Adolescence

Excerpt: 'This lecture was read to Oxford University Extension Students, in the Sheldonian Theatre, in August, 1917. The general subject of the lectures and classes was “The Near Future: problems of construction and reconstruction. The Master of University College, who presided over the meeting, pointed out that I had said nothing of the help which is given to young men by their sisters. He spoke of the legions of young men who “keep straight because they keep in mind what their sisters are to them. I ought to have said something of this influence of home-life. And I ought, perhaps, to have defined with more exactness the very words which I would use, if it were my duty to attempt a boy’s “sex-education—we could hardly find an uglier title for it. But I was afraid to say more than I did say. The great thing is, that the parent, or it may be the teacher, should be able to tell the child, “Do come to me, right away, whenever you are puzzled or shocked at anything that you read, or hear, or notice: and I will tell you, as well as I can, all that you need to know about it. And the greatest thing of all is careful self-preparation. To answer a child with evasive or lying nonsense is to offend the child: and we have it on good authority that we deserve for that offence the millstone round our necks, and the depth of the sea.'