instructed in sex hygiene without
offense. Any teacher who can explain the family troubles of King Henry
VIII without becoming self-conscious can easily learn to look a class
of girls and boys in the face and explain how a mother's health will
injure her baby before its birth, why breast-fed babies are more apt to
live than bottle-fed babies, why it is as important for the mother to
keep a nursing breast absolutely clean as to clean the nipple of a
nursing bottle. Words whispered by children, or marked in dictionaries,
to be stealthily and repeatedly looked upon and talked over with other
children, lose all their glamour when pronounced by a teacher.

In these days of state subsidy of school libraries the child is hard to
find who has not free access to books of fiction full of voluptuous
allusions that make undesirable impressions which only blunt, candid
discussion of sex facts can make harmless. Children now learn, whether
in fashionable private schools or crowded slums, practically all that
is lascivious and unwholesome about sex. For teachers to explain that
which is wholesome and pure will disinfect the minds of most children
and protect them against miseducation.

Class instruction in hygiene is practicable for all matters pertaining
to normal sex health. Girls of thirteen should be taught in classes the
fact and meaning of menstruation, and its grave importance to the
health, in order that they may care for themselves not only before,
during, and immediately after the menstrual period, but throughout the
month, in order that menstruation itself shall not be unnecessarily
painful, enervating, and harmful to efficiency. It is not yet advisable
to discuss dangers peculiar to girls or dangers peculiar to boys in
mixed classes. Generally speaking, it is undesirable that men teachers
discuss girls' troubles with girl pupils. But why should it not become
possible for women teachers to explain health dangers peculiar to girls
to classes of boys?

Individual instruction in sex matters should be reserved for the
diseased mind, for the boy or girl who has already been morbidly
instructed. Discussion of immoral sex diseases should be confined to
individual talk. This field teachers have already entered. Repeated
physical examination of children will detect symptoms of sex
abnormality. When detected, the fact and the meaning should be
explained to the individual by school physician, school nurse, or
school-teacher. While