must direct his mental activity. It is not enough
for him, as it is not enough for any grown person, to do the best
that he knows; he must learn to know the best. The word righteousness
itself means right-wiseness, i.e., right knowingness.

To quote Froebel again, "I