It is pathetic, is it not, to have a high-school girl write: "Some
parents are ashamed to tell their girls everything, so that is why I
think they should be told in school." Whose parents had she in mind?

Another writes: "There are many girls with no mother or very near
female relation that can tell them all they need to know, and if
anything should happen in a girl's life, she does not think it
proper to speak to a male, even if it is her father." Are the girls
who have mothers or "very near female relations" to be none the
better, or happier for it?

I hope that mothers will not continue in the future, as most have
done in the past, to hesitate about giving such information to their
children. If you are perhaps tempted to feel that you would like to
preserve the child's innocence as long as possible, you have but to
realize that innocence is not the same as ignorance. We are apt to
forget how young we ourselves were when we had obtained one way or
another a large mass of information about reproduction, and even
about sex. The question is not whether a young child should have
this information or not; the question is whether he shall have
correct and pure information, or false and filthy information. For
one or the other he is sure to get. True knowledge is the best
mantle of innocence.

Much misery is caused, not only for girls, but also for boys, by the
lapses from the path of virtue. If the young man who has gone astray
is in a position to say, "Had I but heeded!" instead of saying, "Had
I but known!" it will make a great difference in the way he will
later feel toward the one person from whom he had a right to expect