education in matters of sex. It was, however, prosecuted at
Bruges, in 1901, though the trial finally ended in acquittal.
Such a verdict is in harmony with the general tendency of feeling
at the present time.

The old ideas, expressed by Daudet, that the facts of sex are
ugly and disillusioning, and that they shock the mind of the
young, are both alike entirely false. As Canon Lyttelton remarks,
in urging that the laws of the transmission of life should be
taught to children by the mother: "The way they receive it with
native reverence, truthfulness of understanding and guileless
delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing
beauty of nature. People sometimes speak of the indescribable
beauty of children's innocence. But I venture to say that no one
quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being
the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth
and the mystery of their own being. Not only do we fail to build
up sound knowledge in them, but we put away from ourselves the
chance of learning something that must be divine." In the same
way, Edward Carpenter, stating that it is easy and natural for
the child to learn from the first its physical relation to its
mother, remarks (_Love's Coming of Age_, p. 9): "A child at the
age of puberty, with the unfolding of its far-down emotional and
sexual nature, is eminently capable of the most sensitive,
affectional and serene appreciation of what _sex_ means
(generally more so as things are to-day, than its worldling
parent or guardian); and can absorb the teaching, if
sympathetically given, without any shock or disturbance to its
sense of shame--that sense which is so natural and valuable a
safeguard of early youth."