In nearly every case the children acknowledged that it was not from their parents, but in the street or from older companions, that they learnt the facts of sex.

The parents usually imagined that their children were absolutely ignorant of these matters, and were astonished to realize their mistake; "parents do not know their children, nor have they the least idea of what their children know, or what their children talk about and do when away from them." The parents guilty of this neglect to instruct their children, are, Lindsey declares, traitors to their children.

From his own experience he judges that nine-tenths of the girls who "go wrong," whether or not they sink in the world, do so owing to the inattention of their parents, and that in the case of most prostitutes the mischief is really done before the age of twelve; "every wayward girl I have talked to has assured me of this truth." He considers that nine-tenths of school-boys and school-girls, in town or country, are very inquisitive regarding matters of sex, and, to his own amazement, he has found that in the girls this is as marked as in the boys.
It is the business of the girl's mother, at least as much as of the boy's, to watch over her child from the earliest years and to win her confidence in all the intimate and personal matters of sex.

With these aspects the school cannot properly meddle.

But in matters of physical sexual hygiene, notably menstruation, in regard to which all girls stand on the same level, it is certainly the duty of the teacher to take an actively watchful part, and, moreover, to direct the general work of education accordingly, and to ensure that the pupil shall rest whenever that may seem to be desirable.