the great amount of pollen produced. Being blown by the wind or carried
by insects, much of it is wasted, consequently there must be ample
allowance made for this waste. So the flowers produce thousands of
pollen grains which they can never use themselves.
VIII
WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM THE LIFE OF THE FISH
Whatever is universal is good.
Whatever is universal is true.
Whatever is universal is beautiful.
Nothing disperses, so to speak, the fogs enveloping the thought of sex
like the realization of its universality. The air clears when we know
that every living thing is bound by the same laws, even the flowers in
our gardens.
We have an interesting testimony as to the helpfulness of this thought
from one of the great educators of youth, Froebel. Speaking of his own
childhood when he became conscious of what his father, who was a
minister, was constantly meeting in his parish work, he says:
"Matrimonial and family relations were often the subject of his
admonitory and corrective conversation and remonstrances. The way
in which my father spoke of this, made me consider the subject as
one of the most pressing and difficult for man, and in my youth and
innocence, I felt deep grief and pain that man alone among created
things should pay the penalty of such a sexual difference that made
it hard for him to do right.... Just then my oldest brother, who
lived away from home, came back for a time, and when I told him my
delight in the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me notice
a similar sexual difference among flowers.
"Now my mind was satisfied. I learned that what had troubled me was
a widespread arrangement throughout nature to which even the quiet,
beautiful growths of flowers were subject. Henceforth human and
natural life, soul and flower existence, were inseparable in my
eyes, and my hazel blossoms I see still, like angels that opened to
me the great temple of nature.... Henceforth it seemed as if I had
the clue of Ariadne, which would lead me through all the wrong and
devious ways of life; and a life of more than thirty years with
nature, often, it is true, falling back and clouded for great
intervals, has taught me to know this, especially the plant and
tree world, as a mirror--I might say, an emblem--of man's life in
its highest spiritual relations; so that I look upon it as one of
the greatest and deepest conceptions of human life and spirit when
in holy Scripture the comparison of good and evil is drawn from a
tree. Nature, as a whole,--even the realms of crystals and
stones,--teaches us to discriminate good from evil; but, for me,
not so powerfully, quietly, clearly, and openly as the plant and
flower kingdom."
The stronger this feeling of the universality of sex, the more
dispersive, as it were, is the thought of the subject. It would be
difficult to connect personal and impure thoughts or feelings with a
star whose distance in space was realized; and so with all other
thoughts, the more they can be elevated into wide, general regions, the
less disturbing they will be likely to become.
All the facts of sex-life can be learned in the flower, and the
associations thus indelibly impressed cannot fail to leave at least a
trace of fragrance and loveliness on even an obtuse nature. No matter
what the later experiences or mistakes may be, the whole conception of
this side of life cannot sink so low as might be the case if there were
not this flower-sweet background. And that is worth something.
It is not difficult to pass at once from the flower life to human life,
and there are cases where this may be advisable. When, however, the
beginning-work has been done with young children, and when we consider
all the stress laid upon nature-work these days in school and out, and
all the books written and all the stories told of living creatures of
all kinds, it is helpful and easy to linger in the delightful and
impersonal realm of the lower life yet longer, with this distinct
advantage, that the _feeling_ of universality, which is very different
from the _thought_ of it, will be strengthened.
For several reasons, the step from plant life to animal life can well be
taken by means of the fish, particularly with little children. There is
nothing prettier than living fishes in water. The fascination they have
for all conditions and ages is shown by the crowds always seen at
exhibitions of live fish in aquaria.
The child can have his little aquarium at home, which may consist of a
glass globe plentifully supplied with some pretty water weed and a
goldfish or two. Fishes do not like the bright light all around them,
and should be provided with some sort of refuge, like the water weed,
or if the tank is large enough, with stones piled up to make a cave. For
the same reason, the globe should not be set in the window or on the
middle of a small table, but should be placed where at least one side of
it may be shadowed by something. Pebbles should be put in the bottom of
the tank and not too many fishes crowded together. They need room to
move freely, and also plenty of fresh water for breathing. At the
bird-stores small aquaria can usually be bought and fitted out with the
proper amount of water plants to balance the breathing of the fishes.
