permission for use of schoolhouses
under the specious plea of social hygiene. Others, well intentioned but
with extreme purist ideas and unwise methods, occasionally volunteer their
services. The school authorities should be cautious. But when those who
apply are intelligent and honest and above question as to their standing
and judgment, school boards ought not only to consent, but to support and
cooperate. A grudging consent, mixed with indifference, finds its way by
capillary attraction to the school principals and teachers and constitutes
a real hindrance. When the consent of the school authorities has been
obtained, the next step is the selection and training of speakers and the
notification or the parents. Where permitted, the notices or invitations
should be sent out by the school in which the meeting is to be held, by
mail, sealed, to every home in the district whence pupils in that school
come. This should be done even if the local society has to pay the
postage. If the school authorities will not or cannot do this, then cards
of invitation should be sent home through the pupils. In either case, the
invitation should be so worded as to do no harm to the children who may
read it.

Parents' meetings may be addressed by two speakers, a physician and a
layman. The two speakers should get to the schoolhouse in time to see that
the speaker's desk and chair are not on a high platform too far from the
little group of parents. The chair and table should be brought down to the
floor close to the seats and the parents brought forward. The principal of
the school should introduce the layman, accompanying the physician, to be
chairman of the evening. The chairman should make a brief address, as
outlined in the syllabus provided by the Committee on Education of the
Society, introducing the physician. The physician should make a brief
address as outlined in the syllabus, and then, after proper explanations,
the physician should resume his chair. Both physician and layman, seated,
should engage in a dialogue, in which the layman should endeavor with all
the intelligence, sympathy, and skill at his command to put himself in the
place of the humblest parent in the room and ask such questions of the
physician as such a parent might ask or ought to ask. For example:--

Layman, "Doctor, I have a little boy four years old. When ought I to
talk to him about sex matters?"

Physician, "When the child asks questions."