"True. And a boy is a being who will become a man. But he is not endowed
with the functions of sex until he is about fourteen years old. Then sex
begins to make itself felt in his whole being. He grows taller rapidly;
he gains in breadth; he begins to see the long-looked-for mustache; he
notices the growth of the special organs of sex; he begins to feel more
manly; to enjoy the society of girls as never before; and desires to
treat them with more attention. This is a time when, if he is wrongly
taught, he may fall into great wrong-doing and injure himself, and not
that alone, but those who are to come after him. I have not yet told you
of the great responsibilities that come with this gift of sex."
Dr. Barrett rose and, bringing a book from the shelves, opened it and
showed Carl an illustration, saying; "Did you ever see such a picture as
this?"
[Illustration]
"What are they?" asked he. "They look like pollywogs."
"As much like them as anything. But they are not pollywogs. They have a
bigger sounding name than that. They are called _spermatozoa_, or each
one is a _spermatozoon_. They are so tiny that they are not visible
except with the aid of a microscope, and yet they are alive and very
active. They live and move in a fluid called _semen_, and they are the
living principle contributed by the male to the formation of a new
creature. Each one contains in itself all the particular traits,
characteristics or talents which the father would confer on the child of
which this spermatozoon would form a part. You are like your father in
some things, I suppose."
"Yes, I am like papa in size and in my love for mathematics. He says I
have his quick temper, too."
"That leads me to speak of another fact. You see that you were a part of
your father during his whole life, and you were affected by all that
affected him. You were changed or modified by his habits. If he tried to
curb his quick temper, it has made it easier for you to control
yourself; but if he allowed it full sway, it has made it harder for you.
If he were truthful and honest, it has made it easy for you to be the
same; but if he were wild and dissipated, it would make it easier for
you to yield to the same temptations."
"Was that what he meant when he said he was not surprised that Will Grey
was so bad a boy, for his father was a very wild young man?"
"Yes, that was exactly what he meant."
"If that is so why don't fathers tell their boys about it so that they
can behave better when they are young?"
"That is just what I think they ought to do, but unfortunately people
have thought they must not talk of these things to young folks for fear
it will make them bad instead of good."
"Well, I guess that would depend upon the way they told it. Now they
don't tell it right, but leave the boys to be told in wrong ways, and
that really does lead them to be bad. No one ever talked to me as you
have to-night, and I am sure it makes me want to be better."
[Illustration]
"That ought to be the effect, and I believe it would be if boys were
only 'told right,' as you say. But I have told you only half the story.
Here is another picture. These are called _ova_. One is an _ovum_, and
these are the principle the mother gives to the future child. They are
greatly magnified. It would take 240 of them lying side by side to make
a row an inch long, so we say they are 1/240 of an inch in
diameter, but tiny as they are, each ovum contains all the traits or
talents that the mother gives to the child of which this particular ovum
may form a part. Your mother is English, your father American. Their
childhood and youth were spent thousands of miles apart, and yet both
were working by the habits of their lives to create you in your peculiar
traits and talents. Are you like your parents in any of their
capabilities?"
"Yes, I am like mother in her love for music; you know she is a fine
musician."
"Yes, and in the cultivation of her own musical ability she made it
easier for you to learn music; just as your father, in his study as an
engineer, has given you a love for mathematics."
"But my grandfather and great-grandfather were engineers, and I am going
to be one, too."
"It is true that you inherit from your grandparents, also, but it must
be through your parents, and they may have changed the direction of
the inheritance. This important fact you should know and remember.
You can change yourself by education so that the inheritance of your
children may be quite changed. For example, if you know that you
lack perseverance, you can, by constantly making a mighty effort to
overcome this defect, compel yourself to persevere, and this would
tend to give your children perseverance. So you see we need not
despair because we have inherited faults from our ancestors, but we
should determine all the more that we will not pass these defects on
to later generations."