For the impurity breathed out by the fish is the same as that breathed
out by all creatures, the carbon dioxide which it discharges into the
water being just what the water plant needs to grow on. Also the water
plant returns pure oxygen to the water, which is just what the fish
needs to breathe. This story of the interdependence of the two, and the
possibility of so balancing the plant and animal life in the tank that
it is never necessary to change the water, can be made very
interesting, and, needless to say, very illuminating. The fish cannot
live out of the water, and yet it breathes air. There is always air in
the water unless it has been artificially removed as by boiling, and
this little bit of air is enough for the fish, which is cold-blooded and
does not need so much fuel to keep its vital forces burning. But this
little it must have, and it will suffer for the want of it, just as we
suffer in a very close, unventilated room; and if the supply should
become too small, the fish will die, just as we should die in a room
where no fresh air could enter. So the fish must have the water changed
unless there is enough plant life in its tank to keep the air pure. When
suffering for air, the fish shows signs of distress, which should never
be ignored. If it keeps close to the surface of the water with its mouth
up and frequently swallows the outside air, that is a sign it needs
fresh water. If it does not have it after a while it will die, as it
cannot live on air undiluted by water.
Fishes need very little feeding, particularly if there are water plants
in the tank; they find food from them. The best way is to follow the
directions of the man who sells you the fishes. If too much food is
given them it quickly fouls the aquarium, and then the water must be
changed and everything cleaned up. In changing the water, care should be
taken to have that which is put in about the same temperature as that
taken out. A sudden application of too cold water is not good for the
fishes. The children should take care of their pets themselves and see
that they do not suffer.
The motions of the fish are what make it so attractive. How does it
swim? Not with its fins to any extent. The whole back part of the body,
including the tail, is moved from side to side as the fish swims. It
moves its tail as a paddle is used at the stern of a boat, and so the
fish paddles himself along. The fins are used more as balancers. They
keep the fish upright in the water. As soon as it stops using them, it
turns over on one side.
The fish opens and shuts its mouth constantly; it appears to be
swallowing water. And so it is, so far as its mouth is concerned, but
the water it takes in does not go down into the stomach. It is not
really swallowed, but passes out at the gills, which are also constantly
opening and shutting. The gills are red inside and are covered with a
fine network of blood vessels. The air in the water moves against these
delicate blood vessels, which are able to take what they need--the
oxygen--from it. Thus the fish uses gills instead of lungs for
breathing.
Sometimes, fishes pick up pebbles in their mouths and drop them again.
Some fishes, but not goldfishes, make noises.
The adaptation of the fish to its surroundings is interesting. Not only
is its form the very best for moving quickly through the water, but its
covering is peculiarly appropriate, many fishes having a hard,
protecting coat of shining scales. These scales, besides being beautiful
and useful, are interesting in another way, for we know that they are
only modified hairs, growing from the skin as hairs grow but having
their form and size developed in special ways to serve their purpose.
Scales and feathers are only another form of hairs.
Many interesting stories of fishes can be told or read to the children,
and among other things they can learn about the swim-bladder, the large,
strong air-sac, which can be compressed or distended at pleasure, making
the fish lighter or heavier and enabling it to rise to the surface of
the water or sink to the bottom. In Nova Scotia, where many codfishes
are caught, the swim-bladders are called sounds, and are cooked as a
delicacy.
In the spring of the year we eat the roe of fish, which is nothing more
nor less than fish eggs. Wherever shad are used, the children will be
familiar with the shad roe; and in the South mullet roes are universally
used. The people there dry them in the sun, and the children
particularly are very fond of them. The Russian caviare is the eggs of a
species of fish, and is considered a great delicacy by some people.
