Then, too, since the fathers or grandfathers of our most conspicuous social leaders were self-made and self-taught, and since our American society is composed of so many varied types of humanity, it is well for a young girl to come in contact with all classes while she is yet a child, that she may understand humanity as she is sure to encounter it later.  Yet, as you say, it is indeed a serious thought to know your little rosebud of a child is to be tossed into the dust of the public schoolroom.

“I do not want the delicate leaves forced into premature blossom or blight,” you say, and I feel for you, as I read the words.

You remember your own experience as a school-child in the country, and you tell me you would fain guard your daughter from hearing or seeing much that came to your ears and eyes as a school-child.

But now, my dear Winifred, listen.

It is utterly and absolutely impossible for you to keep Genevieve ignorant of life, or of the great fundamental principles of life.  It is utterly useless to undertake to ignore the set impulse in all nature.  Since God did not ignore it in constructing the universe, parents cannot afford to in educating children.  The one thing to do is to teach your child early to respect and revere the subject, and to regard all things pertaining to birth as sacred, never to be lightly discussed.  Wherever the eyes of an observing child turn, they see something to arouse curiosity upon this subject.

All literature (the Bible particularly) contains some reference to sex and birth.  Unless you stuff the ears of children with cotton, they must hear expressions, suggestions, and references, which necessitate explanations of the same vital subject.  From insects to man, through all the various kingdoms, sex laws are the foundation of life.

Why parents have chosen to taboo this important subject, and why they surround it with falsehood and subterfuge, and suggest that it is unclean or vulgar, has always puzzled me.

Inconceivable harm, lifelong disaster, has befallen many a girl and many a boy through this mistaken attitude of parents to God’s basic law of the universe.

Genevieve is only ten.  But she is a child with a most inquiring mind, and she already indicates a tendency to coquetry.  She prefers boys to dolls, and evidently finds them more interesting than girls.

The things you would guard her from knowing, she is sure to learn in some undesirable and unfortunate manner, unless you prepare her for them with loving delicacy and refinement.

My suggestion is that you take a plant, and talk to her about its growth.  Tell her how it springs from a seed, and hides in the bosom of the earth, expanding until it bursts through, and becomes the baby of mother earth.

Tell her, too, of the bird life in the egg, and make her realize the mother-impulse in all nature.  Then say to her that she is a part of it all and that she came into life by the same divine law, and that when she is older you will explain whatever puzzles her young mind.