f perverting information.
The surest way to arouse curiosity is to try to conceal something. The
only thing, then, is to be ready to gratify honest curiosity by helpful
information.

Nor is it safe to defer too long. What the mother wants her child to
know in a certain way she should tell him herself, before he has a
chance to hear it elsewhere. The moment he leaves her presence, the
moment he starts alone to school, he may receive information which she
would give the world to prevent his receiving. Not that her telling will
necessarily keep him from hearing what others say, but to have his mind
preoccupied will tend to prevent the wrong ideas from taking firm root.

* * * * *

Another question very often asked is, Will teaching this subject not
encourage children to talk about it with other children?

On the contrary, the tendency is to prevent talk. The children of a
family equally instructed will not find it worth talking about. They
know what they want to know, and understand that the only person who can
really tell them anything more is their mother, or whoever takes her
place in this. If they do talk of it in the spirit in which they have
been taught, such talk can do no harm, excepting in the presence of
children not equally well instructed.

To meet this danger the mother can take certain precautions. Having won
the confidence of her child, she can generally trust him to keep these
matters confidential with her. She can explain that children do not
always know the truth about these things, and sometimes do not know
about them at all. That some mothers do not tell their children, but
that she wants her child to understand everything just as it is, and to
feel that she can trust him not to talk on these matters excepting when
alone with her.

Of course there will be instances where this does not succeed, and the
children eager and pure will speak in the presence of the neighbors'
children and make trouble. Then the question is, Which is better, to run
that risk and take the consequences, or to run the risk of allowing the
child to remain ignorant? If the child could really remain ignorant,
there might be room for argument against enlightening him, but there is
great danger that he will be enlightened in a very unenlightened manner,
and possibly by those same neighbors' children who are truly ignorant,
though they may not be ignorant in just the way their fond parents
believe t