The safe and happy outcome in these personal problems can be guaranteed in only one way—­that the young person should be able to turn with complete confidence and little embarrassment to some trusted and intimate counselor, preferably the parent, but otherwise physician, pastor, older friend, with whom he has already discussed sexual questions, and who he knows will receive his advances with sympathy, answer his questions with frankness and intelligence, and hold his confidence sacred.  Happy the youth or maiden who has such a guide in the crises of unfolding powers and perils.

The chief problem of this part of the education is the accurate and timely adaptation of what is taught to the needs of the successive periods of development.  Hence chronological or “calendar” age and school grade are both unreliable guides to the educator:  a group of fifteen-year-old boys, or of eighth grade boys, includes some who are children not yet entered upon pubescence, others who are mature,—­that is, have attained the power of reproduction,—­and still others who are in process of change.  These three groups cannot be treated identically; each period has its own peculiar needs.  The problem of sorting out the individuals and meeting the needs of each group is difficult because of our traditional neglect of the whole task.  But of any particular lesson we may agree with him who says, “Better a year too early than an hour too late.”

The earliest safeguard, rather regimen than instruction, is the inculcation of the idea and habit of “Hands off” the sex organs.  The little child is taught this by his mother, and it becomes second nature.  The pre-pubescent boy and girl may receive some slight but impressive additional perception as to the danger of meddling in any way.  They should also be warned strictly against any other person who offers to tamper with their sex organs or adjacent parts of the body.  Let them understand that they are justified in any means of defense, the fist, a club, or a stone; and that the offender is forever damned by his act and must never again be trusted; and, of course, that they should at once lay the whole case before their parents or other persons in authority.

The special instruction of the pre-pubescent and pubescent periods is as yet by no means fully agreed upon among experts.  We can give here only a few points that seem fairly clear.

(1) Girls should know in advance enough of the general facts of menstruation so that the onset of the period may not cause, as it now does in thousands of cases, shock and sometimes dangerous errors of conduct.  They should also know that the sexual nature of men is active and aggressive instead of passive and defensive as in the woman; and that hence the woman must in general take the leading part in the control of the sexual relation, or, at least, of those preliminary intimacies that tend to culminate in sexual union.  If it be contended that this is a delicate and difficult idea to convey, liable to be exaggerated and to produce false attitudes, the answer is that if difficulty is to deter us we may as well stop the whole task of sex education before we begin; and moreover that the disasters now resulting from ignorance are ten times worse than any probable results of instruction.