heir own souls. It is,
however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even
unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its
fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily
ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is
considered indiscreet and even indelicate. How are children to develop
a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their
wonderful destiny? If they do not recognise that at least in one
respect God has confided to them in some measure His own creative
function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure
their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function?
There is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when
and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august
destiny. We are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is
not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be
sanctified and blessed. It is, however, certain that the conspiracy of
silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil.
If a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the
eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always
pernicious and sometimes disastrous. If, on the other hand, such
knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her
purity of mind must be smirched and injured.

Even among those who hold that children ought to be instructed, there
is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. Some
say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of
marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less
shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural
and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. These
last would argue--why put the facts of reproduction on a different
footing from those of digestion and respiration? As facts in the
physical life they hold a precisely similar position. Upon the due
performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole
organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of
respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the
individual, it is essential to the life of the nation.

The facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a
perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them--the
cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and