Nothing but good can come of the use of such a manual, if it has been wisely selected; it will supplant what the mother has already done, what the teacher may still be doing, and what later may be done by private interview with a doctor.
It has indeed been argued that the boy or girl to whom such literature is presented will merely make it an opportunity for morbid revelry and sensual enjoyment.

It can well be believed that this may sometimes happen with boys or girls from whom all sexual facts have always been mysteriously veiled, and that when at last they find the opportunity of gratifying their long-repressed and perfectly natural curiosity they are overcome by the excitement of the event.

It could not happen to children who have been naturally and wholesomely brought up.

At a later age, during adolescence, there is doubtless great advantage in the plan, now frequently adopted, especially in Germany, of giving lectures, addresses, or quiet talks to young people of each sex separately.

The speaker is usually a specially selected teacher, a doctor or other qualified person who may be brought in for this special purpose.
Stanley Hall, after remarking that sexual education should be chiefly from fathers to sons and from mothers to daughters, adds: "It may be that in the future this kind of initiation will again become an art, and experts will tell us with more confidence how to do our duty to the manifold exigencies, types and stages of youth, and instead of feeling baffled and defeated, we shall see that this age and theme is the supreme opening for the highest pedagogy to do its best and most transforming work, as well as being the greatest of all opportunities for the teacher of religion" (Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol.i, p.