This truth has been disliked so much that in practice it has been disregarded. The wrong is started early and is continued throughout the sexual life. The real controlling force in the education of the girl is the mother; and motherhood has failed. Girls, with an almost criminal neglect, have been left without any wise preparation for the first menstruation, upon the regular establishment of which function their health in the future must depend. Many girls, being seriously frightened or stirred to rebellion and anger, have done foolish actions, and through neglected hygiene evil is begun that never can be undone. This is no over-statement. The first few menstruations have a far greater influence not only on the body, but also on the brain and the soul of a girl than do those that follow later when the sexual health is better established. Every mother and teacher ought to know and heed this. At best, and even when instructed by their mothers, girls have been taught to regard this function as a troublesome illness that must be suffered with patience; such a view, of course, being a relic of the supposed curse laid upon the woman’s sex. Nor can it be said that even to-day there is any improvement when quite different ideals prevail regarding woman’s place and her vocation. For the new emancipation has brought with it a false view that girls should be educated in the same way as boys, and should be brought up in the pretence that it is right and possible for them to work and play at all times like boys and to be as independent of their sexual life as boys can afford to be. Now, it does not need much imagination to understand the harm of such teaching. The menstrual function—which really marks the sex of the girl and fits her for motherhood—is ignored as if its occurrence were of no importance. And such an attitude of dislike and hiding necessarily causes a feeling of shame, more or less deep according to the temperament of the girl. From the very first sex is presented in the shape of something to be despised and desperately fought against, something secret and disgusting. Even at this early stage disharmony enters into the young and sensitive soul. Some girls revolt in the very depths of their being, while the common feelings aroused are expressed by such words as aversion and dislike, anger and shame. Do you not see now the harm that is done? How sadly we are sowing for the future. For what can be the result except to teach our girls a shameful disrespect for themselves. What wonder is there that many girls are stirred to rebellion which takes the outward form of resolutely ignoring their monthly periods, and the fact that they are girls. And the immediate result is a general lowering in the standard of sexual health.