The knotty and important topic of how the young girl may best receive sexual enlightenment from her mother, is discussed by _E. Stiehl_ in her notable work “A Maternal Duty.”[31] The authoress points out that this enlightenment must not take place suddenly and without apparent motive, but that the mother must in a gentle and gradual manner introduce to her child the secrets of nature. A beginning may be made by teaching the child to observe the nature and growth of plants; then she may be led to interest herself in the family life of animals; and thus an easy way is found to answer the questions connected with reproduction—to answer them in a manner at once true and befitting.
Let the mother indicate to her child the methods employed by nature for the preservation of the life of the young plant; let her demonstrate in a flower the stamens and the pistil as male and female organs respectively; and let her explain how when the pollen-grain reaches and fertilizes the tiny ovule in the ovary, this ovule becomes capable of development into a large seed containing an active rudimentary plant, which latter itself enlarges to become a new full-grown specimen of its kind. The opportunity may then be seized to draw attention to the resemblance between the little ovules in the ovary of the flower and the minute ova by means of which all animal life reproduces its kind. Proceeding further, an earnest and thorough introduction to the sanctity and responsibility, the perils and duties, of the sexual life, is urgently required by the young girl before she proceeds either to marriage or to an economically independent mode of life.
Not only in America and England, but now also in Germany, there exist excellent books which may actually be put into the growing girl’s own hands, by means of which she will be introduced in an intelligent manner to a knowledge of the method of reproduction in the human species.
Often enough, when the mother is lacking in intelligence or sympathy, it will be the duty of the physician to give this enlightenment to the young girl. The interpreter of such tidings at the time of love’s dawning will be the family doctor, to whom the girl and her family have been confidently accustomed to turn for information regarding the bodily state and well-being. He is accustomed to remove many a veil without any offense to maidenly modesty. Many sexual disorders and much sexual aberration may thus be prevented.