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THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

Sphinx Moths Gathering Nectar from the Lily Flower
(PLATE I)

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

An Introduction to Sex Education

TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS
BY

BERTHA CHAPMAN CADY

AND

VERNON MOSHER CADY

WITH FOREWORD
BY

William Freeman Snow, M.D.

Published by

The American Social Hygiene Association
105 west 4OTH street

NEW YORK

Copyright, ipiy, by
The American Social Hygiene Association

SERIAL PUBLICATION NO. 85

"Douglas C- JttctMurtrie Njto York^

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Foreword I

Authors' Note 3

The Deeper Meaning of Nature Study .... 5

The Lily n

The Moth 16

The Fish 25

The Frog 32

The Chick 39

The Rabbit 46

The Child 59

Nature Study and the Personal Problems of Life . . 73

ILLUSTRATIONS

Lily and Sphinx Moths. Frontispiece

Parts of the Lily Flower

The Giant Silkworm

Opened Cocoon of Cecropia

The Fish

The Life Story of the Frog

The Development of the Frog's Egg

The Chick

Nest and Young of the Rabbit

Reproductive Organs of the Female Rabbit Fig. 3

Rabbit with Young in Uterus

The Mammal Egg and Sperm Cells

The Human Embryo

Human Sperm Cells

Reproductive Organs of Human Male

Reproductive Organs of Human Female

Reproductive Organs of Human Female,

Side View
Parallel Development of Rabbit and Man
Diagram of Human Embryo

Page

Plate I

ii

Fig. 1

12

Plate II

19

Plate III

23

Plate IV

27

Plate V

35

Fig. 2

36

Plate VI

4i

Plate VII

49

Fig- 3

5i

Plate VIII

53

Fig. 4

56

Plate IX

61

Fig. 5

62

Fig. 6

63

Fig. 7

64

Fig. 8

65

Fig. 9

66

Fig. 10

70

VII

FOREWORD

Many requests have been received by the American Social
Hygiene Association from parents and teachers, for help in
dealing with the various problems of sex education. The
inquiries take the form of specific questions or of requests for
books to be recommended for particular purposes. In the
effort to meet the needs of both parents and teachers the
Association, as a part of its educational work, has prepared
numerous exhibits, held parents' and teachers' conferences,
published leaflets, and replied to a large number of personal
applications for advice and information. The Association
has also conducted many careful experiments to determine
the books and other helps which would be most useful to
parents and teachers in their educational work.

Out of this experience has come the realization that there
exists a genuine demand for a simple, scientifically accurate
book on the subject of the way plant, animal, and human
life begins, written in an interesting, non-technical way, and
with adequate illustration.

Whether the authors and the Association, in acting as the
publisher of this book, have made a real contribution to sex
education literature, the reader will best judge. The book
tells the truth about reproduction, with regard for its moral
significance, seeing in reproduction, both of human beings
and of animals, one of the most interesting stories in the
world — a story that every youth should learn from competent
persons.

The opinions and suggestions of readers upon ways in
which the book may be effectively used or changes which
should be considered in any future edition, will be welcomed
by the Association and the authors.

Dealing as it does with a fundamental phase of sex edu-
cation, this book forms a fitting introduction to a series of

2 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

inexpensive books which the Association has been urged to
publish, from time to time, relating to other important topics
in the field of social hygiene.

William F. Snow, M.D.,
General Secretary,
The American Social Hygiene Association

105 West 40th Street
New York City

AUTHORS' NOTE

In sending out this little book, written more expressly for
parents and teachers, the authors have had a threefold object
in mind. First, the need of a statement of the fundamental
facts concerning the reproduction of living forms; second, the
interpretation of these facts in terms of human interest and
well being; third, to call to mind the truth that neither nature
nor all that she can come to mean to us is the whole story
of the heart and mind of man.

The truth about nature, with all that science has brought
us, is not easy to put in intelligible form, even for the earnest
reader; moreover it would seem that extreme simplicity of
statement, in such an involved subject as that of sex, must be
sacrificed, in a measure, to accuracy of statement. This is
not to say, however, that children do not grasp big truths
when they are adequately expressed in simple language.
But those who would undertake to teach must possess a
larger fund of information than may be for the moment
required to answer the child's question, in order that his
interest may be awakened and sustained. It has been our
hope to so state the facts that the reader also will desire to
go farther into a field the full exploration of which requires
the best abilities of mankind.

One frequently hears the remark that knowledge of itself
is worthless to make good conduct, or, indeed, to make life
worth while. The truth behind this opinion must be that
knowledge is impotent until it has served, or proposes
to serve, some human good. That nature-knowledge can
make major contributions to life we have tried to show in the
chapter on 'The Deeper Meaning of Nature Study', and that
on 'Nature Study and the Personal Problems of Life'. This
effort to bring nature into line with life means, of course,
that inferences of various kinds suitable to our needs are
being drawn from the facts as they are presented us by
observation and by science. The liability of error here is

3

4 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

very great; we do not escape the harm that may be thus
caused, however, by denying ourselves the rich reward of
discovering the facts of nature and of seeing in them human
meanings. To dwell only upon facts impoverishes the spirit,
makes for a false and mechanistic materialism, and, as has
so often been said, contributes nothing to the moral life.
They may even enable their possessor to defeat his own moral
interests and those of his fellows.

Many say that nature facts and their meanings are insuf-
ficient; that sex education must draw its inspiration, and not
a little of its guidance, from religion. Nothing that we have
said in this book can be taken as a denial of this claim. Men
lived the best of lives long before much was known about
nature, and they will continue to do so without much regard
to the workings of natural law. We should not be committed
to a decision of which is the greater authority, soul or nature.
For aught we know the two are the same. If there is any
merit in this book it will lie in the fact that priority is not
claimed for the 'facts', the 'laws', or the 'principles' of nature,
or of their interpretation in terms of the things for which we
most care, or, again, for the regulative powers of religion and
ethical ideals. Must we be charged with contradiction, how-
ever, when we assert that we should go to nature not to get
support and justification for sex education, but rather in and
for herself? Our conclusion is that men live best when they
neither deny themselves the verdict of the head nor the
intimations of the heart, but seek a working harmony of both.

If this book contributes even a small share in making the
task an easier one for the many earnest teachers and parents
who to-day are facing the problem of sex education, our efforts
shall have been well repaid.

Our readers, as well as we ourselves, are indebted to a
number of educators, physicians, and others interested in
the social hygiene movement, who have contributed gener-
ously of their time to the reading and criticism of the
manuscript.

The Authors
New York

THE DEEPER MEANING OF NATURE STUDY

This generation is rich, above all others, in its possession
of nature-knowledge. Until the last hundred years or so a
few people, perhaps, were familiar with the habits of some
of the plants and animals, but for the most part living things
were thought of as mere entities of the forest, field, and gar-
den. Familiar things were disregarded, while unfamiliar
plants and animals were looked upon as curiosities of creation,
existing for no good purpose; or, as obnoxious excrescences
upon the otherwise peaceful face of the earth. There are
still many people who share this old-time thought that the
sub-human life of the world is not worthy of consideration
unless it serves some obviously human end.

Thanks to our accumulated nature-knowledge, we now
must and gladly do take another view of the lowly inhabitants
of the earth. We now know that each and every living crea-
ture has a life story, and we have become profoundly aware
that, after all, these life stories, when they are told, are not
so different from our own. There is, indeed, a web of life,
and we and all other growing things that are born, live, and die,
are weaving a part of it. Some of the patterns of the web are
small, and some are large. The fabric of life now sweeps up
to high places, and now sinks to low; but the fibres of the
mesh pass through all, and bind all in one compelling whole.

To some people this view is disconcerting. They are not
able to see the kinship of plants with animals, or of animals
with mankind. They may admit that there is a web of life,
but to them there are three such webs, one for each of three
great kingdoms of plants, animals, and mankind. But increas-
ing nature-knowledge, while it may deepen the mysteries of
life, does assuredly bind more closely the seemingly inde-
pendent divisions of the living world.

The Community of Human and Animal Life

With the new nature-knowledge has come a new pleasure,
an enriched feeling in observing plants and in associating

5

6 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

with animals. Knowledge has made clear the struggle and
the not infrequent tragedy of their lives and has given an
insight into the fact that, to them as to us, even though per-
haps unconsciously, life is dear, and is purchased only at
much cost. For mankind, the bringing forth and rearing of
young means sacrifice; but for animals it means that all else
is subordinated to this end. This knowledge has brought
sympathy, and has forced us to see that animals have a life
purpose of their own; and that if they are of no use to us,
they are of use to themselves, and are not wantonly to be
destroyed.

Many people, strangely enough, cannot see the so-called
moral and spiritual meaning in the lives of plants and animals.
Their attention is drawn so fully to the minor habits and
differences that set animals off from human conventions, that
the real character of their lives is not seen. On the other
hand, it is often not apparent to those who believe in the
essential superiority of man that when he acts in masses his
conduct is apt to be mechanical, unreasoning, and often
unworthy of his higher endowments.

