To handle this very serious and very difficult problem it is necessary that all mothers of high-school boys and girls organize and cooperate with principals and teachers.  The task is gigantic, for the customs and suggestions which are responsible for present-day conditions are many and permeate our magazines, books, moving pictures, dances, and nearly all social gatherings.

Many superintendents, teachers, and parents have been very seriously studying these social and moral problems and making plans to start reforms at once in the public schools.  The most practical method thus far presented appears to be the requirement of uniform dress for all girls in the upper grades and in high school.  This custom is already established in some of our best private schools.  Uniform dress has a very democratic training which commends it.  It is less expensive than the present varied styles.  It is practical, for it avoids discrimination which would lead to many private difficulties.

The girl has now reached the time when her bits of knowledge of sex matters, gained gradually since the first stirrings of curiosity in her little girlhood, should be gathered, summarized, and given practical application to the mature life she will soon enter upon.

Thoughtful investigation does not lead to the conclusion that girls need especially a detailed physiological presentation of the subject so much as a study of the psychological aspects of the sex life.  Personal purity is primarily a matter of mind.

Girls who all their lives have been familiar with the mystery of birth, who at puberty have been instructed in the delicacy of the sexual organs and processes and in the care they must exercise to bring them to normal development, are now ready to be taught the vital necessity of subordinating the animal to the spiritual in the sex life.

It may seem unwise and unnecessary to put before young girls so dark and distressing a subject as the social evil.  Yet I know of no way to combat this evil without teaching all girls what must be avoided.  When girls realize that the social evil

  1.  Rests upon a foundation of purely unrestrained animal
     instinct;

  2.  That a single sexual misstep has ruined thousands upon
     thousands of girls’ lives;

  3.  That ignorance or the one misstep has led thousands to a
     permanent life of shame;

  4.  That such a life means, sooner or later, sorrow, impaired or
     destroyed health, disgrace, and early death to its woman
     victims;

  5.  That the social evil destroys the efficiency and the moral
     worth of men;

  6.  That it sets free deadly disease germs to permeate society,
     causing untold misery among the innocent,

then, and not until then, can they be taught

  1.  To recognize and fear animal instinct unrestrained by higher
     motive;