These are only a few of the many letters I have received, but they serve to show the great need of early instruction of girls on these much neglected subjects. Every girl, soon after she enters school if not before, learns where babies come from. She too often is led by older children, both boys and girls, to do things she may regret later. It has been said that "sin is but ignorance." This is true in the great majority of cases of immoral practices among girls as well as among boys. The remedy for these sins, then, is to do away with the ignorance by proper instruction of children. Children are reasonable beings and if they understood the why would not do wrong.
If girls go wrong through ignorance the parents are to blame; for at the present time there is no excuse for a parent not giving the necessary instruction. If, on account of her own lack of knowledge, the mother feels incapable of instructing her daughter, there are others ready and willing to aid her; also, there are books especially prepared for her help, which will definitely point the way.
CHAPTER XV
WHY GIRLS GO ASTRAY
Not long ago an estimable young woman in speaking of the unfortunate girls in the world said, "I cannot see how any refined girl could get into trouble. I cannot conceive of any circumstances which would permit any self-respecting girl to allow the familiarities necessary for such a condition." That is the attitude assumed by many intelligent women. Because they grew up in an environment without temptations, because they had no unsatisfied longings to be loved or to be popular, they are incapable of understanding these feelings in any other person.
In every girl there is an inborn longing to be loved and to have a home of her own. It is a misunderstanding of this sense that is responsible for the wrecked lives of many girls. In too many homes there is no expression of the love sense. Frequently I have heard girls remark, "Why, I never think of kissing my parents except, perhaps, when they or I go away." In too many homes the only mention that is made of love is that made in a bantering manner. A child has the right idea of love. She loves everyone and is free in the expression of this love. As she grows older she obtains wrong ideas of love and she too often obtains these wrong ideas in her own home and from her own parents who instill false ideas of love when indulging their habit of "teasing." Frequently we hear parents talking about the small daughter's "beau." The child feels pent-up emotions of love and, as there is no outlet at home in a natural way, she acquires the idea that these emotions should be spent in a childish love affair.
In a recent address Professor Marx Lubine of the University of Berlin said, "Motherhood, in all stages of civilization, has been strangely ignorant of the fact that girls have as powerful a battery of emotions as boys. It is my experience that a major portion of mothers understand their sons better than their daughters. Why? The daughters are not given credit for a power of emotion the sons are capable of. Yet, naturally, in my long experience with both sexes, I have no hesitation in saying that the emotions of a pure girl are usually deeper, more lasting, than those of a boy, and that if we are to have a great improvement in womanhood it must come through a recognition of this fact."
It is strange but mothers seem to be blind to, or ignorant of the emotions that are seething back of the clear eyes of their daughters. The emotions of the girl have not been studied sufficiently. We expect a boy to do things which serve as an outlet to his pent-up emotions but we expect a girl to go on in a calm, uneventful manner with no outlet for the overflow of emotions. Blessed are the "Tomboys." I would there were more of them. It is a fact that the girl who runs, plays, climbs trees and is given to outdoor sports generally during the early part of her life develops into the truest woman. She has an outlet for her energies. Her time is fully occupied with those things that promote health. She has no time nor desires for those things that show a perverted taste. Such a girl seldom becomes a victim of self-abuse. She is not inclined to romantic love affairs. It is her sister who sits and sews who has time and inclination for indulging in morbid longings and who becomes the victim of pernicious habits.