to the common conception of the fresh, happy, charming girl. But many
others do not get through happily at all, and it is because their case
is common that this chapter is called for.

I have already said as strongly as I can that it is of enormous
importance for girls to know the facts of life, and to get to know them
from some clean and natural source. By the beginning of this period
they ought to have been told about the wonderful and beautiful ways in
which God has ordained that new human lives should be produced, and
therefore they ought to be in a position to understand themselves. And
if girls are not possessed of this knowledge I can only say that the
sooner they take steps to acquire it in a wholesome way the better
for themselves. Only take care to whom you turn. Let it be a woman of a
reverent and wise mind with a large and wholesome nature. There are
others.

Those who do come to understand themselves in this way will realize
that the cause of their emotional complications is partly physical and
partly psychological. Both body and mind are awakening, with
the inevitable result that new instincts, emotions, and desires have to
be reckoned with. That is a universal experience for all of both sexes,
and is just the price of entering on a larger world. Life _is_
much more complex and mysterious than we at first imagined. It may be
much more varied and splendid than we at first supposed. And therefore
inevitably it is also more difficult and more confusing. But it does
really help us to realize that our early complex troubles have a
natural and normal cause and that they are related to great possible
gains.

At this point in life, further, the instinct for independence becomes