The Redemption of the Sex Idea

When we attempt to understand, even in a limited way, the
part that sex plays in our life, its potentialities for good and
the share that it has had in the history of life on earth, we
are not apt to turn in disgust from its normal expression.
Instead of seeing in its evil manifestations a proof of its innate
degradation, we are led to acknowledge that these are but
perversions of something originally good.

There is, however, one aspect of sex which, for human
beings, brings an unending train of misfortune. This is man's
capacity to exaggerate and pervert the instinct of reproduc-
tion. If we charge nature with the evil consequences of this
impulse, we have not understood how difficult it has been
to make certain of animal reproduction without offering a
strong motive; or, in the case of human beings with memory,
to get them to undergo the danger and to make the sacrifice
associated with procreation. Even to this day the desire for

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 7

children, or for any family life, apart from the pleasures of
sex relationships, is frequently not sufficient to insure human
reproduction.

There is no evidence that nature is interested in the sexual
instinct of animals as an end in itself, or in its erotic mani-
festation in human life. Reproduction is the purpose in
view, so to speak, and instinct in animals, and instinct with
its associated pleasurable emotion in man seem but nature's
means of bringing about this end. In the human female, the
love for the child and for the family has gained great headway
over the sexual impulse. The same is true of the modern man
as compared with his less civilized brother. No doubt nature
would sanction the displacement of the sexual impulse by
the family instinct if the latter were the more effective means
of maintaining the race. Probably the impulse now has
and for a long time to come will have its legitimate work to
do; moreover we should not repudiate the agent that has
brought us so far. Then, too, sex emotion and love emotion,
like two miscible solutions, blend and interpenetrate one with
the other. With the right psychic soil, to change the figure, the
sex instinct proves the germinating seed out of which grows
the human qualities and associations most prized, namely,
love, marriage, home, father, mother, love for the child, filial
and paternal devotion, and from these a social system.

Neither are we to condemn nature because man has em-
ployed his intellect and will to split asunder the natural
sequence of sex impulse and reproduction, appropriating the
pleasures of the former, while rejecting the hardships of
the latter.

There need be no redemption of sex as it is found in nature,
therefore, or, indeed, in human life; there is need, however,
for the redemption of our idea of sex.

The Study of Plants and A nimals Without Reference to
Sex or Reproduction

A nature study that includes the whole economy and life
story of the animal, or, indeed, of man, cannot, if it is thor-
ough and sincere, ignore the place sex occupies in life. There

8 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

need be no fear that a force which is so enormous and all-
inclusive is therefore necessarily baneful. Those who are
firmly convinced that sex is evil or degraded will either not
tolerate any study of nature, or will accept only an emascu-
lated form from which all direct reference to sex is eliminated.
Our nature books, almost without exception, fulfil this last
requirement; they provide most elaborate studies of animal
life without reference to one of the chief objects for which
animals live. Since there are so many studies of this kind
available, the following stories of the lily, the moth, the fish,
the frog, the chick, the rabbit, and the child, emphasize espe-
cially the reproductive side of their lives, with the hope, how-
ever, that this information will be fully related, by those who
use it, to the rest of the structure and activities of these living
forms.

Unpreparedness of Parents and Teachers

City bred children do not have the opportunities afforded
the country child for observation of animals; therefore it is
most important that information concerning reproduction
be given them. This is, however, a form of biological infor-
mation which parents and teachers are often least able to
give. Their unpreparedness for this task is due, not so much
to the unnatural embarrassment which is sometimes made to
surround the subject, or to a deliberate attempt to preserve
ignorance in the interest of virtue, as it is a need of the nec-
essary information. When one is unacquainted with the
ordinary daily habits of plants and animals and their internal
structure, it is not easy to form a clear idea of their very
intricate processes of reproduction. The best preparation
for understanding these processes, and, therefore, the ability
to explain them to others, is to obtain a mastery of the life-
history of some one plant or animal.

When plants and animals are studied in this earnest way,
with a frank desire to know as much as possible about them,
there is no occasion for embarrassment or reticence on the part
of teacher or pupil, parent or child, when dealing with their
sex habits or the structure of the sex organs. The teacher

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 9

or parent may feel that success has been achieved when a
child or adolescent looks upon the facts of reproduction, where-
ever they are found, as no less mysterious, wonderful, or
beautiful than other facts of life. If children gradually
acquire this mental attitude, they will be proof against the
brooding mystery, the soliciting and haunting curiosity with
which the subject of sex is now too frequently surrounded.

Begin With a Few Plants and Animals

Any common plant or animal whose life activities and
structures are understood, will furnish much of the needed
material for one's own study, and an object lesson for teach-
ing. Books may be consulted and used as helps, but they
will not take the place of observation and familiarity through
long-continued association with the living form. The beginner
might well confine his attention to one plant or animal until
he has at least learned the more common facts of its life
habits, environment, reproductive cycle, and its relations to
other organisms. The matured nature student will, of course,
be able to use any material that comes to hand, or to answer
satisfactorily any reasonable question that a child may ask.

The study of a few typical plants or animals will not be
difficult. The good teacher will always compare the structures
and functions of diverse forms one with the other, so that
what has already been learned shall still further explain and
co-ordinate the new. In all such studies it will be found that
the same plan, the same structure, is endlessly repeated in
great groups of plants and animals.

Nature Study Pays Good Dividends

Nature-knowledge, even when acquired at some cost, pays
good dividends. Rightly directed, it disciplines the memory
and stimulates the reasoning powers. It humanizes and
tempers the brutalizing tendency in youth; it makes clear
the enduring relation of parents and young, and the racial
meaning of mother love. It gives the mind a glimpse of the
web of life, and furnishes a bulwark against superstition and
surmise. In matters of sex, it proves, to any reasoning mind,

10 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

that the frequent exercise of the sexual function on the part
of the human male is not a God-commanded right. Indeed,
it is not too much to believe that children who have had the
benefit of an uncensored knowledge of nature will, when
grown, be less inclined to set aside the moral laws of family
and society, than those who have been denied the satisfaction
of a natural and normal curiosity. It is not merely facts as
such that may be expected to work this transformation, but
the wider sympathies and the better understanding of the
natural order that follows upon their presentation. Nature,
after all, is rather conservative and slow moving, offering
little sanction for human haste and fret, and still less for the
vices of mankind.

Keeping Close to Nature

Over half of the people of this country are now living in
cities and towns, preoccupied with intricate, and as compared
with their ancestors, artificial and non-natural activities.
City people, however, cannot afford to sever their connection
with the natural world. Social life does not alter the fact
that mankind shares with the animal the really vital processes
of birth, growth, eating, sleeping, learning, reproduction, and
death. That we use tools, have a measure of control over
our activities, and better means of communication, are not
sufficient to set us apart from the rest of the living world.

But even in the city, protected as we are, we do not escape
the practical need for nature-knowledge. At bottom, all
measures of health and sanitation are based upon biologic
fact. Nature study helps us to understand, and, therefore,
to conform to the rationale of hygiene: mental, moral, and
physical. Beyond all, and very highly to be prized, nature
study supplies a continuing occupation — something greatly
needed when a disintegrating idleness or an aimless activity
frequently fills so much of the leisure time between labor
and rest.

THE LILY

It is not a little difficult to think of plants as living beings.
They seem so stationary in their positions, their movements
so dependent upon external agents, and their various organs
and structures so unlike anything we know among animals
and human beings, that they seem to belong to the inanimate
earth rather than to the living world. Yet plants struggle
for their existence just as animals do and exhibit quite as
wonderful ways of changing their forms and habits in doing
so. They breathe, eat, and drink, protect themselves from
enemies, and provide for the union of the sexes and the future
care of offspring in ways that would do credit to beings
possessed of intelligence.

Plants have a real Purpose in Life

The great underlying purpose of every living creature on
the earth, as soon as it can make certain of its own existence,
is to reproduce itself and thus provide for the next genera-
tion. Plants are no exception to the rule.

After the higher or flowering plant has established itself
and succeeded in getting proper food, light, air, and pro-
tection, it develops its blossoms. They come late in the life
story and are in themselves the center of the life purpose.
Their bright colors and their nectar are merely means of
realizing this purpose, namely, the preparation of new seed
plants. To accomplish this a special set of organs is nec-
essary and it is here that we encounter the fundamental
character of sex, much as we find it everywhere among the
animals and, indeed, in man. There is an organ to produce
the eggs which later nourishes and protects the young. There
is also another organ to produce the sperm cells. In the plant
the two organs may be in the same flower structure, or in
different structures, or, again, they may be borne on dif-
ferent plants.

ii

12

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

The Examination of a Flower

Choose a flower and examine it carefully; any of the fruit
blossoms, the wild rose, buttercups, snapdragons, geraniums,
or mustard will do. The easter lily is selected for description
here as the blossom is large and the parts easily seen. The
four principal structures of the lily blossom are shown in
Figure I. These are first, the sepals (greenish white); second,
the petals; third, the stamens, consisting of the anthers and

Petal

Stamen

FIGURE i

iStKjma

Style

IjOvary

Pistil

Seed Pod

The cup of the lily is formed of six white leaves, three sepals and three petals. There are
six stamens with their Pendant anthers; and one pistil with its three-lobed stigma and ovary.
The ripe ovary later becomes the seed pod.

their supporting filaments; and, fourth, the pistil composed of
the ovary, the style, and the stigma. These are practically all
of the part of the flower which it will be necessary to learn.
Taking the lily flower as a whole, there are three sepals and
three petals arranged alternately and so forming the flower cup;
six stamens; and the three-lobed ovary and stigma. Among
flowers there will be found great variability in the form and

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 13

number of the sepals and petals; the stamens and pistil may
also be greatly increased in number. The 'flower', as we
commonly use the word, includes the four types of structure
seen in Figure I, the stamens and the pistil being, however,
the essential organs for producing the new generation.

