THE MODERN WOMAN AND HER FUTURE Up to this point I have dealt only with the great shaping and moulding principles of life, with indirect influence rather than direct.

How far direct teaching on matters of sex should be given to our girls has been a far greater perplexity to me than in the case of boys.

In the present state of our schools and our streets our boys must get to know evil.
Hitherto it was possible to say that our girls _might_ get to know evil, and between that "must" and "might" lay a great and perplexing chasm.

We do not want our garden lilies to smell of anything but pure dews and rains and sun-warmed fragrance.

But is this ideal possible any longer, except in a few secluded country homes, where, hidden like Keats's nightingale "among the leaves," they may remain innocent and ignorant of the world's evil?
But with the ordinary conditions of the present day, with the greater freedom accorded to women, the wider range of education, involving a wider range of reading, with modern newspapers left about, I ask, How is it possible for a mother to keep her girls in ignorance and unconscious innocence?
A volume of short stories comes into the house from the circulating library; they are clever and apparently absolutely harmless.
Yet embedded in the heart of one such volume, which shall be nameless, I came upon a story almost as vile as anything in a French novel, and conveying the most corrupt knowledge.