BUREAU OF CONTINUING RE-EDUCATION |
| DIRECTOR Dolores Paine |
ABOUT
It may, perhaps, be said, that this work is better calculated for adults than for young boys. This is true : and is according to my intention. I am convinced that the most important thing to be accomplished in relation to this matter, is, in the first place, to open the eyes of adults, and especially of parents, guardians and teachers, to all that is true and real concerning it. It may then be found expedient and desirable that a work should be produced on the subject, more peculiarly adapted to young minds. I am however inclined to think, that oral instructions from parents, guardians, and others having the care of youth, adapted to the age, intelligence and circumstances of those instructed, will always be found preferable to books, in the first presentations of this subject to the youthful mind. As it is generally known that I have frequently given Lectures exclusively to females, and particularly to Mothers, and as many erroneous impressions, and many misrepresentations have gone abroad concerning those Lectures, it is proper that I should take this opportunity to state, that I have never given them, but at the particular request of the ladies themselves: nor, in any of those Lectures, have I ever made even an allusion to sexual intercourse—nor to any other subject which may not properly be listened to by the most delicate and refined lady. So far as my own feelings are concerned, I should very greatly prefer to have the husband of each lady present; for I am confident that every virtuous husband and father in the world would highly approve of all I say; and it would be far less embarrassing and painful to me, to address an audience of husbands and wives, than of females only. The exclusion, therefore, of all males from those Lectures, is not a measure of my own ; but of the ladies who attend them. And certainly, when ladies can justly place a proper degree of confidence in the Lecturer, there can be no well grounded objection to their attending Lectures on subjects particularly appropriate to females, and especially to mothers.