The Easter Lily

Let us now examine the flower-cup of the lily somewhat
more closely. (Plate I, frontispiece.) In looking into the lily
cup, the bright yellow anthers at once attract our attention.
The six anthers, we note, are supported on their long slender
filaments. Each anther produces and stores pollen in large
quantities. When the anther sac is full of pollen, it bursts
and discharges its contents. The nature of the pollen grains or
sperm cells and what becomes of them will be discussed later.

Turning next to the pistil, we find it enlarged at the bottom
of the flower-cup in such a manner as to form the three-
chambered, elongated ovary. Within these chambers are
found many bodies called ovules, arranged along their inner
walls. Each ovule is attached to the side of the chamber of
the ovary by a tiny stem through wThich it receives its nour-
ishment. Within the ovule is found the egg of the plant, the
ovule acting as a protecting envelop. From the top of the
ovary rises a slender tube, the style, and at the upper end of
the style, lifted far out of the lily vase and above the stamens,
is the three-lobed stigma. The stigma is greenish in color,
and its surface is covered with a sticky secretion.

The Sphinx Moth and the Easter Lily

We have seen that the pollen, when ripe, is shed by the
anthers, and that the eggs of the ovary are in the same flower-
cup. Since it is necessary that a sperm cell reach the egg in
order that a new plant may be produced, it would seem a
simple matter, in the case of the lily, for the sperm to find
their way to the eggs of the same flower. Such an event is
amply provided against by the greater length of the style and
by insect visitors, the sphinx moths, which carry the pollen
of one plant to the stigma of another.

14 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

The easter lily, like many other luminous white flowers,
depends largely upon night flying moths to bear its pollen.
White flowers are easily seen in the twilight, especially when
they grow close together. Night bloomers like the lily reserve
their fragrance and their abundant nectar flow for the night
hours, when the swiftly flying, long-tongued moths are about.
(Plate I.)

The dusky moth, eager to reach the ring of nectar hidden
at the base of the pistil, drives straight into the flower. The
pistil, reaching far out of the cup, is sure to strike against the
moth as it enters. Coming, pollen-laden from a visit to a
nearby lily blossom, the moth rubs the pollen from its furry
shoulders against the sticky surface of the stigma. Pushing
forward into the narrow flower-cup, the moth crowds against
the anthers, yellow with their masses of ripe pollen. The
moth, having taken its toll of nectar, whirls away to another
lily.

What is meant by Fertilization

So much for the pollen bearers. In order to follow the
further history of the pollen after its deposit upon the stigma,
we shall have to turn to the microscope. The pollen grain
that has found its way to the stigma soon begins to absorb
moisture from its surface. It swells to bursting and a tube
extends from the pollen grain down through the loose tissue
of the style. The tube moves forward until it works its way
into the ovary and through the tissues of the ovary to the
ovule or egg case. Entrance is made to the ovule through a
small opening, the micropyle. The tip of the tube now
breaks and frees two or more nuclei. The first is the tube
nucleus which has been at the growing point of the tube in its
long journey. The other two are sperm nuclei, the history
of only one of which we are interested in following. This sperm
nucleus unites with the egg nucleus within the ovule. When
this union has been accomplished the egg is said to be fer-
tilized. Germination of the young plant so formed is then
possible.

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 15

Giving the Young a Start in the World

After fertilization has taken place, the petals of the flower
wither and drop away; the ovary is left to complete its work of
developing the plantlet or embryo. The tough walls of the
ovary, now called the seed-pod, make a safe shelter for the
young. Each plantlet has its own coat within which is wrapped
a goodly supply of food upon which it may live until it is ready
to take care of itself.

When the plantlet is fully matured and ready to start
in the world, the dry lily-pod bursts with such a sudden snap
that the seeds are flung out like tiny cannon balls. If a seed
is fortunate and falls upon good ground, it later absorbs moist-
ure and the embryo or plantlet begins to grow. The brown,
protecting coat bursts and the green head is pushed up into
the sunlight, while the rootlets search far and wide for food.
Time passes, but by and by the young plant reaches maturity,
produces its blossoms and finally its seeds.

Since it may take several years for the lily to produce its
blossom, advantage is taken of the plant's habit of reproduc-
ing itself by means of bulbs to hasten the blooming. Cultivated
members of the lily family are grown so readily from bulbs
that little attention is given to their seeds. We do, however,
frequently find among our many garden forms opportunity
to trace the seed history.

The formation of flowers with their reproductive organs,
the fertilization of the egg by the sperm cell, and the ripening
of the seed, are all steps in the sexual reproduction of plants.
It is well to remember, however, that the higher plants are
usually capable of reproducing themselves by means of bulbs,
buds, slips, and runners as well as by the sexual method
described for the lily. All of these means of perpetuating their
kind keep plants from destruction and from being eliminated
from the world in which they live.

THE GIANT SILKWORM OR CECROPIA MOTH

Few children, with opportunity to ramble in the woods,
fail, sooner or later, to discover the cocoons of the splendid
Cecropia moth, or giant silkworm. On account of its beauty,
great size, and the wide range of its distribution, this moth
has been chosen to illustrate the interesting life-story of all
moths.

Every spring brings its caterpillars, and every autumn the
leafless trees reveal the silken cocoons, the cradles of the next
generation. Nor is the emerging moth one whit less marvelous
to-day than in the ages gone by, when men saw in this trans-
formation of the crawling caterpillar into the brilliant winged
adult a symbol of the spiritual birth of the human soul.

Gather, on some of your winter walks, the great gray or
brown cocoons you are sure to discover among the naked
branches of the willow, maple, cherry, or other trees and
shrubs, and keep them in your home.

When the Moth Emerges from the Cocoo?i

Watch the cocoon carefully when the warm days of May
or June come, or you will miss the moment when the moth
makes its way out of its winter chamber. Often you will
hear the movements of the chrysalis before the broad head and
shoulders are pushed through the funnel-like opening at the
end of the cocoon. Gradually the stout legs reach forward
and cling fast to any near-by object. By this means the short
thick body with its crumpled wings is drawn out. The wings
now hang limp and damp as the moth clings to a twig near
its cocoon, but after a time they expand rapidly until they
reach the full size of 6 or 6}4. inches across. As they dry, the
moth slowly fans them forward and back, exercising the
muscles, thus gaining strength for flight. (See Plate II.)

The beautiful plumed antennae on the head, as well as the
size of the body, will indicate whether the moth is male or
female, the male having the fuller, finer plumes. He has also

16

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 17

the smaller body, and is a better flier than the female. In his
plumed antennae are the scent pits upon which he depends
to find his mate, often following, for great distances, the odor
she exhales.

The Mating of the Moths

The mating takes place almost immediately after the
female emerges from the cocoon. The sperm cells of the
male are discharged directly into the body of the female, and
often the mating moths are found with their bodies united.
Seeing two of these great creatures with their bodies joined
together is a sight to hold the wondering attention of any
child, and offeis an excellent opportunity to explain the mean-
ing of egg fertilization through the union of the father and
mother.

Hatching and Growth of the Caterpillar

The eggs are deposited in irregular clusters and fastened
firmly to a leaf of the food-plant upon which the young cater-
pillar is to feed. Instinctively the winged mothers seek out
the proper food-plants for their babies, though they themselves
never take any food during their adult life. The eggs hatch
in about ten days. If you are watching, you will see the sharp
jaws of the baby caterpillar nipping away parts of the shell
until the head is free, and the rest of the caterpillar's body is
drawn out through the tiny hole. It is always a surprise to
see the little black caterpillar looking so unlike the beautiful
parents. At first it is quite black and covered over with queer
bumps and bristles. All day and all night it does little but
eat and grow. At last the skin is too tight and it crawls away
to await the time when the outer skin splits down the back.
The caterpillar then makes its way out of the tight skin,
looking bright and fresh. The full-grown, brilliantly colored,
caterpillar is not at all like the bristly, black fellow that came
from the egg. It is frequently four inches long and as big
around as a man's thumb. The body is now green with a
bright blue stripe along the back, while along each side rise
a double row of blue tubercles with two rows of yellow ones

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20 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

down the back. Near the head are four larger, orange-red,
tubercles decorated with black spines. The caterpillars are
well worth looking for, yet, as you can imagine, they are not
easily found. Their color helps them to hide in the green
foliage upon which they feed.

