Note BK — Chapter XIX · HYGIENE OF CHILDHOOD

Such pamphlets as “What a young boy ought to know” or “What a young girl ought to know” show a touching naïveté. Young boys and girls, if of the age to understand such pamphlets, do not need to know anything, for the simple reason that they know everything, and in a more prurient way than their elders. It is the height of absurdity to give lectures on sex problems before classes in high schools or colleges, where a large percentage of the boys have already passed through all the stages of gonorrhoeal infection and a good many of the girls are addicted to the practice of autoeroticism. After such habits have been acquired, lectures will be of no avail. Nor are books, fit to be given into the hands of boys or girls, of any value. By the time a child is able to understand such books it knows more of sex than the book can teach.