Where do these eggs come from? The fish market or the kitchen on fish
day will answer the question. The child who is privileged to pass part
of the summer at the seashore where fishermen ply their trade will have
ample opportunity to know, as will the child who goes fishing in any
brook or pond and is allowed (as he always should be) to clean and cook
the fish he has caught. Also the smelts, which are cooked whole, only
the intestines being removed through a hole near the gills, will answer
the question.
[Illustration: THE OVARY OF A FISH]
The eggs of the fish are contained in a sort of double pouch or sac,
shaped something like an old-fashioned silk purse. These sacs open into
the intestine near its exit. They are the ovaries of the fish. From the
inside of each ovary the tiny eggs, or ova, grow, just as the ovules
grow in the plant ovary or seed-pod. At first they are a part of the
ovary; later they grow larger and fall loose, until the ovary is filled
with them. The ovary is always inside the fish. It is there when the
fish is born, and even then there are the tiniest hints of ova in it.
But the ova do not grow large until the fish is mature; they wait until
the fish has developed its strength, its bone, and muscle. Then in the
springtime they grow rapidly. They grow until they are ripe, when they
lie free in the ovary; and others grow and are freed in the same way
until the ovary, which has also enlarged to accommodate them, is quite
full. The female fish is larger than the male, and looks plump and
rounded at this season. In course of time the eggs thus developed will
be shed--or born--whether they are fertilized or not. But, if they are
not fertilized, no further growth will take place in them, and they will
soon perish.
The child, knowing about the fertilization of flowers, can easily be led
to see that the fish ova, like the flower ovules, cannot develop without
pollen. The anthers containing the pollen are found in the male fish,
and look like the ovaries, only they are not so large and their contents
are not so firm. They seem filled with a formless substance instead of
with little globular eggs. Under the microscope this formless substance
is seen to be made of a semi-fluid material in which are held millions
of pollen grains! Only we no longer call them pollen grains. We may call
them fertilizing cells if we please, though there are several names for
them. But they are essentially the same as pollen. They grow, in the
same way, from the inside of the anther (which may now be called the
testicle) and become free when ripe. The pollen grains cannot move of
themselves; the fertilizing cells can. Each fertilizing cell is like an
ovum, excepting that it is not so spherical and is lengthened into a
sort of lash by which it can propel itself through the water. When the
ova are laid by one fish, the other swims over them and the fertilizing
fluid is expelled into the water just as the eggs were. There is no
union whatever between the parents for the purpose of fertilization. As
soon as a fertilizing cell comes in contact with an ovum it seeks to
enter into its substance, and as soon as this has happened, the two
cells thus united begin to develop into a very tiny fish. As soon as the
change begins, we have the _embryo_ of the fish, which thus corresponds
to the embryo of the seed.
There is one great difference between the ovary of the plant and that of
the fish. When the plant ovary is ripe, its seeds are shed, and then the
ovary itself falls off. The plant ovary thus bears only one set of
seeds. In the fish, the ovary always remains in the fish, and after the
eggs are shed, it shrinks up to a very small size, and remains so until
it again develops and becomes distended with more eggs the following
season. The same is true of the fish's testicles. When the time comes,
the fertilizing material is expelled. After this the sac shrinks up to
small size until the following season.
When the embryo has grown to its perfect form, the egg-shell is broken
and out swims the young fish. When it leaves the shell we say it
hatches, just as we say the plant embryo sprouts when it leaves the
egg-shell or seed-shell. Like the pollen of the flower, the fertilizing
cells of the fish cannot act upon any ova but those of its own species.
The young fish, like the young plant, inherits characteristics from both
parents. From its father it may acquire a certain shape, certain
markings, a certain disposition. Since the father's part in the creation
of his offspring is less obvious and apparently less intimate than that
of the mother, the child can be helped to put a certain value on the
thought of fatherhood which later will strengthen the bond of union
between himself and his own father, deepening his love for his father
and his confidence in him. That the boy love his father is as necessary
to his welfare as that he love his mother, and the mother should, in all
the early years in which the sex instruction may fall most heavily on
her, impress upon the young heart the beauty and glory of paternity.