Spinning the Winter Home

When the time comes for the caterpillar to change to the
chrysalis, it loses its bright color. A twig is sought and prepa-
rations are made to spin the cocoon. The caterpillar holds
fast with its strong back feet and reaches forward as far as
the long, strong body will permit. From a tiny silk tube
in the lower lip are spun the first supporting lines. These
silk threads are very strong, and give the caterpillar his
familiar name of 'American Silk Worm'. The first lines form
a frame-work upon which is fastened other threads, until the
outer wall of the cocoon is completed. This usually takes
on much the shape of a hammock. The threads are woven
at first into a cream-colored fabric, but this darkens on
exposure. Within the hammock the spinning continues,
until the caterpillar has woven an inner chamber of much
finer mesh, separated from the outer, protecting layer by a
space filled with loosely woven threads. The air chamber
between the outer and inner layers makes the inner cell less
liable to sudden changes of temperature. The weaving of
this inner cell is hidden from view by the outside coat. Within
the inner chamber the caterpillar rests after its spinning work
is done. Finally, the caterpillar wriggles out of its skin for
the last time. An examination now of the inside of the finished
cocoon will reveal the transformation which the caterpillar
has undergone in becoming a heavy, dark brown chrysalis.

Examining the Chrysalis

If you desire to make this examination of the chrysalis,
cut carefully through the two silken covers. This will be
no easy task, for they are surprisingly tough. They were
made to shed the snows and rains of winter, and are tight
enough to keep out the cold winds, and tough enough to

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 21

discourage an enemy eager to tear the cocoon open for the
tender bit of food within. The chrysalis itself rests with the
head directly beneath the long funnel-like airshaft through
which it will emerge when the time arrives. The outlines of
the head, antennae, legs, and wings (Plate III) may be seen
beneath the thick, brown, chrysalis coat. In this state the
chrysalis remains, until the warm days of spring. The coming
forth of the winged adult completes the story of the moth.

The Great Family of Insects

The insects form the largest group of animals in the world.
All of the butterflies, ants, bees, wasps, beetles, etc., go
through a transformation from egg to adult resembling in
some measure that of the moth. In most of these forms
the mature insect mother deposits her fertile eggs which
hatch in time into caterpillars, or larvae. This first or
egg stage varies from a few days in some insects, to several
weeks or months in others. In the second stage, the larvae
may be legless grubs as in the case of flies, bees, wasps, ants;
or they may have but six legs like many young beetles. In
all the insects named, however, the immature creatures bear
not the slightest resemblance to their parents, nor will they
until they have passed through a third stage, the chrysalis
or pupa. This third phase may be longer or shorter in dura-
tion, according to the nature of the insect. It may be passed
within the protecting silken cocoon, like most of the moths,
merely hung from a twig as a naked chrysalis, like the butter-
fly, or lie buried in decayed wood or under the ground. Fol-
lowing this quiet pupa period, the mature form emerges and
thus all four of the links in the insect's life are completed.

In these forms four stages are always in some measure
present. First the eggs; second, the larva commonly called
the caterpillar, grub, or maggot; third, the pupa or chrysalis
(often in a cocoon) ; and fourth, the adult.

Keeping Caterpillars for Study and Observation

Almost any of the more common forms of caterpillars may
be kept in a simple cage, made of a box with a net covering.

PLATE III

When the Cecropiamoth cocoon is cut open the following parts
may be seen: The outer fine weatherproof network I; the coarse
intermediate mesh II; and the firm inner cocoon III, smoothly
varnished inside to form the cell for the chrysalis I V. The
chrysalis rests upon the fragments of the cast caterpillar
skin with head at the top beneath the air funnel V. Various
parts of the moth — the head, antennae, folded legs and wings,
and the segments — may be made out.

24 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

Care should always be taken to provide the caterpillars with
the same food upon which they are found. Many caterpillars
are extremely particular about their food and will starve to
death rather than eat another kind of plant. The brilliantly
banded caterpillars of the monarch butterfly are an instance
of this peculiarity, as they will feed only upon the milkweed.
The dainty white cabbage butterfly, on the other hand, lays
its yellow eggs upon a great variety of food plants, such as
turnip, cabbage, or the garden nasturtium, all of which with
many other food plants are readily eaten by the green cater-
pillars of this butterfly.

Provided with plenty of the right food, with ample room
to crawl about, and pure air to breathe, with provision made
for the proper shelter of the chrysalis, it is an easy matter
to rear any of the more familiar caterpillars.

THE FISH

Fishes move through the water much as birds do through
the air, easily, buoyantly, and gracefully. They swim with
their tails, balancing and directing themselves with their fins.
The swim-bladder reduces the exertion of keeping afloat;
the resistance of the water is reduced by their slippery scales;
and the fish is helped forward by the closing in of the water
behind the wedge-shaped body. Fishes were the first animals
with jaws and a back-bone. It is no wonder, then, that they
have grown, through these long ages, to fit their environ-
ment as perfectly as any living form.

Small fish may be kept in aquaria, especially if they be
supplied with water plants and pond scum, which by giving
off oxygen, and taking in of carbon dioxide, keep the 'balance*
between the oxygen used by the fish and the carbon dioxide
given off by them. Fish should be fed very little, and pro-
tected from the hot sun. Very rarely, however, can fish be
made to breed in an aquarium. The conditions are so
unnatural that the sensitive reproductive organs remain
dormant.

Lessons from Fish Roe

The scientist, however, with his microscope, may observe
something of what takes place in the preparation of the male
and female germ cells of either plants or animals, their union,
and the formation of the new individual. The ripe eggs and
sperm cells of plants, and the ova and sperm masses of the
lower animals, especially of fish and poultry, are readily seen.
From these and from the records of science, we may piece out
the story of reproduction.

Since fish cannot be bred in aquaria, the roe, or egg masses,
of female fish, together with the greatly distended sperm sacs
of the male, obtained at the market in season, will help to
focus attention while the story is told of the way fish live,
lay their eggs, fertilize them, and of the way the young grow.

25

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28 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

The Father and Mother Reproductive Elements
in Plants and Animals are very Similar

The ova or eggs of fish are produced by paired organs
called ovaries, attached to the back body-wall. In the breed-
ing season the eggs, which have heretofore been very small,
increase rapidly in size so that great numbers of them, many
thousands, indeed, fill the egg sacs of the female. Here they
are held until needed. The eggs in the ovules of plants, the
seed to be, are very similar, except that in the case of the
plant the organ that produces the eggs, the ovary, dies and
falls away when its work is done. In the fish it shrinks to
small size until the next breeding season.

The sperm cells of the male fish, and the sperm cells found
in the pollen of flowers perform a similar service in reproduc-
tion. The two spermaries in the male fish are in the same
position as the ovaries of the female. The product of the
spermaries is a heavy, whitish, glistening fluid, called the
'milt'. Under the highest powers of the microscope this
'milt' is shown to be a mass of millions of moving cells. Each
cell is provided with a swimming tail or lash. These sperm
cells are so small that it would take six thousand or more of
them, placed side by side, to measure an inch. The 'milt'
is deposited in the water by the male fish in the immediate
vicinity of the eggs, which but a moment before, have passed
from the body of the female. By means of their swimming
tails, the sperms find their way to the egg, and one sperm cell
enters and merges with the nucleus of each egg. The sperm
cells in the pollen of plants accomplishes the same end, except
that the plant sperm cells have no swimming tails and must
depend upon the wind or insects to carry the pollen to the
pistil.

The Interesting Story of the Salmon

Fishes lay their eggs in many different places. Some are
scattered freely over the bottom of the stream, pond, or sea;
some are buried in the sand; some, like the cod, float upon
the surface of the ocean. A few fish, like the little stickle-
back, make special provision for their eggs and young by

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 29

building a nest. Most eggs, when left unguarded, are de-
stroyed or eaten by other fish.

Some kinds of sea fish make long journeys up streams or
rivers, even going as far as the head waters, to find suitable
places to spawn or lay their eggs. The salmon affords one of
the most remarkable examples of this habit. There are two
kinds of salmon about the American shores; one known as
the Atlantic salmon, and the other the Pacific salmon with
its several recognized varieties. x

The Atlantic salmon (see Plate IV) spends most of its
life in the sea, but in the early spring, when the female is
literally filled with eggs, and the male with sperm, they
make their way up the rivers of the North Atlantic coast,
leaping cascades and barriers and forcing their way up rapid
and shallow stream beds, until the appropriate spawning
ground has been found. During this time the males indulge
in many fierce combats. Arriving at the spawning ground,
the mother salmon scoops away the sand and gravel of the
bottom with her tail, and in this nest she lays a few of her
six or ten thousand eggs. Then she moves aside, and the
male takes her place over the 'nest', and casts his milt quickly
upon the eggs, as there is barely time for the sperm to reach
them before the envelop surrounding them has become
turgid with water and therefore impenetrable to the sperm
cells. Sand is then scraped over the eggs, and the pair repeat
this process over and over again until all the eggs have been
extruded. It may take several weeks to complete the egg
laying.

