It should be the nursery-rule not to touch the child’s genital organs and not to handle the buttocks in any unnecessary way. Children should not be allowed to sleep in the same room with their nurses or in the same bed with other children. The child should acquire the habit of sleeping on the side, not on the back. The bed should be firm, not soft and yielding. The covers must be light.
The health of the genital organs must be cared for, and in case of deviation from the normal, medical aid must be summoned. A long, tight prepuce, eczema of the genitals, accumulations of filth and sebaceous matter around the glans of the penis or of the clitoris, retention of urine beyond the proper time, pin-worms in the rectum, hemorrhoids, fissures of the anus, all lead to rubbing, pressing and handling of the genitals.
When the children are old enough to understand, they must be taught never to handle their genitals, the same as they are warned not to poke the fingers into their noses, ears, or eyes. The child must be taught to lie straight in bed, with the hands never under the cover, must be taught to rise, urinate and dress soon after awakening.
The child must be accustomed to the sight of the nude, in art and nature. It will thus become immune against prurient impressions in the presence of the nude later in life.[BM]
Children from four to seven years.—At the period of four to seven years of age, the child’s curiosity about the origin of man is awakened. When he approaches his parents with the question, “Whence do babies come from?” he must not be put off with stork-stories and false ideas, or met with evasive answers. The mother should explain to the child that the baby grows from a seed implanted in the mother’s body, just as the flower grows from a seed sown in the mother Earth.
After the child has been told of his origin he should be admonished not to talk of these intimate subjects with others. He should be warned against allowing any one, little friends or adults, nurse or teacher, to touch or play with any part of his body. If an attempt be made by any one, no matter who it is, be it a little friend, brother, sister, etc., to touch his body, the child must be taught to report the fact immediately to his parents.
Children from seven to ten years.—At the period of seven to ten years of age, the child ought to receive its first real sex-lesson by teaching him the anatomy of the sexual organs of the plant. The child is told about the cell being the basis of all organic life. The different modes of reproduction is explained to him. Then we go over to the study of phanerogamous plants and show him that the flower, the most beautiful part of the plant, is nothing else but the genitals of the plant. We then analyze every part of the flower, the male and the female principles. In this way the child will become accustomed to hear, without apprehension or any thought of impropriety, terms like male and female germ-cells, ovum, ovary, etc., terms which are now considered to be unspeakable, save behind closed doors and then only with low breath.
Children from ten to thirteen years.—At the next period from ten to thirteen years of age, we may begin to explain the sex-phenomena in the animal kingdom. It is best to follow the pedigree of the living beings from the lowest, the unicellular animals, to the highest, the mammals. The teacher could even describe to the children the complicated indirect cell division, called “Mitosis,” in order to impress upon their minds the great importance which the creative power of the universe attributes to the correct halving of the nuclear substance of the cell.
The child should then get better acquainted with the different modes of reproduction, the binary fission, the budding, the sporulation, the conjugation and the different kinds of the latter. The child may now learn to know the difference between the hermaphroditic animals and sex-animals, between sperm-cells and egg-cells. It may learn what is meant by metamorphosis, by external and internal fertilization, by ovulation and impregnation.
Period of puberty.—When the child has reached the period of puberty, it should learn something about the wonderful phenomenon of menstruation, which by nature is sure to come to every normal female, so that the young girl should not be surprised and frightened by its onset and the boy should not make jokes over it.[BN]