pid as to become the victim
of a seducer, and yet a few minutes later the child may overhear the
instructor relating the heroic deeds of a cousin, who has seduced so and
so many girls of the lower orders!

Thus the importance of the sexual enlightenment must on no account be
over-estimated. Rather should the words of the old proverb always be
kept in mind: "As the old birds sing, so will the young birds chirp."
Those who guide their own conduct in accordance with this principle,
will find the sexual enlightenment of their children an easy matter; but
in other houses, the theoretical enlightenment may be effected as
carefully as you please, and yet it will do but little good. It is
evident that the earlier movement in favour of the sexual enlightenment,
to which I referred on page 8, failed because the expectations of its
advocates were pitched too high, and because the emotional life of the
child was ignored--an error rightly pointed out by Thalhofer. I have no
doubt that in a few decades the efforts of our own day on behalf of the
sexual enlightenment, in so far as they lay the principal stress upon
the theoretical enlightenment, and expect its enforcement to initiate
the golden age, will arouse similar feelings of amusement to those with
which we ourselves now contemplate the failures of the past.

The above is all I have to say about the psychical aids to the sexual
enlightenment of the child, I turn now to consider the hygienic
measures--those with a direct effect upon the body. Speaking generally,
these are identical with those which are recommended for the treatment
of masturbation.

When the child awakes in the morning, it should not be permitted to lie
in bed too long, above all, not in a hot feather-bed. To send children
to bed, or to keep them in bed all day, as a punishment, as a means of
depriving them of liberty, is, from this point of view, a practice which
must unreservedly be condemned. Very dangerous, from this outlook, is
also the rule common in boarding-schools and similar places, in
accordance with which the children are sent to bed at a fixed time, and
are not in any circumstances allowed to leave their beds before a fixed
time in the morning. Everything must be done strictly according to the
rules. Now although we may admit that no such institution can be carried
on without some discipline, yet it is necessary to point out that when
there is a rule in a boarding-school that no inmate shall get