erfectly natural, honest, and harmless desire, so
long as it is not perverted by being thwarted. A child of four may ask
questions on this matter, simply and spontaneously. As soon as the
questions are put, certainly as soon as they become at all insistent, they
should be answered, in the same simple and spontaneous spirit, truthfully,
though according to the measure of the child's intelligence and his
capacity and desire for knowledge. This period should not, and, if these
indications are followed, naturally would not, in any case, be delayed
beyond the sixth year. After that age even the most carefully guarded
child is liable to contaminating communications from outside. Moll points
out that the sexual enlightenment of girls in its various stages ought to
be always a little ahead of that of boys, and as the development of girls
up to the pubertal age is more precocious than that of boys, this demand
is reasonable.

If the elements of sexual education are to be imparted in early childhood,
it is quite clear who ought to be the teacher. There should be no question
that this privilege belongs by every right to the mother. Except where a
child is artificially separated from his chief parent it is indeed only
the mother who has any natural opportunity of receiving and responding to
these questions. It is unnecessary for her to take any initiative in the
matter. The inevitable awakening of the child's intelligence and the
evolution of his boundless curiosity furnish her love and skill with all
opportunities for guiding her child's thoughts and knowledge. Nor is it
necessary for her to possess the slightest technical information at this
stage. It is only essential that she should have the most absolute faith
in the purity and dignity of her physical relationship to her child, and
be able to speak of it with frankness and tenderness. When that essential
condition is fulfilled every mother has all the knowledge that her young
child needs.

Among the best authorities, both men and women, in all the
countries where this matter is attracting attention, there seems
now to be unanimity of opinion in favor of the elementary facts
of the baby's relationship to its mother being explained to the
child by the mother as soon as the child begins to ask questions.
Thus in Germany Moll has repeatedly argued in this sense; he
insists that sexual enlightenment should be mainly a private and
individual matter;