Photograph by Brown Bros.
A school playground. The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life
Photograph by Brown Bros.
A model playground. The model playgrounds in the parks are doing much to aid the playground movement
Going to school is rightly considered an epoch in the child's life. No longer confined to the narrow circle of home and family friends, the child may lose all the tiny beginnings of desired virtues in this larger life. Or, on the contrary, when the school recognizes and continues home training, or supplies what has not been given, these foundation virtues may be so applied to the old problems in new places as to form a foundation for the life conduct of the girl and the woman that is to be.
Take the question of sex knowledge, so widely agitated of late. We cannot guard our girls against contact with some who will exert a harmful influence. We can only forearm them by natural, gradual information on this subject as their young minds reach out for knowledge, so that sex knowledge comes, as other knowledge comes, without solemnity or sentimentality on the one hand or undue mystery and a hint of shame on the other. No course in sex hygiene can take the place of this early gradual teaching, answering each question as it comes, in a perfectly natural way, and with due regard for the child's wonder at all of nature's marvelous processes. The little girl who knows presents no possibilities to the perverted mind which seeks to astonish and excite her. And if she knows because "my mother told me," the guard is as nearly perfect as can be devised.
Upon this foundation the formal course in sex hygiene may be built. Such a course will then be a scientific summing up, with application to personal ideals and requirements. It can easily, safely, and wisely be deferred until the adolescent period.