turbation, notwithstanding
all their good resolutions and their conviction that masturbation is at
once dangerous and immoral, will be likely to feel that it is better,
not indeed to recommend masturbation, but from time to time tacitly to
permit it. To do in these cases what it is well to do in certain others,
namely, to describe the bad effects of masturbation, may give rise to
grave conditions of depression, and even to suicide. Certainly, in such
cases, we must carefully avoid alarming the patients too seriously about
the consequences of masturbation.

In undertaking the sexual enlightenment of the child, those phenomena of
the sexual life should not be forgotten which are shown by experience to
arouse in the ripening child, now curiosity, and now anxiety--and the
chief among these are involuntary sexual orgasm and menstruation.
Imagine the state of mind of the girl who has never heard a word about
menstruation, and awakens one morning with blood flowing from the
genital organs; or that of the boy, who has his first nocturnal seminal
emission, without having received any information as to its
significance. Similar considerations apply to some of the other signs of
puberty; and especially to the growth of the pubic hair, which has made
many a child extremely anxious. Although, by the time this age is
reached, a child has commonly been sufficiently informed about these
things by his playfellows, we meet with instances in which nothing of
the kind has occurred.

Hitherto I have been considering the hygienic grounds for effecting
sexual enlightenment; but there are also important ethical reasons for
such enlightenment. It is not possible in our life to speak the truth
always and unconditionally; but this fact does not give us the right to
lie to children without good cause. Especially dangerous is it to relate
to children fables about the stork or the cabbage-garden, at a time when
they have long been enlightened about sex from other sources. I recall
the case of a girl seven years of age, whose mother was still in the
habit of telling her that babies were brought by the storks; but this
child was accustomed to join with other girls and boys in playing at
"father, mother, and midwife," wherein they displayed a comparatively
exact knowledge of the processes of reproduction and birth. We are not
surprised when a woman tells us that as a child her confidence in her
mother was seriously shaken from the moment when she was