"Flirting is not confined to young men and women. The contagion extends to little boys and girls, whose heads ought to be as empty of all thoughts of sexual relations as the vacuum of an air-pump of air. The intimate association of young boys and girls in our common schools, and, indeed, in the majority of educational institutions, gives abundant opportunity for the fostering of this kind of a spirit, so prejudicial to healthful mental and moral development. Every educator who is alive to the objects and interests of his profession knows too well the baneful influence of these premature and pernicious tendencies. Many times has the teacher watched with a sad heart and withering of all his hopes for the intellectual progress of a naturally gifted scholar by this blighting influence. The most dangerous period for boys and girls exposed to temptations of this sort is just following puberty, or between the ages of twelve and eighteen or twenty. This period, a prominent educator in one of our Western States once denominated, not inappropriately, “the agonizing period of human puppyhood.” If this critical period is once safely passed, the individual is comparatively safe; but how many fail to pass through the ordeal unseared! The most painful phase of this subject is the tacit-even, in many cases, active-encouragement which too many parents give their children in this very direction, seemingly in utter ignorance of the enormity of the evil which they are winking at or fostering Parents need enlightenment on this subject, and need to be aroused to the fact that it is one of the most momentous questions that can arise in the rearing and training of children."