[24] “Parents must be taught how to impart information,” remarks E.L.  Keyes ("Education upon Sexual Matters,” New York Medical Journal, Feb. 10, 1906), “and this teaching of the parent should begin when he is himself a child.”

[25] Moll (op. cit., p. 224) argues well how impossible it is to preserve children from sights and influence connected with the sexual life.

[26] Girls are not even prepared, in many cases, for the appearance of the pubic hair.  This unexpected growth of hair frequently causes young girls much secret worry, and often they carefully cut it off.

[27] G.S.  Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 511.  Many years ago, in 1875, the late Dr. Clarke, in his Sex in Education, advised menstrual rest for girls, and thereby aroused a violent opposition which would certainly not be found nowadays, when the special risks of womanhood are becoming more clearly understood.

[28] For a summary of the physical and mental phenomena of the menstrual period, see Havelock Ellis:  Man and Woman, Ch.  XI.  The primitive conception of menstruation is briefly discussed in Appendix A to the first volume of these Studies, and more elaborately by J.G.  Frazer in The Golden Bough.  A large collection of facts with regard to the menstrual seclusion of women throughout the world will be found in Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib.  The pubertal seclusion of girls at Torres Straits has been especially studied by Seligmann, Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, Ch.  VI.

[29] Thus Miss Lura Sanborn, Director of Physical Training at the Chicago Normal School, found that a bath once a fortnight was not unusual.  At the menstrual period especially there is still a superstitious dread of water.  Girls should always be taught that at this period, above all, cleanliness is imperatively necessary.  There should be a tepid hip bath night and morning, and a vaginal douche (which should never be cold) is always advantageous, both for comfort as well as cleanliness.  There is not the slightest reason to dread water during menstruation.  This point was discussed a few years ago in the British Medical Journal with complete unanimity of opinion.  A distinguished American obstetrician, also, Dr. J. Clifton Edgar, after a careful study of opinion and practice in this matter ("Bathing During the Menstrual Period,” American Journal Obstetrics, Sept., 1900), concludes that it is possible and beneficial to take cold baths (though not sea-baths) during the period, provided due precautions are observed, and that there are no sudden changes of habits.  Such a course should not be indiscriminately adopted, but there can be no doubt that in sturdy peasant women who are inured to it early in life even prolonged immersion in the sea in fishing has no evil results, and is even beneficial.  Houzel (Annales de Gynecologie, Dec., 1894) has published statistics of the menstrual life of 123 fisherwomen on the French coast.  They were accustomed to shrimp for hours at a time in the sea, often to above the waist, and then walk about in their wet clothes selling the shrimps.  They all insisted that their menstruation was easier when they were actively at work.  Their periods are notably regular, and their fertility is high.