enment, but
the manner in which the enlightenment is effected.

To sum up. _The sexual enlightenment of the child is advisable. The
biological processes of sex in the vegetable and lower animal world may
be taught in school as early as the second period of childhood. A
warning against the dangers of venereal infection may be given at school
to the senior pupils shortly before they leave, or at some similar
suitable opportunity. But for effecting enlightenment regarding the
processes of the individual sexual life, the school is unsuitable; this
matter can best be undertaken by some private person, and above all by
the mother. Choice of the time for this last phase of the sexual
enlightenment must be guided, in part by the questions of the child, in
part by the child's physical maturity, but more especially by the
indications of psychosexual development._

Deliberately I avoid discussing the question as to the precise words and
phrases with which the child's enlightenment is to be effected.
Moreover, this question is subordinate to another, namely, to what
extent instruction in natural science has prepared the way, in the
child's mind, for such enlightenment. Both in Germany and in Austria,
schemata have been drawn up for systematic preparation of this
kind.[145] Speaking generally, we may draw the following conclusions. We
have to distinguish according to the age of the child with which we have
to deal. Where we have to caution a young man about to leave one of the
higher schools, about the dangers of venereal infection, our
difficulties are inconsiderable. But where we have to do with a girl of
eight, who has asked her mother where her baby brother has come from; or
with a boy of fourteen, whom we wish to protect because he has taken to
sexual malpractices with his school-fellows, our difficulties are great.
In such cases, tact, which cannot always be taught, and a desire for the
best interests of the child, must show us the right path. It is obvious
that each case will require individual consideration and treatment. An
intelligent mother, who constitutes half the child's world and more, can
describe these matters to her child, can even describe the sexual act,
whose existence most persons prefer to conceal from children. It is by
no means impossible to present even this act to the child's mind in a
tactful way. It can be done in a poetical manner, and yet without
departing from the strict truth. The same consideration