New Review, June, 1894).  A small minority of two only (Rabbi Adler and Mrs. Lynn Lynton) were against such knowledge, while among the majority in favor of it were Mme. Adam, Thomas Hardy, Sir Walter Besant, Bjoernson, Hall Caine, Sarah Grand, Nordau, Lady Henry Somerset, Baroness von Suttner, and Miss Willard.  The leaders of the woman’s movement are, of course, in favor of such knowledge.  Thus a meeting of the Bund fuer Mutterschutz at Berlin, in 1905, almost unanimously passed a resolution declaring that the early sexual enlightenment of children in the facts of the sexual life is urgently necessary (Mutterschutz, 1905, Heft 2, p. 91).  It may be added that medical opinion has long approved of this enlightenment.  Thus in England it was editorially stated in the British Medical Journal some years ago (June 9, 1894):  “Most medical men of an age to beget confidence in such affairs will be able to recall instances in which an ignorance, which would have been ludicrous if it had not been so sad, has been displayed on matters regarding which every woman entering on married life ought to have been accurately informed.  There can, we think, be little doubt that much unhappiness and a great deal of illness would be prevented if young people of both sexes possessed a little accurate knowledge regarding the sexual relations, and were well impressed with the profound importance of selecting healthy mates.  Knowledge need not necessarily be nasty, but even if it were, it certainly is not comparable in that respect with the imaginings of ignorance.”  In America, also, where at an annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. Denslow Lewis, of Chicago, eloquently urged the need of teaching sexual hygiene to youths and girls, all the subsequent nine speakers, some of them physicians of worldwide fame, expressed their essential agreement (Medico-Legal Journal, June-Sept., 1903).  Howard, again, at the end of his elaborate History of Matrimonial Institutions (vol. iii, p. 257) asserts the necessity for education in matters of sex, as going to the root of the marriage problem.  “In the future educational programme,” he remarks, “sex questions must hold an honorable place.”

While, however, it is now widely recognized that children are entitled to sexual enlightenment, it cannot be said that this belief is widely put into practice.  Many persons, who are fully persuaded that children should sooner or later be enlightened concerning the sexual sources of life, are somewhat nervously anxious as to the precise age at which this enlightenment should begin.  Their latent feeling seems to be that sex is an evil, and enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however necessary, and that the chief point is to ascertain the latest moment to which we can safely postpone this necessary evil.  Such an attitude is, however, altogether wrong-headed.  The child’s desire for knowledge concerning the origin of himself is a perfectly natural, honest, and