the first physical manifestations of the puberal development make
their appearance, but when the first sexual feelings and sentiments,
which must be distinguished from the unconscious and purely physical
symptoms, are experienced. The important matter is, not whether
follicles have already matured in the ovary, but what influence such a
process has exercised upon the mental life of the child. For this
reason, in our study of the individual case, we must have some knowledge
of the psyche of the child with which we are concerned.

A matter also within the scope of our subject is the question by whom
the sexual enlightenment may best be effected. This question is
connected with the questions for what reason and at what age
enlightenment should take place. As regards these points, it lies
between the school and the home. Some writers contend that so far as
possible every thing, others, that, at any rate, a great deal, should be
imparted at school. The latter view is also my own.

In so far as the enlightenment has to do with purely biological
processes, and especially in so far as it relates to processes in the
vegetable and lower animal world, it can be effected in the school, and
in the first years of the second period of childhood; but of course the
giving of such instruction at school does not prevent a father who goes
out walking with his son, or a mother with her daughter, from seizing
opportunities of giving information about the sexual processes of
plant-life. At school, education regarding such biological processes
will form a part of the lessons in botany and zoology; or will be
imparted in the class on general biology, if such a class exists.
Instruction in hygiene, such as is often advised, has little to do with
the matters we are now considering; and at any rate could merely involve
an elementary account of such processes. The school may even be the best
place for sexual enlightenment regarding the sexual life of human
beings, at least in the case of the older pupils. There is no adequate
reason for objecting to boys about to leave school being warned by a
schoolmaster or a physician about the dangers of venereal disease; and
at the same time a plea may be put forward against the view that it is
incumbent upon every young man to prove his strength by the maximum
indulgence in sexual intercourse.

But the matter is very different as regards the enlightenment concerning
the subjective processes of the sexual l