Here is where parents err, and seriously. The teaching has been deferred too long. The young of either sex, long before puberty, have acquired some knowledge of the mystery--which should have been no mystery at all--and late teaching, however sound and wise, but gives an added and inviting direction to the subject suddenly made to assume a new and startling importance. It arouses curiosity, and more. It may sometimes be harmful. As for the youth never taught at all, those who acquire their knowledge only through accidental sources--usually incapable, and too often vicious--their case could not be worse. They are unprepared for one of the tests and demands for life. Their parents are guilty. There is nothing impure in nature. To guard the children, to prepare them for every phase of life, is the parents' duty. The child is pure, and to the child all things are pure. Teach the child, simply as a matter of course, all about the ways of reproduction, and to the boy or girl purity will remain when the age of sexual sway and impulse comes. This is the only law in the case. Let it be followed, and the generation to follow will be clearer, wiser, and healthier than is the present one. It is my hope that this "Every Girl's Book" (with "Every Boy's Book" which preceded it) will afford the means so long needed and desired for teaching children what they should be taught. I have tried to tell the story of sex naturally, in a clear and simple way, from the development of life, and of life's relations, from protoplasm all through organic life up to mankind. Its teachings should result in wide promotion of the innocence of knowledge which is better, infinitely, than the imperiling innocence of ignorance. George F. Butler, M. D. Chicago, Ill. July 1, 1912. I HOW THE STORY BEGAN Her name was Elsie and she was asleep in a cozy nook in the woods, which was the beginning of it all. Many strange things may happen to a little girl who falls asleep in the woods, but there never happened to any other little girl, either asleep or awake, in the woods or at home, a more important thing than that which had its start for Elsie while she lay there under the green boughs beside a bubbling spring of crystal-clear water, the scent of pines and flowers sweetening the still air. A robin redbreast whistled melodiously for "rain, rain, rain," and the cows in the pasture, who do not like rain as well as they do sunshine, lifted up their voices in protest, calling "oo-oo-ohh! moo-oo-hh! noo-oo-hh!" as if they were trying to say "no, no, no!" and could not speak the English language well. It was a peaceful woodland scene, a scene into which, if you were awake, you would expect that a railroad train would be about the last thing that could possibly enter.