While the salmon are in fresh water they take little or no
food. The Atlantic salmon grow lean and unwholesome in
appearance as they make their way back to the sea. The
Pacific salmon seldom reach the sea alive.

How Young Salmon Hatch from the Egg

The eggs of salmon are about one-quarter of an inch in
diameter, and are large for fish eggs. This means that they
are well provided with food enough to form the embryo and

1 Read the story of the Pacific salmon in Science Sketches by David Starr Jordan.

30 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

to feed it for several weeks after it hatches. Figures 1-5
(Plate IV) show the salmon egg with the outer envelop or
membrane laid back in order that the embryo may be more
readily seen at various stages of development. When hatched,
the young wriggle up through the sand of the stream bed.
They present a curious appearance (Figures 6 and 7, Plate IV)
with their thin, transparent bodies, and big sacs of yolk,
which nourish them during the first weeks of growth. This
early stage is spent quietly resting on the bottom of the
stream, or hiding beneath stones and crevices, out of the
way of their many enemies. By the time they are large
enough for real activity, the water is warm and their food
plentiful.

It may be the third spring before these fish pass out of
the river into the sea. Even then it may take another year
before they are grown into full-fledged salmon.

The Trunk Lines of Life

The fish stand at the foot of the ladder of back-boned
animals. All of these animals, from fish to man, take much
the same steps in producing their young. With few excep-
tions, fish, frogs, and birds supply their eggs with yolk enough
to build the embryo; and sometimes, as with fish and less so
with frogs, enough food is also stored to nourish the young
for some time after birth. The great majority of the higher
forms, the mammals, including man, cannot store enough
yolk for such large bodies, and for such long periods. Hence
the young, after exhausting the yolk of the egg, and while
still in the egg-tube (now called the uterus) of the mother,
attach themselves by means of suitable organs and take
their building materials from her.

From fish to man, the back-boned animals resemble each
other very closely in their development. These resemblances
are seen not only in the growth from egg to adult, but in the
parallel way in which the growth changes take place. There
are many differences as well as resemblances in their develop-
ment, and these make themselves most manifest when the
embryo of each animal approaches birth. Indeed the history

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 31

of the vertebrate animals on the earth might be compared
to a long road in which the fish branch off very early, the frogs
a little later, and then the birds take their separate way.
Mammals, like the rabbit, keep on the main road until
their time comes to turn aside. Finally the parting of the
ways comes for the higher apes and man.

Biological science confirms in a thousand ways this concep-
tion of a long road with its many branchings, or a great tree
with its forking limbs at higher and higher levels. The
higher mammals are the terminal points on a great trunk
line of life.

If one keeps in mind an image of this nature, the similarity
in the methods of animal reproduction will be understood.
It is to be expected that, on the whole, animals resembling
one another will have the same modes of development from
the egg to adult, and that there will be a marked tendency for
the higher forms to repeat, in the growth of the embryo, the
steps that are taken in forming the embryos of the animals
below them. The process in general is one of adding some-
thing new to an old pattern, rather than that of getting up a
new pattern for each level of advancement in organic life.

THE FROG

It is a mistake to think that only human beings have
family trees. Frogs — all animals — have them too, only we
think of their tree not as made up of generations, but of a
series of species or forms that have gone before in very ancient
times. The most interesting thing about the frog is that his
ancestors, way down at the root of his family tree, helped to
bridge the gap between the water and the land animals.
This was really a wonderful achievement, and, to this day,
the frog in his development keeps repeating the feat, which
is no less wonderful than in the first frogs. These ancient
frogs were also the first back-boned animals to acquire hands
and feet with fingers and toes. They were the first to crawl
out of the water upon the land, and to breathe with lungs
instead of gills. Every frog which reaches maturity repeats
again the story of his race in his earlier stages, harking back
as a tadpole to the simpler life in the water, and as adult liv-
ing the life of the higher land animals.

The Race for the Land

Nature is in great haste to turn the tadpole into the frog.
Why? The rapid drying of the shallow ponds and pools in
which frogs and toads lay their eggs would result in the death
of the tadpoles if they had not already changed to frogs and
were ready to breathe air and climb out upon the land.

Toads usually lay their eggs in shallow ditches and pools
of the open fields. Their life from egg to diminutive toad is
only a matter of six or eight weeks. It, therefore, matters
little to them that the pools dry up quickly, since, as adults,
they are practically land animals anyway. The common
frog, however, requires three months or more to mature, and
the bullfrog, whose eggs are laid in the deeper water of the
marshland, does not make the change until the second, or
even the third, year.

32

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 33

In a Cradle of Jelly

Frog's eggs are laid in a mass of transparent jelly, looking
much like the white of an egg. (Plate V.) Each of the thou-
sand or more black eggs is surrounded by three layers of the
jelly, Figure 2, and together they float near the surface of
the water, a clear, buoyant mass among the water weeds.
This jelly envelop is also a great protection from possible
enemies, as it is so slippery that the eggs cannot readily be
picked up or eaten by water-fowl or fish. The globule of
jelly aids in the development of the egg by focusing the heat
rays of the sun upon it. Frog eggs are black on top and light
yellow below. The embryo, the 'forming animal', takes shape
in the black portion while the light material below is the food
or yolk. In three days after being laid, the head and tail
become somewhat distinct, while the middle part remains
attached to the yolk. By the end of a week the tadpole em-
bryo begins to wriggle and looks like 'an animated comma'.
On the ninth day they twist and squirm their way out of their
jelly cradles. They remain quiet for at least a few days,
attaching themselves to stones and water weeds by a sucker-
like organ beneath the head. Frog tadpoles have no mouths
for sixteen or seventeen days; they come out of their jelly
nests blind.

Toad eggs are laid, not in masses of jelly, but in double
strings, usually draped and hung about the pond weeds.
They are smaller than frog eggs and are black all over. Since
their development is more rapid than the frog's eggs, they
are more interesting to the observer.

Tadpole Days

The next three or four months are stirring times in the
life of the tadpole. With no parents to care for him, he is
surrounded at every turn by enemies that seek his life. With-
in, his body is a theatre of opposing forces. One set of growth
forces are striving to make of him a larger and stronger fish-
like animal, breathing through gills, and swimming with a
powerful tail. Other forces set in very soon to reduce his
size, to utilize the substance in his tail, to produce limbs and

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36 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

lungs, and to endow him with the instincts of a land animal.
It is no wonder, then, that amid these great changes many of
the tadpoles which escape their enemies, die.

Metamorphosis

We have no common English term to give just the meaning
of the far-reaching change that this word, metamorphosis,
implies. There is the change of form (morphosis), but there

FIGURE 2

Six steps in the early growth of the frog embryo are shown here. Each stage is surrounded
by its jelly envelop.

The fertilized egg I, divides into two cells II; a second division at right angles to the first,
results in four cells III. Cell division continues until a hollow ball is formed IV. The
embryo lengthens V (a section through the long axis of the embryo) and takes on the shape of
the tadpole VI.

is also a play of higher (meta) forces drawing the tadpole out
of his tadpoleness into a larger life.

Tadpole and frog overlap. Before the poliwog days are
ended, he ceases to eat and apparently lives on the substance
stored up in his tail, and the fat he has accumulated. By and
by the tail is reduced to a stump, the hind legs lengthen, the
mouth broadens, the eye becomes large and prominent, the
body shortens, and many other changes take place, until,

THE WAYLIFE BEGINS 37

one day, there is a perfectly formed frog on a small scale.
He sits, through the long hours, on stick or stone or lily-pad

With Arms Akimbo.

The little forearms are used to hold up the body while the
long muscular hind legs are ready for the leap to safety.
He feeds on insects and worms now, and though he looks
and acts sluggish he is capable of very rapid motion. Let
an insect approach and the sticky tongue, fastened at the
front of the mouth, just the reverse of ours, flashes outward
and folds around the prey. Frogs never drink, but take
most of their water through the moist skin which is shed
three or four times a year as the frog grows.

Frogs and their cousins, the toads, escape the rigors of
winter by retreating, hind end first, into the moist earth
and pond bottoms below the frost line. They are neither
dead nor asleep, but are in a condition of reduced or lowered
vitality, called hibernation. This is a very economical way
to spend the long months of cold. A little warmth in the
early spring serves to call them forth. Having saved so much
strength and energy by the long rest, they are ready almost
at once, to take up the serious business of the moment, early
announced in

The Courtship Chorus.

Who has not heard the insistent, rhythmic beat of many
frog voices? Sometimes they sound like bagpipes, and again,
when near at hand, like jewsharps, vibrated under water.
Through the season many different notes will be detected
corresponding to the different species of frogs and toads.

What is the Clamor all About?

It is the call of the males to the females, and, in the psy-
chology of frogdom, is probably intended to rouse the females
to a sense of their duties.