"I guess that is what Dr. Brice meant when he said that mother's good
care of her health had overcome in us children to a great extent the
tendency to consumption which is in her family. Nearly all my cousins on
her side die with it, but when she was a little girl her father made her
live out of doors all the time and she grew strong, and we none of us
seem to have any tendency to consumption."
"You see then the value of caring for yourself in youth, not only for
your own sake but for that of your children. Your mother did not know
that she would ever have children to be benefitted by her out-door life.
But one day she met a young man who pleased her, and as they grew to
know each other better they came to love each other so that they wished
to leave home and friends and make their own home and live their united
lives separate and apart from all the rest of the world. So they were
married, as we say. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman under
the sanction of the law. This is the closest and most sacred human
relation. In this relation the _spermatozoon_ of the man unites with the
germ or _ovum_ of the woman and a new life is begun. When your parents
knew that such a little life had begun in their home they felt a great
and holy joy, and desired that every good might surround it in its
development. You were the first to come into your father's home. After
your life had begun you were still so small as not to be visible to the
naked eye, and would have been lost had you come into the world. But a
home had been prepared for you in your mother's body, where day by day
you grew and grew. The food which she ate nourished you as well as
herself. The air which she breathed was life to you as well as to her.
"You have seen the father-bird bringing food to the mother-bird as she
sits upon her eggs and waits for the birdlings to come forth, and you
have thought it a pretty sight to watch his tender care of her. Even so
your father watched over your mother and you. He provided everything as
pleasant as possible, he removed every care from her path so that she
might be happy and so make you happy. His love for her took on a new and
strange tenderness it had not known before. And she, holding you warm
and close in the embrace of her body, thought of you and loved you. She
wondered how you would look; she dreamed of you; she fancied she could
feel the touch of your fluttering fingers; she made your little wardrobe
and with each stitch wove in some tender thought of the baby whom she
had never seen. Then one day she cried out with great anguish of body
but joy of heart, 'O my baby is coming.' Then through long hours she
suffered, going down almost to the gates of death that you might have
life. But she never murmured; in spite of all her pain and anguish of
body her very soul was full of rejoicing that soon she would hold you in
her arms. When all those hours of peril and anxiety were past and you
were laid in your mother's arms, your father came and bent over you both
with a measureless love, and looking into your little face they knew
what the Scripture meant when it said, 'And they twain shall be one
flesh,' for were not you a living fulfillment of that saying? You were a
part of each united in a living being who belonged to them both. Then
for the first time could they realize, even dimly, the yearning, tender
love of their heavenly Father who had granted to them to know by
experience his feelings towards his children."
Great tears had gathered in the boy's eyes as she talked, and now with
choking voice he said, "I don't think I can ever be disobedient again,
Dr. Barrett. I did not understand it all as I do now. You know we only
hear these things talked of among the boys, and I had come to feel that
there was some reason why I ought to be ashamed of my father and mother;
but it all looks so different to me now. I wish you could talk to the
other boys as you have to me."
"It may not be possible for me to do so, although I should be glad to do
it, but you can help them to think more truly on these subjects. You can
especially help them to treat women and girls with more respect than
they often do, because you can see how an injury to any girl is an
injury to the whole world."
"I don't quite see that," said Carl.
"You can see that if any one had injured your mother in her girlhood it
would have been an injury to all her children, can you not?"
"O yes."
"And that injury might be passed on to future generations. There lived a
poor girl, about a hundred years ago, who was uncared for by good people
and wronged by evil ones, and to-day she is known as a 'mother of
criminals,' and no one can tell where the mischief will end. You would
feel very indignant if you knew that some one had done your mother an
injury in her girlhood, and you would feel the same way should any one
wrong your sisters."
"I knocked Bill Jones down last week because he said something to my
sister Kate."
"You felt a righteous anger and manifested it. Well, in all probability
you will some day marry. If so, there is in the world to-day the girl
who will be your wife. How do you want her to be treated by the boys who
are her school-companions? Do you like to think that they are rough with
her, or playing at lovering with her? Is it a pleasant thought that she
is allowing them to caress her or write her silly sentimental notes?"