and legislation. Even some of the
lower animals unite in this union for life and instinctively observe
the law of conjugal fidelity with a consistency which might put to
blush other animals more highly endowed. It seems important to discuss
this subject and understand our social evils, as well as the intense
passional desires of the sexes, which must be controlled, or they lead
to ruin.

3. SEXUAL PROPENSITIES are possessed by all, and these must be held in
abeyance, until they are needed for legitimate purposes. Hence parents
ought to understand the value to their children of mental and physical
labor, to elevate and strengthen the intellectual and moral faculties,
to develop the muscular system and direct the energies of the
blood into healthful channels. Vigorous employment of mind and body
engrosses the vital energies and diverts them from undue excitement of
the sexual desires.

_Give your young people plenty of outdoor amusement; less of
dancing and more of croquet and lawn tennis. Stimulate the methods
of pure thoughts in innocent amusement, and your sons and daughters
will mature to manhood and womanhood pure and chaste in character._

4. IGNORANCE DOES NOT MEAN INNOCENCE.--It is a current idea,
especially among our good common people, that the child should be
kept in ignorance regarding the mystery of his own body and how he was
created or came into the world. This is a great mistake. Parents must
know that the sources of social impurity are great, and the child is a
hundred times more liable to have his young mind poisoned if
entirely ignorant of the functions of his nature than if judiciously
enlightened on these important truths by the parent. The parent must
give him weapons of defense against the putrid corruption he is sure
to meet outside the parental roof. The child cannot get through the A,
B, C period of school without it.

5. CONFLICTING VIEWS.--There is a great difference of opinion regarding
the age at which the child should be taught the mysteries of nature:
some maintain that he cannot comprehend the subject before the age of
puberty; others say "they will find it out soon enough, it is not best
to have them over-wise while they are so young. Wait a while." That is
just the point (_they will find it out_), and we ask in all candor,
is it not better that they learn it from the pure loving mother,
untarnished from any insinuating remark, than that they should learn
it from some foul-m