of the dislike which is felt for admitting the young to share any part of the knowledge of the adult about the physiology of sex is well illustrated by the difficulty parents feel in communicating to their children some of the elementary facts which they may feel very strongly it is their duty to impart. A parent may find himself under these circumstances trying to quiet his conscience with all sorts of excuses and subterfuges while he postpones making the explanations which duty and affection urge upon him as necessary for the health and happiness of his child. An unwillingness so strong and irrational as this must have its root in subconscious processes charged with strong feeling.
The tendency to guard children from sexual knowledge and experience seems to be truly universal in civilized man and to surpass all differences of morals, discipline, or taste. Amongst primitive savages the principle has not acquired the altruistic signification which civilized man has given it, but operates as a definite exclusion to be overcome only by solemn ceremonies of initiation and at