1913

I really do not know in which of these purposes to look for the motive for the concealment of what is sexual from children that is in fact carried out. I only know that they are all equally absurd and that I find it difficult to honour them with a serious refutation. I remember, however, that in the family letters of that great thinker and humanitarian Multatuli, I once found a few lines which are a more than adequate answer:

‘To my mind, certain things are in general too much wrapped in a veil. It is right to keep a child’s imagination pure, but this purity will not be preserved by ignorance. On the contrary, I think that concealment leads a boy or girl to suspect the truth more than ever. Curiosity leads us to pry into things which, if they had been told us without any great to do, would have aroused little or no interest in us. If this ignorance could be maintained even, I might become reconciled to it, but that is impossible. The child comes into contact with other children, books come his way which lead him to reflect, and the mystery-making with which his parents treat what he has nevertheless discovered actually increases his desire to know more. This desire, which is only partly satisfied and only in secret, excites his feeling and corrupts his imagination, so that the child already sins while his parents still believe that he does not know what sin is.’¹

¹ Multatuli, 1906, 1, 26.