As the time for laying the eggs approaches, the male mounts
upon the back of the female that he may be at hand the
moment the eggs with their closely wrapped, gelatinous en-

38 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

velops are discharged from her body. The milt from the
male passes down the sides of the female and thus reaches
the eggs as they emerge.

In a very short time after reaching the water, the egg
envelop swells and in a few hours the cycle of life begins
anew. Egg to tadpole, tadpole to frog, frog to egg again —
a never-ending series.

THE CHICK

Fish, frog, bird, mammal, and man are, for us, so many
landing places in the stairway of organic life. They are,
in other words, members of one series since they are alike in
many particulars. They differ, however, in the manner of
producing their young as well as in other ways. Either the
young come from eggs which have been supplied with a large
amount of food material and are detached from the mother's
body, or they feed for a brief time upon the egg yolk and then
attach themselves to the parent's body, drawing their nourish-
ment from her through a cord-like tube. Most fishes, frogs,
reptiles and birds belong to the first class, and with perhaps
two exceptions, all mammals, including man, belong to the
second class. In each case the required nourishment is sup-
plied to the growing young. Naturally, more protection is
afforded the offspring when it is carried within the mother's
body, but this is offset by the smaller number of young for
which provision can be made.

In the series which we have chosen to illustrate ascending
life, we come now to the bird. Among birds the best form
to study is the chick, the little self-sufficient offspring of the
humble barnyard fowl.

The Miracle of Twenty-One Days

The hen's eggs, even those in process of incubation, are so
familiar that we rarely stop to think of what is going on inside
the egg in the three short weeks. If one were to take from
Biddy, or from an incubator, one egg a day for the first five
days and carefully remove the top of the egg, a rapidly chang-
ing scene would present itself.1 One is amazed at the extra-
ordinary rate of growth of the chick which is many times

1 It has been suggested that young children should not be shown the development of
the chick, since the opening of the shell involves the death of the embryo, and hence gives
the child a shock. The writer has never seen children react in this way, but since the
purpose of the demonstration is to show that life exists immediately after fertilization takes
place, it should not be continued in later stages if the child is distressed or if it is not con-
vinced that the sacrifice is justified by what it teaches. Older children will not offer a prob-
lem of this nature.

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42 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

faster than at any later period of its life. Nor is our astonish-
ment lessened when we see the rapidity with which the damp,
newly-hatched chick adjusts himself to the world. All he
has to do after birth is to grow into chickenhood which he
rapidly proceeds to do within a year.

Six Chapters in the Life Story of the Chick

There are several important things to observe in the life
of the chick. We should note the parts or structure of the
egg itself; where the yolk, the essential part of the egg, comes
from ; how the egg acquires its coating of albumin and shell ;
how the egg is fertilized and made ready to build the chick;
the way the body of the chick takes form upon the yolk; and
when the chick finishes its growth, and how it breaks the shell.

The Four Parts of the Hens Egg

These are ist, the shell; 2nd, the albumen (or white);
3rd, the yolk; and 4th, the germ. The first three parts of the
egg are familiar to everyone, and the germ, which lies upon
the upper surface of the yolk, moving to this position when-
ever the egg is turned, may be seen if the egg is carefully
broken in a dish.

The Source of the Real Egg

The germ and the surrounding yolk, the real egg, which
together form one big cell, one of the largest in the plant and
animal kingdoms, comes from the ovary. The ovary is
attached to the back body wall of the bird above the kidneys.
It contains thousands of immature ova or eggs in various
stages of growth, most of which are never used. For a definite
period in the year, groups of the ova acquire much food
material, or yolk, and, when they are fully matured, break
through the membrane of the ovary, one at a time, and are
drawn into the expanded, cup-like end of the oviduct or
tube leading from the ovary to the outside.

The Egg Shell a Discovery in Protective Envelops

The ova move slowly down the oviduct, perhaps several
of them at a time, but each keeping in a different place in

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 43

the duct. They are said to gain more yolk as they pass along.
Turning about on their long axes, they gather albumin or
'white' of the egg from the glands lining the oviduct. Near
the lower end of the duct the egg receives its final covering,
the lime shell, which on passing out of the tube, is soft and
pliable until hardened in the air. For a land animal whose
young are formed outside the body of the mother the shell
with its rigid yet porous wall is a genuine discovery. How
great an improvement it is, too, over the gelatinous covering
of the fish or the frog!

The Egg is Started on Its Course of Development
by a Free Swimming Cell from the Male

From time to time the male bird deposits at the entrance
of the oviduct hundreds of thousands of male sperm cells.
These are very much smaller than the ova — so small, indeed,
that it is necessary to use the highest powers of the microscope
before they are clearly visible. Each sperm cell is equipped
with a long swimming tail, with which to make its way up
the oviduct. In the upper part of this duct, above the region
of the albumin and shell glands, they await the coming of
the ova. Although so many thousand sperms are ready to
fertilize the ovum, but one really does so. A few may enter
the great yolk sac and move by some subtle attraction
toward the mother-germ; all but one, however, are halted
before reaching the nucleus of the egg. The fortunate sperm
that passes within the prohibited zone unites with the egg
nucleus, leaving its tail in the yolk.

The sperm cell undoubtedly starts the egg on its course
of development, but it also does something more. It con-
tributes its share of inheritance from the father, and, through
him, from all his ancestors.

Modeling the Chick Out of the Yolk

As soon as the two germ cells have united, the work of
building the new body begins. The united cells divide and
subdivide. At first there are two, then four, then eight, and
so on, the divided cells remaining in contact to form layers,

44 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

folds, and walls. The speed with which the new body is
built is due to the rapidity of cell division. Soon there are
hundreds of thousands of these rapidly dividing cells. Devel-
opment begins in the egg on its way down the oviduct, but
does not proceed far until incubation begins.

The First Day. We are ready now, to look at a series of
incubating eggs. Open the upper side of the egg. This is
best done by inserting the blade of a pair of small, sharp-
pointed scissors and cutting around the upper portion of
the egg shell. 1 Toward the end of the first day a small germ-
disc will be seen lying upon the top of the yolk. The disc is a
network of blood vessels, the first steps in the formation of
a circulatory system between the yolk and the growing em-
bryo which now appears as an elongated depression in the
center of the disc. Figure i, Plate VI.

The Second Day. The beating of the heart will be seen
on the second day. The outline of the head appears and the
germ-disc has increased its diameter.

The Third Day. Figure n shows the state of growth
on the third day. The yolk has expanded by absorbing
moisture from the outside. The curve of the body is plainly
indicated, the head is greatly enlarged, and the eyes well
marked.

The Fourth Day. By this time the wings and legs are
budding out from the body, the eyes assume enormous
proportion, occupying almost the entire forepart of the head.

The Fifth Day. The chick seems all head, and the head,
all eyes. This is nature's way of looking to the most important
organs first. Wings and legs and tail have grown longer. This
is about the stage represented by Figure in.

The Tenth Day and After. If we omit the stages of the
four following days, and open an egg on the tenth day —
eleven days before hatching — we shall find a whole chick.
The yolk and 'white' have been enclosed within the body.
By the twelfth day (Figure iv) the chick occupies almost
the entire egg, and by the fifteenth day some of the feathers,

1 The embryo may be best observed if the opened egg is immersed in warm (normal)
salt solution. Use one level teaspoonful of salt to one pint of water. The heart will continue
to beat for some time when the opened egg is placed in this warm solution.

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 45

beak, claws, etc., are fairly well formed, and the chick is
ready to enter the last stage of its egg life, that of breaking
through the shell. (Figure VII.)

How the Chick Breaks Through the Shell

The chick has now exhausted its food supply and the time
has come to break through the shell. Toward the end of the
nineteenth day peeps may be heard as the young bird begins
the work of releasing itself. On the tip of the upper beak is
a horny knob called the 'egg-tooth' which may be seen on the
beaks of newly-hatched chicks. When lying within the shell
the chick's head is near the equator of the egg, and by rubbing
against the shell with its toothed beak, at the same time turn-
ing about in the egg, it wears a groove through the whole
circumference of the shell. The struggles of the chick finally
break the thin groove, and there emerges a completely formed,
well-equipped young fowl. (Figures VI, vii, vni.) Chicks must
have had a normal development and much vitality in order
to make their way out, for it is no easy task and the weak-
lings usually perish within the shell.

Chicks Compared with the Young of Other Birds

The domestic fowl belongs to the same order of birds as
the quail, pheasant, grouse and turkey. They are called
ground birds and their young are able to care for themselves
almost at once after hatching. Notwithstanding this, natural-
ists speak of them as lower and more coarsely organized than
the thrushes, doves, warbles, and other song-birds whose
young are hatched in a wholly helpless condition and are,
therefore, dependent upon their parents. This dependence
makes necessary a longer or shorter mating of the parents,
the establishment of the home or nest, and the continued care
of one or both parents.

Although some birds are helpless at birth, and others quite
precocious or matured, all go through the same course of
development from the fertilized egg. The chick is chosen
only because the transformation of yolk into chick has long
been studied, and the incubating eggs are easily obtained.

