Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) WHAT EVERY MOTHER SHOULD KNOW MARGARET H. SANGER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT EVERY MOTHER SHOULD KNOW OR HOW SIX LITTLE CHILDREN WERE TAUGHT THE TRUTH BY MARGARET H. SANGER THE RABELAIS PRESS 27–29 New Bowery, New York 1914 [Illustration: 44R _Pinski-Massel Press_ ] _To Stuart, my first born, whose first heart throb led me into the joyous complexities of motherhood._ Dedicated January, 1911. PREFACE. The following articles were put into story form for the mother so as to enable her to make the truth and facts just as interesting to a child’s imagination as possible. The idea is that the child be taught the process of reproduction and absorb such knowledge without realizing he has received any “sex” instruction. M. H. S. CONTENTS PREFACE. INTRODUCTION. Chapter I. Mr. and Mrs. Buttercup, Their Home and Families. Chapter II. The Flowers. Chapter III. The Toads and Frogs. Chapter IV. The Birds and Their Families. Chapter V. The Birds and Their Families. Chapter VI. The Mammals and Their Children. Chapter VII. Man’s Development. Chapter VIII. Conclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION. There is scarcely any subject which is of greater importance or of greater interest to parents than this subject of teaching children the truth about life and birth. Every parent knows that at one day their little boy or girl will have matured into the possessor of the powers of procreation, yet they fail to teach the child how to care for, or how to regard these powers they possess. Biologically speaking, these creative powers are the most important functions of the body, but they are the only functions of the human body which are utterly ignored by both parents and teachers. In order to perpetuate the species, nature has endowed all animals with sexual instinct, and man is the only animal who is ashamed of this instinct. Man is the only animal who voluntarily limits his offspring, though he continues in his sexual relation. Man, and man alone, is the only animal who is subject to disease directly inimical to the integrity of the organs of reproduction.