The sacrifice of the father who gives all his strength and time, scarce
allowing himself a moment of relaxation or absence from business that he
may provide for the needs of the family, is as great as the sacrifice of
the mother who devotes her time and strength to caring for the home and
the children. The tendency in teaching young people is to lay all the
stress on motherhood and mother love, which is a manifest injustice to
the human father, who deserves not only the natural love of his
children, but the deeper, more consecrated love which comes from a pure
and perfect knowledge of fatherhood.
Perhaps nothing will help a young man at the most critical age of his
life so much as his love and faith in his father. And perhaps nothing
will tend to lift the whole subject of paternity in the popular mind to
the plane where it belongs, as will this love and knowledge, when it is
bred in the child from his early years. Many difficulties in handling
this subject that become insuperable might never even exist if the
knowledge of fatherhood, if love and respect for it and for the father
as the giver of life, were bred into the boy at an early age. Moreover a
certain shyness, which often makes it more difficult for fathers to talk
to their sons on these matters than for the mothers to do so, would not
have existed if they themselves as children and youth had been educated
to a complete knowledge of the sex-life by one or both parents. The
cause of this shyness is in many cases ignorance of how to present the
facts, and a misconception of the difficulties of speaking to a
pure-minded child about them. Nothing surprises the parent more than the
way difficulties vanish when once the course of instruction to the youth
has been entered upon.
In the lower life the father seldom cares for his offspring; and this is
true among the fishes, where neither parent as a rule assumes any other
responsibility than properly disposing of and fertilizing the eggs.
Where, however, any care is taken, it not infrequently devolves upon the
father instead of the mother. This is true of the fresh-water black
bass and of the stickleback, where the father protects the eggs until
they are hatched, and protects and cares for the young fish. In the case
of the stickleback, the father even makes a nest to contain the eggs.
Thus far, the process of the renewal of life is, so to speak,
impersonal. The eggs are laid by one fish and fertilized by the other,
this being necessary to the development of the young. The parents are
endowed with an instinct which informs them when the time is at hand;
and the male fish guided by this instinct applies the fertilizing
material where it is needed,--that is, over the surface of the
fresh-laid eggs. The number of eggs laid by fishes should be noticed, as
it is a fact which will be useful later. Several millions of eggs have
been counted in the ovaries of one fish. The number of fertilizing cells
in one testicle would be incalculable. Fish eggs and young fishes are
liable to many fatalities; they are destroyed in immense numbers.
Consequently, if the race is to survive, there must be an almost
inexhaustible supply.
Fishes kept in confinement will not as a rule multiply. Nothing is so
sensitive as the reproductive system. Lacking certain stimuli which it
finds in its natural surroundings, it will not become active. The
goldfish in the globe will, if a female, have the ovary containing
undeveloped ova, the male will have the testicles containing the
fertilizing cells, but these will not mature. It is as though the whole
system of the fish missed the freedom of space, the changes of season,
the variety of substances at the bottom of the water,--all that goes to
make "home" for it, and so languished in body as well as spirits.
The child who, in connection with a multitude of other interesting facts
concerning fish life, learns those concerning its multiplication, will
look upon them as perfectly natural and matter-of-fact.
But, some one objects, will not the child at this point guess the whole
truth? Suppose he does? Is not that just what we want him to do? Is it
not a sign that he has a good reasoning mind? He may arrive at the right
general conclusion, but he has a conception that is very general,
vague, not at all personal, and entirely lacking in any material for
malodorous thoughts and feelings. By constantly turning his thoughts to
the wonders and truths of heredity and to the marvel of the development
of living things from such insignificant yet momentous beginnings, and
by telling him interesting facts of animals and plants along these
lines, his thought can be kept general and on a high plane. Where
details are demanded, the parent ought to be thankful that these are
presented to him for elucidation instead of to some incapable outsider,
and he can meet the demand according to circumstances,--all of which
will be discussed more fully presently.