THE RABBIT

No animal beside the dog and the cat is better known to
childhood and more loved than 'bunny'. To the gardener and
orchardist, however, he is ever a scourge; to the hunter, jacks
and cottontail often remain the only game of the neighbor-
hood. The rabbit is a fearsome little creature since his only
means of defense are his fleetness of foot and his keen hearing.
If neither fleet-foot nor keen ear save him, his wonderful rate
of reproduction may keep him from destruction as a species
if not as an individual. Whether as pet, enemy or game,
the rabbit lives, whenever possible, close to the habitations of
men, loving the briar thickets along the edge of the road,
coming forth mainly in the dark of the night in search of food.

On Being Afraid of Ones Shadow

The great problem in the life of the wild rabbit is to live
long enough to reproduce its kind. Although this takes less
than a year not many out of the great numbers born succeed
in reaching this age. In spite of its fleetness of foot and its
good hearing the rabbit often falls a prey to one or another
of many enemies. Man destroys vast numbers; foxes, owls,
and weasels beside a host of other enemies take their toll.
The rabbit's habit of seeking shelter in holes and burrows
results in capture more often than in escape. Not for a
moment, asleep or awake, is the rabbit off his guard. The
long ears are poised to catch the least sound, the nostrils are
ever keen to detect the faintest scent of the enemy. Even
in sleep the body rests upon the long hind limbs, ready for
the sudden leap.

Wild rabbits are properly hares, only the domestic animal
being a true rabbit. Rabbits and hares differ considerably
in their habits, color, size, and the condition in which the
young are born, those of the domestic rabbit being much
more helpless. It is not likely, however, that common usage
will make the necessary distinction between rabbits and hares.

46

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 47

Education through Pets

How blessed is the child who can have a pet! An animal
that is all his own, over which he may exercise his affections
and his will, and through which he is given the opportunity
to establish right relations with the lower forms. To assume
the care of animals, to meet and anticipate their needs, to
watch the birth and growth of their young, to mate and
improve the stock, are all, in themselves, a discipline and an
education. Animals have civilized man quite as much as he
has domesticated them.

Rabbits make splendid pets; they are hardy and have few
needs. Next to the dog and the cat, they have endeared
themselves to all children.

From Birds to Mammals

It is seldom possible, and indeed not often desirable, to
give formal instruction to children about reproduction, by
beginning with flowers, and passing on to insects, fish, frogs,
birds, mammals, and man. The inquiry or the question of
the moment, whether it concern human birth or the meaning
of the flowers, will naturally deserve first attention. However,
it is desirable, as soon as possible, to convey an idea of the
ascending order of life and the main characteristics of each
of the great types. Information obtained about any plant
or animal may be turned to account either in comparing or
contrasting other forms already known to the child.

Our first thought is that there are very great differences
between birds and mammals, so great as to belong to unre-
lated divisions of the animal world. There are, however,
connecting links between them on the one hand ; and between
birds and reptiles, on the other.

The most striking difference between birds and mammals,
as we know them, is the growth of the young from an egg
outside the mother's body in the case of the birds, and the
growth of the young from an egg inside the mother's body
of the mammal. Without thinking, we say that the young
of birds grow within an egg, outside the mother. This is not

PLATE VII

Nest of newly-born cottontails under cabbage leaves (above)
Mother with her young (below)

50 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

true, as both bird and mammal come from the fertilized egg,
the only difference being that layers of food are stored about
the egg of birds instead of gaining its supply, as needed,
from the blood system of the mother. This method of
feeding is not unlike nourishing the seed embryo of plants
with sap.

Then, again, the young of birds at birth are either able to
pick up their food (poultry and their allies) or are given their
food partially digested by their parents (pigeons) or are fed
insects and worms (song-birds). Mammals, however, feed
their young for a longer or shorter time, a highly concentrated
food, milk, which is formed by especially prepared glands, and
stored temporarily in sacs, the mammae. So important is
this power to feed a prepared food and therefore to lengthen
the growing period of the young, that it has given the name
'mammals' to this great group. In this sense, then, man is
but a higher mammal.

How Rabbits Rear their Young

Wild rabbits or hares quite generally make their nests or
'forms' on the ground beneath a cover of grass or shrubbery.
The nest is nothing more than a slight hollow lined with fur
and grasses. The mother makes a kind of rough coverlet
under which she tucks her babies when leaving them. So
well hidden is the nest with leaves and litter that it is not
usually seen until the foot steps into it. (Plate VII.) Domestic
rabbits live in hutches following the burrowing habits of
their European ancestors.

The young are carried but thirty days within the body
of the mother. (Plate VIII.) Cottontail young are born
quite hairless and blind (Plate VII), dependent upon the
mother for nourishment and such protection as the nest
may offer. So rapid is their growth, however, that they are
turned out to shift for themselves in three weeks.

Although the mother, rabbit faithfully discharges her
maternal duties, the father rabbit shows no recognition of
his own family and is sometimes said to kill his own off-
spring.

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

51

The Reproductive Organs of the Rabbit

Just as with the fish and the frog the reproductive organs
of the rabbit consist, in reality, of but two structures, the

Vulva

FIGURE 3
The reproductive organs of the female rabbit consist of the ovaries, the egg-tubes and the
branched uterus. The urinary organs which are closely related to the reproductive, include
the kidneys, the ureters and the bladder. Note that these two sets of organs utilize the same
outlet, the vagina.

With here and there minor modifications the organs, as illustrated, are typical of most mam-
mals. In the human female the uterus (womb) is not double or paired (see Fig. 7— Page 64).

paired ovaries and the ducts which lead from the ovaries to
the outside. The hen is no exception, except that one ovary
and one duct have disappeared. The first structures, the

PLATE VIII

The mother rabbit carries her young in two long tubes, which
together are called the uterus. (See Figure j for a sketch of
the reproductive system showing the branches of the uterus.)
When the uterus with the young is examined closely, as in the
enlarged figure (below), it will be seen that each embryo is
enclosed in a separate sac and draws its nourishment inde-
pendently from the mother.

- *s>

54 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

ovaries of the rabbit, are but three-fourths of an inch in
length and are attached to the body wall, behind and lower
down than the kidneys. (See Figure 3.) The ovaries con-
tain many eggs, only a few of which are used in the lifetime
of the animal.

The second structures are the oviducts, leading, as in all
other forms studied, from the ovaries to the vent. Instead,
however, of being merely a straight tube through which the
egg passes, as in the fish or frog, the oviduct now has three
well-marked portions or divisions, the fallopian tube, the
uterus and the vagina. (Figure 3.) In the rabbit, the paired
tubes enlarge and join in their lower course to form the uterus
or the place where the young are carried. The uterus, in turn,
leads into the vagina or vestibule and then to the outside.
In all of the lower forms that have been studied, the oviduct
and rectum or alimentary canal join and have but one opening
to the outside. The oviduct of the higher animals, however,
has its own outlet. It is into this duct that the male intro-
duces the sperm by means of a special organ, the penis.

The reproductive organs of the male mammal, while they
seem to be unlike the female, correspond part for part. Here,
too, there are but two paired structures, the testes, or sperm-
producing glands, and the long tubes or spermatic cords
through which the sperm passes. The penis of mammals
and of man is simply a prolongation of the tube protected
by folds built up from the margins of the duct where it emerges
from the body. This organ conveys the sperms with more
certainty into the oviduct of the female. Male birds have
developed these folds to a considerable extent, the duck and
goose family having gone the farthest in this direction. The
penis because it is the most conspicuous of the visible repro-
ductive organs is apt to receive undue attention. From the
biological point of view it is an interesting evolutionary
structure, and one that has developed independently in other
forms than the mammal and for the same purpose; but, on
the whole, the organ is of relatively small importance as com-
pared with other parts of the reproductive apparatus since
fertilization does take place in some animals without it. It

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 55

is desirable, therefore, that a clear idea of the whole of the
reproductive structures be obtained, and especially of the
really important ones, the ovary and testis.

The testes of many mammals and of man are found sus-
pended on the outside of the body near the outlet of the
spermatic tube. (In the rabbit, the subject of our study, the
testes are not on the outside of the body except at the breed-
ing season.) The location of the testes in this region apparently
disproves the assertion that the male and female structures
correspond. But the testes of the male of mammals and of
man are found in the embryo, long before birth, in the same
position as that occupied by the ovaries of the female, namely,
back of the kidneys. Before birth there is a 'descent' or
migration of the testes from their original place to the scrotal
sac outside. Evidence of the change of position of the testes
is seen in the spermatic ducts, which very early in the life of
the embryo connect the testes with the penis, but later
lengthen their tubes and follow the testes to their new posi-
tion. They therefore form loops in front of and on each side
of the bladder in passing from the testes to the neighboring
outlet (Figure 6, page 63).

The eggs and the sperm cells of the rabbit share the lower
portion of the canal leading to the outside with another
product of the body, that from the kidneys. The kidneys
empty their secretions into the bladder and the latter empties
into the vestibule, not far from the outer end of the tube.

