ries, uterus
(womb), vagina, Fallopian tubes, and vulva will be sufficient. Detailed
description of the external organs (vulva) might arouse curiosity that
leads to exploration and irritation, and hence many women physicians
think that a girl under sixteen or possibly eighteen needs only the
name vulva for the external parts surrounding the entrance to the
vagina.

[Sidenote: An ancient belief.]

Some books for girls perpetuate the ancient but absurd emphasis on the
virginal significance of the hymen; and a recent book from a prominent
publisher goes so far as to try to frighten girls into remaining chaste
by stating that a physician could discover if they have been unchaste.
This is far from being always true, for the structure may be
congenitally absent, may sometimes remain after sexual union, or may be
accidentally destroyed in childhood; and reliable physicians have
stated that proving unchastity by the hymen is by no means easy. Hence,
the less said about the ancient belief, the better for young women. The
truth is that the hymen is a worse-than-useless relic of embryological
development, and it is neither an indicator nor a dictator of morality.

[Sidenote: Physiology of women.]

With regard to the physiology of the female organs, the following
topics should be considered: The meaning of puberty as the beginning of
a long fertile period of about thirty years; the nature of menstruation
as a periodical process preparing the lining of the uterus for
reception and attachment of an embryo if a sperm-cell meets a liberated
egg-cell near an ovary, and not as a season of illness invented by the
powers of darkness; the possibility of fertilization following sexual
relations at any time during the fertile life of a woman; the essential
facts of sexual relation as a method of depositing sperm-cells so that
they can swim on the way to meet an egg-cell; and the nature of the
close blood relationship of mother and embryo. These are physiological
topics which many parents would like to have taught to their daughters
of fourteen to eighteen by some careful woman or by some good book.

[Sidenote: Social ills.]

With regard to the social diseases and the social evil, I have long
sympathized with the conservatives who hold that extremely limited
knowledge is sufficient for the average girl under eighteen or twenty.
No doubt that many working girls in cities need more protective
knowledge than do school girls of the same age