women doctors have told me of late that there is a very real need that
girls also should be helped in view of the similar danger which lies in
their path. With them the habit is no doubt much less common. But it is
common enough, and has serious enough consequences, to constitute a
call to parents in their case also.

Most of those who read these pages will themselves be young. If they
have troubled to read the paragraphs I have just written a number of
them will, I know, be moved to say to themselves, "We would give
anything if our parents had done these things for us." Yes! it is a
great pity they did not. But do not be hard upon your parents. They
were the victims of a wrong tradition. The conspiracy of silence had in
their day been given almost religious sanctions. Some of them were
themselves embarrassed by the whole subject just because no clean
persuasions about it were current in their youth. That was their
calamity, as it has in part been yours. But no such calamity need
overtake your children. If you can and will cleanse your minds now--if
you will take this whole subject out into the cleansing light of God,
and look at it there till you have seen the divine truth about sex--if
you can escape embarrassment and attain to thankfulness, then you will
be able to keep this whole matter clean for your children. Your
generation has suffered much. The next need not. And remember that
whatever doctors, teachers, and ministers may do for the nation, it
must be parents who will save us in the long run.

You at least can get ready.