child has such perfect trust, will it accept as true what it is told, and not suspect that, as has so often been the case, it is being put off with hypocritical phrases--for children recognise the hypocritical character of much of what they are told about sexual matters at an age far earlier than most elders are willing to believe. But another reason why the person who undertakes the enlightenment must be one who has the child's fullest confidence, is that in that case only can the child be expected to be absolutely straightforward. A very frequent mistake in dealing with children is to mistrust them needlessly. Let us suppose that a child has been discovered to masturbate, and that it is spoken to very earnestly in order to break it off the habit. I have known cases in which, although everything pointed to the fact that the child had abandoned its bad habit, yet, when it denied masturbating any longer, it was accused of lying. A child will naturally never give its confidence again to one who has once unjustly reproached it in this manner. On the other hand, a child is far more likely to acknowledge its faults to one in whom it has perfect confidence. The child's confidence can be gained only by an individual confidant. In the presence of such a confidant, a child loses all sense of false shame, and this is an indispensable precondition for effecting a really valuable enlightenment. Where no individual is forthcoming who fulfils the requirements just specified, it is usually better to dispense with the enlightenment; and above all, in this matter, a mechanical routine must be avoided. I will now briefly report a case in which a younger brother made a confidant of his elder brother, and will show how unwise it would be to lay down any general rule as to who is the person best fitted to undertake the sexual enlightenment of a child. CASE 18.--One day a student of medicine came to me to ask my advice about his younger brother, a lad of thirteen. This latter, an intelligent boy, was attending the upper third class of the higher school. The boy confessed to his brother that he masturbated to excess, and that he found that scenes of cruelty especially aroused sexual stimulation. I asked the student to bring his young brother to see me, and the latter made on me a very favourable impression, especially in the matter of his frankness. He spoke to me quite openly, and attended most carefully to all my advice. I explained to him truthfully that his future was endangered, not only by the masturbation, but also by the perverse ideas; I told him that the danger of a combination of masturbation with perverse ideas was especially serious; and I assured him that he was still at an age when it remained possible for him to develop into a normal man. Some years later, I saw the young man once more. His subsequent development had been excellent, and he was almost free from perverse sexual sensibility.