What usually happens if one of these elfs of human life has the
temerity to speak to father or mother about these strange impulses? A
blush of shame, perhaps, and the expression, “You better be thinking
of something else,” or “You should be ashamed to be talking of such
things,” ends the conversation.
A lady in high station said to the writer, when talking upon this
subject, “I went to my mother a few days before my marriage and asked
her to tell me about the marriage state. My mother was a good woman,
but all she said was, ‘You will find out soon enough.’” God forgive and
pity the ignorance of such mothers!
Rebuffed at home, what happens? This child goes out upon the streets
and from vulgar playmates, older than it is, through vulgar stories
and suggestions, gets a base and lewd conception of all this in his or
her life which God meant for beauty, for His glory and the glory of
the race, or what is almost as bad, remains in stupid and dangerous
ignorance till some vile octopus throws his tentacles about this dream
of beauty and sparkling, buoyant youth, and the end of the tragedy is
a ruined life, or what more often happens, two of these ignorant young
people get together and because of their ignorance commit those acts
against chastity which bring ruin and disgrace.
“But,” you say, “such cases as you depict above are the exception and
not the rule and I am not afraid of my child being caught in such ways.”