The pre-pubescent boy and girl may receive some slight but impressive
additional perception as to the danger of meddling in any way. They should
also be warned strictly against any other person who offers to tamper with
their sex organs or adjacent parts of the body. Let them understand that
they are justified in any means of defense, the fist, a club, or a stone;
and that the offender is forever damned by his act and must never again
be trusted; and, of course, that they should at once lay the whole case
before their parents or other persons in authority.

The special instruction of the pre-pubescent and pubescent periods is as
yet by no means fully agreed upon among experts. We can give here only a
few points that seem fairly clear.

(1) Girls should know in advance enough of the general facts of
menstruation so that the onset of the period may not cause, as it now does
in thousands of cases, shock and sometimes dangerous errors of conduct.
They should also know that the sexual nature of men is active and
aggressive instead of passive and defensive as in the woman; and that
hence the woman must in general take the leading part in the control of
the sexual relation, or, at least, of those preliminary intimacies that
tend to culminate in sexual union. If it be contended that this is a
delicate and difficult idea to convey, liable to be exaggerated and to
produce false attitudes, the answer is that if difficulty is to deter us
we may as well stop the whole task of sex education before we begin; and
moreover that the disasters now resulting from ignorance are ten times
worse than any probable results of instruction.

This sexual difference means not only that the girl must be intolerant of
improper advances, but also that for her own sake and that of her sister
women she must beware of conduct, attitudes, or forms of dress that tend
unduly to excite the sexual impulses in boys and men.

In view of the enormous morbidity and mortality inflicted upon innocent
women and their children by sexual disease, the girl should learn the main
facts concerning the nature, effects, and incidence of gonorrhea and
syphilis. Health certificates of prospective bridegrooms will probably be
more easily enforced if such intelligence becomes general. The time for
such instruction is difficult to state, and would vary with the social
environment; probably late adolescence would be early enough in most
cases; earlier information is indispensab