“Some day? At once! How can you think her too young? She has already undergone the vital change from childhood to womanhood, and without so much as a word of warning or reassurance or explanation as to what it means.” “Not quite without,” put in Grandma Sharpless quietly. “Good!” approved the Health Master. “But be sure that the explanation is thorough. Tell her the significance of sex and its relation to reproduction and life. If you don’t, be sure that others will. And their version may well be in terms which would make a mother shudder to hear.” “Who would tell her?” asked Mrs. Clyde. “Her playmates. Do you think that girls don’t talk of the mysteries as much as boys? If so, you’re sadly in error. The first essential is that she should understand truly and wisely what it means to be a woman. That is fundamental. And now for the matter of venereal disease. I am going to lay certain facts before you all, and you can hand on to the children such modifications as you deem best. “First, gonorrhoea, because it is the worse of the two. That is not the accepted notion, I know: but the leading specialists one by one have come around to the view, that, by and large, it does more damage to humanity than the more greatly dreaded syphilis. For one thing, it is much more widespread. While there are no accurate statistics covering the field in general, it is fairly certain that forty per cent of all men over thirty-five in our larger cities have had the disease at some time.” “That doesn’t seem possible,” broke in Mr. Clyde. “Not to you, because you married early, and your associations have been largely with family, home-loving men. But ask any one of the traveling salesmen in your factory his view. Your traveling man is the Ulysses of modern life, ‘knowing cities and the hearts of men.’ I think that you’ll find that compared with the ‘commercial’ view, my forty per cent is optimistic.” “But it is easily curable, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Clyde, insensibly yielding to the Health Master’s matter-of-fact tone, and finding, almost insensibly, that her interest in the hygienic problem had overcome her shamed reluctance to speak of it. “Often in the early stages. But it is very uncertain. And once firmly fixed on the victim, it is one of the most obstinate and treacherous of diseases. It may lie dormant for months or even years, deceiving its victim into thinking himself wholly cured, only to break out again in full conflagration, without warning.