"My first statement," says Mr.Thring, "is that all fathers ought to write such a letter to their sons.

It is not difficult, if done in a common-sense way."[15] But now I come to what on all hands we must allow to be a point of extreme difficulty.

I think all head-masters, deeply concerned in the moral welfare of the boys under their charge, would emphatically endorse the following words of Dr.Butler's: "It is certain, it must needs be, that boys should, at an early period of their boyhood, come to hear of the nature of sexual relations.

From whom should they first learn it?
Should it be with every accompaniment of coarseness, of levity, of obscenity?
From some ribald groom in the stables?
From some impure maidservant who has stolen into the household and the nursery?
From some brother only a year or two older, who has just received his first initiation in impurity at a private school and is too young to understand its danger?
Worst of all, from the idlest, and most corrupt, and most worthless set of boys at this same private school, who surround the newcomer within a few days, perhaps a few hours, of his first joining, and, with knowing looks and enticing words, try to probe his childish knowledge, and leave him half-ashamed of himself and keenly inquisitive for full initiation, if he finds that he knows nothing of this engrossing mystery?
Is it right, is it fair, is it consistent with religious duty or with common-sense, that a little boy of eight, or ten, or twelve, should be sent at this impressionable age to hear for the first time of facts of human nature which must ere long be known, and are part of God's appointment?
Does not every dictate of humanity and of reason point to the conclusion that the dawn of this knowledge should be invested with all that is tender, and loving, and pure, and sacred, instead of being shrouded in the mists of innuendo or blazoned forth in the shamelessness of bestiality?
There is really no answer but one to such a question, and the plain truth is that fathers, perhaps still more mothers, must recognize the duty which lies upon them to teach their children, at such times, in such words, and with such reservations as the character of each child may suggest, the elements at least of that knowledge which will otherwise be learnt but a very little later from a widely different set of instructors.

I lay down the principle as admitting of no exception--I do not anticipate even one dissentient voice from any who now hear me--_that no boy ought ever to be allowed to go to school without learning from his father or his mother, or from some brother or tried friend considerably older than himself the simple facts as to the laws of birth and the terrible danger of ever coming to talk of these phenomena as matters of frivolous and filthy conversation_." I can only beseech you to give due weight to these words of one who had many years' experience of a large public school.