An invaluable provision for the education of the principle of sex, exists in the companionship of brothers and sisters. This companionship, established by Nature, should be carefully promoted, not thwarted. It is one of those provisions which make family life the type of wider relationships, the true germ of society from which national purity and strength should grow. Indeed, the more we study the capabilities of the family in each of its varied aspects, the more potent we perceive its influence to be, the greater the national importance of maintaining the family in its proper power and dignity. This natural grouping of boys and girls is Nature’s indication of the right method of education, and the time will undoubtedly come when the present monastic system of general education may be given up without incurring grave disadvantages. That the familiar intercourse of boys and girls in the kindly presence of their elders is of very great advantage is an observation based upon wide experience. Isolation, mystery, obstacles, produce craving curiosity, excitement--in fact, morbid stimulus--instead of matter-of-fact acquaintance and natural familiarity. Two opposite extremes tend to produce the precocity and morbid condition of sentiment which now prevail--viz., either throwing youth into the companionship of the vicious or rigidly separating the sexes. Each extreme is against Nature, each is injurious to the individual. The former practice is based upon the theory that sex is an uncontrollable instinct which must run riot. The latter practice proceeds from the theory that sex is a great evil, a temptation of the devil, and as far as possible to be destroyed. The true principle, however, consists in a recognition of the nobility of sex, and the necessity--1st, of its slow development; 2nd, of its honourable satisfaction.