“Where do little children come from?” This is an embarrassing question, which occurs very naturally to children, one which foolishly or wisely answered may decide their health and their morals for life.  The quickest way for a mother to escape from it without deceiving her son is to tell him to hold his tongue.  That will serve its turn if he has always been accustomed to it in matters of no importance, and if he does not suspect some mystery from this new way of speaking.  But the mother rarely stops there.  “It is the married people’s secret,” she will say, “little boys should not be so curious.”  That is all very well so far as the mother is concerned, but she may be sure that the little boy, piqued by her scornful manner, will not rest till he has found out the married people’s secret, which will very soon be the case.

Let me tell you a very different answer which I heard given to the same question, one which made all the more impression on me, coming, as it did, from a woman, modest in speech and behaviour, but one who was able on occasion, for the welfare of her child and for the cause of virtue, to cast aside the false fear of blame and the silly jests of the foolish.  Not long before the child had passed a small stone which had torn the passage, but the trouble was over and forgotten.  “Mamma,” said the eager child, “where do little children come from?” “My child,” replied his mother without hesitation, “women pass them with pains that sometimes cost their life.”  Let fools laugh and silly people be shocked; but let the wise inquire if it is possible to find a wiser answer and one which would better serve its purpose.

In the first place the thought of a need of nature with which the child is well acquainted turns his thoughts from the idea of a mysterious process.  The accompanying ideas of pain and death cover it with a veil of sadness which deadens the imagination and suppresses curiosity; everything leads the mind to the results, not the causes, of child-birth.  This is the information to which this answer leads.  If the repugnance inspired by this answer should permit the child to inquire further, his thoughts are turned to the infirmities of human nature, disgusting things, images of pain.  What chance is there for any stimulation of desire in such a conversation?  And yet you see there is no departure from truth, no need to deceive the scholar in order to teach him.

Your children read; in the course of their reading they meet with things they would never have known without reading.  Are they students, their imagination is stimulated and quickened in the silence of the study.  Do they move in the world of society, they hear a strange jargon, they see conduct which makes a great impression on them; they have been told so continually that they are men that in everything men do in their presence they at once try to find how that will suit themselves; the conduct of others must indeed serve as their pattern when the opinions of