If the parent keeps ever in mind the fact that the child _must know_
some time, and ought to gain a high conception of the subject before
being exposed to degrading influences, if he asks himself in all
honesty, "Unless I answer this, who will? and how?" he will be helped to
do what in his own heart he knows to be his duty.
Moreover, there is a great gain to many a child in learning the main
facts at an age where they do not appeal powerfully to his imagination
nor move his senses. Later, when any reference to the subject may have
this effect, and when there is enough to understand and meet without
going back to the rudiments, it will be much less difficult to give the
needed aid with this background, which causes the child to feel that he
has "always known." To have always known a thing robs it of any great
special interest. We pay no attention to the sun that shines upon us,
but if this were a phenomenon of very rare occurrence we should be
thrilled by it and aroused to curiosity and special observation and
interest.
The child's knowledge of the sexuality of nature should be as much a
matter of fact as any other knowledge, and the mystery of it should be
presented to him as a sublime and beautiful mystery, creating an
impression he cannot wholly escape from when he finds himself caught in
the vortex of his own adulthood.
IX
AMPHIBIOUS LIFE
To the parents who desire to lead the child's mind through a long
sequence of thought from the lower to the higher life, the amphibian
affords an easy step in this ascending scale. And among amphibians that
familiar and picturesque harbinger of spring, the frog, and his cousin
the friendly toad, are the best adapted.
Children are always interested in frogs because they jump so well. This
suggests a starting-point for making their closer acquaintance. Why do
they jump so well? It is because of their long hind legs. A little
watching of either frog or toad will show exactly how the legs are used
and wherein they differ from, and also resemble, the child's own legs.
The little hands of the frog and toad, their way of sitting, leaning on
their short arms, their eagerness to snap up a tempting fly, the queer
tongue fastened the other way round from ours, and its lightning-like
speed which is a result of this same position in the mouth,--a hundred
interesting things can be learned about the toads and frogs.
Toads are very easily tamed, and make most amusing as well as useful
pets if there is a garden to be protected from marauding insects. They
generally have a hole or corner to which they come home regularly at
night, and with a little patience can be so tamed that they will take
food, of living insect or even of scraps of meat, from the child's hand.
Their power to gormandize seems unlimited, and the number of insects
they can swallow without protest is almost incredible. They will keep a
small garden quite free from slugs and other pests. They have no bad
habits, do not bark at night, or chase cats, or bite, or steal, or
insist upon coming into the house, or scratch up the flower-beds. Some
accuse them of causing warts, but this is not true. When handled, they
sometimes give forth an acrid liquid from the skin, which stings the
mouths of tormenting dogs and smears meddling fingers. But this, though
unpleasant, does no harm. Many people have handled toads freely and
never had a wart; many others who have never touched a toad have had
many warts.
The toad may be ugly to look at, but that is not his fault. To many, he
is more comical than ugly, and no creature has more beautiful eyes than
this same homely toad. He is one of the most useful of animals, and
should never be killed or ill treated.
The frog is less familiar to us than the toad, living as he does in the
water or in wet places. Boys often take delight in killing him, having
theories of the terrible influence he exercises in the affairs of man.
He is as harmless as the toad and of value in keeping down insect pests,
since these are also his food.
In the spring of the year, the frogs and toads will be heard chirping,
the frog in particular sometimes filling the night with his din. The
earliest of these voices comes from the smaller green frogs, or
"peepers," as they are often called because of the peeping noise they
make. The deep bass croak comes from the large bull-frog, so named from
his size and not from his sex, for there are female bull-frogs. When the
frogs begin to peep, the children will enjoy making an excursion in
quest of frogs' eggs. These will be found in any pond where the voice of
the frog is heard, and can be taken with a long-handled dipper or by
wading,--the latter practice to be cautiously indulged in northern
latitudes at this time of year, as the water may yet be very cold.