eggs?"--an actual question of a four-year-old--are the signal and the open
door for easy and natural enlightenment. Seize the opportunity: tell the
truth, as simply and briefly as possible, and the beginning is made; watch
for and utilize all such opportunities, as they come, and the main road of
the task is marked out; shock is minimized, if not eliminated, mutual
confidence is engendered, and a priceless reward may be won. But if at
that first question we falter, quibble, blush, lie, jest, or repel, we
have entered the wrong road which leads eternally astray. Let no question
ever be either ignored or neglected, least of all repelled. It is the
golden opportunity for parent, teacher, or friend. To guarantee against
the child seeking promiscuous and irresponsible sources of information,
let his questions ever find the warmest welcome and kindest response at
the parent's knee.[35]

Now the movements of the child's own mind in matters of sex and
reproduction may either be actual questions more or less explicit, or they
may be subtler seekings for light,--hints, vague inquiries, gropings after
what he cannot phrase or hesitates to utter; these inward stirrings are
vital, and the alert and sympathetic and patient parent can in the main
perceive them and bring them to light. But success need not be hoped for
in this respect unless first the beginnings are attended to; uncounted
parents can testify to the infinite difficulty of breaking to the boy or
girl the silence long practiced with the child. Nor will occasional or
spasmodic fits of interest and action by the parent achieve much;
Emerson's proverb holds inflexibly here; "What wilt thou have?" quoth God;
"pay for it and take it." Pay we must in time, in thought, in perseverance
and patience, in study of the problems and self-preparation for the task.
Happily the progress of sex hygiene among adults is yearly increasing the
number of fathers and mothers who are awake and active.