stimulus must not mean the suppression of knowledge. There are things
that young people should know, and know fully before they are involved
in the central drama of life, in the serious business of love. There
should be no horrifying surprises. Sane, clear, matter-of-fact books
setting forth the broad facts of health and life, the existence of
certain dangers, should come their way. In this matter books, I would
insist, have a supreme value. The printed word may be such a quiet
counsellor. It is so impersonal. It can have no conceivable personal
reaction with the reader. It does not watch its reader's face, it is
itself unobtrusively unabashed and safer than any priest. The power of
the book, the possible function of the book in the modern state is
still but imperfectly understood. It need not be, it ought not, I
think, to be, a book specifically on what one calls delicate questions,
that would be throwing them up in just the way one does not want them
thrown up; it should be a sort of rationalized and not too technical
handbook of physiological instruction in the College Library--or at
home. Naturally, it would begin with muscular physiology, with
digestion, and so on. Other matters would come in their due place and
proportion. From first to last it would have all that need be known.
There is a natural and right curiosity on these matters, until we chase
it underground.

Restriction alone is not half this business. It is inherent in the
purpose of things that these young people should awaken sexually, and
in some manner and somewhere that awakening must come. To ensure they
do not awaken too soon or in a fetid atmosphere among ugly surroundings
is not enough. They cannot awaken in a void. An ignorance kept beyond
nature may corrupt into ugly secrecies, into morose and sinister
seclusions, worse than the evils we have suppressed. Let them awaken as
their day comes, in a sweet, large room. The true antiseptic of the