The History of a Fertilized Egg

At intervals, six or more small, naked eggs are discharged
by the ovaries into the expanded end of the oviduct. On
the way down the oviduct they may be met and fertilized by
sperm cells from the male. If so, they immediately begin to
develop, and by the time they reach the uterus have already
thrown out finger-like processes which enter the walls of the
uterus. Through these, oxygen and nourishment are drawn
from the mother. The five or six eggs have taken up positions
in the uterus, and here, as they grow, become surrounded
by two envelops, each forming a sac, the inner one of which

56

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

is filled with fluid. In this way, the embryo is protected
from all jars and pressures. At the end of the gestation period
the young pass out through the vagina and, as we say, are born.

ymm.

FIGURE 4

All mammal and human egg cells are essentially alike. The egg is surrounded by a trans-
parent membrane; a small amount of food material is stored within the cell for use during
the early stages of the growth of the embryo. A small round body, the nucleus, carries the
hereditary material. Inside the nucleus is seen another body, the nucleolus.
Sperm cells surround the egg and endeavor to pass through the membrane and outer wall cf
the egg. Highly magnified.

Should the eggs not be fertilized at once, they remain for
a time in the tube and uterus; but eventually find their way
to the outside, or are absorbed.

Lessons from the Rabbit

One ought to carry away from a study of the rabbit two or
three very important truths.

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 57

Nature's usual method of creating new and serviceable
organs is to transform old ones. A simple tube, the oviduct,
instead of merely transporting reproductive cells from the
central and protected parts of the body to the outside,
as with the fish and frogs, has become an abiding place for
the young, where development may go on and the compli-
cated nervous system and other organs have time to fully
mature.

The reproduction of all animals, from fish to man, is car-
ried out by means of very similar organs. Essentially these
are: a gland to prepare special reproductive cells in which are
placed the growth material, capable, when joined with its
opposite, a male or female cell, of building an organism not
only like the parents but resembling the species and, more
remotely, all of the ancestors that have gone before; a pair
of tubes which either pass the reproductive elements at once
to the outside, or, as in the female of mammals, retain them
during the process of development.

The means by which the united cells are enabled to grow
into an organism varies only in two ways. The earlier way
was to supply the egg with building material and to protect
it from too great evaporation and injury by gelatinous or
shell-like covering, trusting to the heat from some outer
source to supply the energy needed for development; the
other and later way was to retain the egg within the oviduct
and to supply it from moment to moment with the material,
moisture, and heat that is needed.

Finally, sex — maleness and femaleness — is nature's way of
so dividing up the difficult work of reproduction that two
organisms with their separate streams of heredity may
accomplish it more easily and effectively than one. We do
not mean to imply that this division of labor in producing
young is the only meaning of bi-parental generation. There
are other principles involved too technical and remote to the
present interest for discussion here. The separate and com-
plementary services of the male and the female in caring
for the young from the moment of fertilization to that of their
independence, remains the most obvious aspects of sex.

58 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

The special set of organs in the two sexes set apart to carry
out the work of reproduction were originally the same, since
they correspond part for part. In all of the higher forms,
the sex cells show this division into sperm and egg cells, but
there are animals in which the two kinds of reproductive
apparatus are found in one body. The same is true of plants.
Indeed, if we go back far enough in the plant and animal world
the difference between sperms and eggs disappears, and there
is left but the union of two similar cells as the first step in
producing another life.

THE CHILD

The question is often asked in what way the reproductive
organs of man differ from those of the animal. Fundamentally
there is no difference, but there are naturally many variations
of detail, such as size and position of organs, number of
young, length of the period of gestation, etc. Physically
speaking, the relation of man to the higher animals, especially
the apes, is affirmed in a thousand ways. Sexual reproduc-
tion is part and parcel of the vertebrate organization. It is
so closely identified with the animal economy as to exhibit
little change from the earliest times. Thus, the ovaries of
most fish produce hundreds of thousands of eggs during the
life of the fish. Likewise, each ovary of a three-year-old
female child has fully 400,000 eggs within it. Since at most
only a few hundred eggs are discharged, nature makes an
effort to economize by reducing the great number to about
36,000 by the time the child is eight years of age. The sperms
of the human male are produced by the hundred million.
Though many are still needed, such vast numbers probably
reflect a time when they were shed in the water and great
numbers were required to insure fertilization of the eggs.

Human Sperm Cells and How They are Produced

There are several typical methods of reproduction in the
living world: (1) that of direct division, as in many low orders
of plants and animals in which a single cell, the parent, divides
to form daughter cells; (2) that of spore formation, as in
ferns and fungi ; (3) that of budding, in which a single parent
gives rise to progeny by pushing out a bud from the parent
body, the new individual remaining in connection with the
parent body or detaching itself; (4) that of bulb formation;
(5) that of sexual generation, in which specialized cells are
regularly set apart to perform the function of producing the
new individual. Most plants and animals have come from
ancestors that early chose this last method of reproduction.
For all vertebrates this method is universally true. When

59

PLA TE IX

The human embryo of about four months. The area of attach-
ment to the mother's womb, the placenta, appears at the upper
part of the figure; below and continuous with the placenta is
the outer membrane covering the child. For the relation of
the child to the uterus, see Figure 10, page 70.

ApS

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>*s T C

ft

I

62

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

the level of the mammals, including man, is reached, the
sperm and egg cells are so small that they cannot be distin-
guished except by very high powers of the microscope.
See Figures 4, page 56, and 5.

Sperm cells of animals were first seen in 1677 when the
microscope was improved, but it was long before their true
nature and purpose was understood. A sperm cell is char-
acteristically an elongated body with a nucleus and a thread-
like tail which it uses in
swimming. (Figure 5.)
They are usually found
in a thick fluid much
like the white of egg,
called the semen or milt.
Sperm cells are produced
in special glands, the
testicles, by the mother
sperm cells. [They are
called mother sperm cells
though they are in the
body of the male.] These
line the inner surfaces
of about eight hundred
small tubules in the
testis, each of which, when uncoiled, is fully two feet in
length. This offers a very large surface for the mother sperm
cells and we see how it is possible for them to produce so
many sperm. As the sperm are produced, they are gathered
into some twenty collecting tubes and pass on to the very
much coiled epididymis and from this through the long vas
deferens or spermatic duct, the shape and course of which
were described in the rabbit. (Figure 6.) From the spermatic
duct the sperms pass, when needed, through the ejaculatory
duct (vn, Figure 6) to the urethral canal of the penis.
* At the time of sexual union the sperms are deposited at the
mouth of the uterus or very close to it.

* It has been long believed by physiologists that sperm cells are stored in the seminal
vesicles, (vi. Figure 6). Recent research, however, makes this conclusion somewhat
doubtful, but further investigation will be necessary before the point is definitely determined.

FIGURE 5

The exceedingly minute sperm cell of the human
male has a long tail and a flat head within which
is found a nucleus similar to that of the egg.
They are found in vast numbers in the normal
seminal fluid.

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

63

FIGURE 6

In this sectional diagram of the sex organs of the human male four principal structures
will be noted: The bladder I, the penis II, the testis III, and the spermatic duct IV,
connecting the testis with the penis.

The sperm cells of the male are produced in about 800 minute coiled tubules each of whit k
is fully two feet in length. After being produced, the sperm cells are collected in larger
tubes and are passed on to the long {20-foot) epididymis V, the much coiled beginning of
the sperm duct. This structure lies clcse about the testis, but is separated here in order
to show its relation to the testis. The epididymis is continued in the vas deferens or sper-
matic duct proper, IV. The spermatic duct passes in front of the pelvic bone, around the
side of and below the bladder where it empties into the urethra or canal from the bladder.
The seminal vesicle, VI. A short duct, VII, leads from the vesicle to the urethra or canal
from the bladder. Glands, VIII, surround the urethra and duct.

The diagram is made through the right testis. The testis, duct and seminal vesicle are
double or paired.

64

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

The Ova and their History

As the sperms are the smallest of all the cells of the body,
so the ova are the largest. The ova of man and the mammals,
however, may be seen by the naked eye when carefully
isolated. While there are a great many more ova produced
in the ovary (an oval body scarcely an inch in length) than
are used, there are still larger numbers of sperm cells produced.

FIGURE 7

The reproductive organs of the human female include the uterus (womb) I, the egg-tubes II,

and the ovaries III. The uterus is supported by broad IV, and round V, ligaments. For

a sectional view of these organs showing their relation to the other organs of the pelvis,

see Fig. 8, page 65.

The ripe egg discharged from the ovary is drawn into the egg-tube by the fine ciliated cells

lining the tube and extending out on the finger-like processes at the tip of the tube. The

egg passes on to the uterus where it lodges if it is fertilized.

The powerful muscle fibres of the uterus, in contrast to those of the vagina VI, is indicated.

For the appearance of the uterus during gestation, see Fig. 10, page 70.

The sperm cells of the male are constantly being made during
the lifetime, but the ova of the female are all produced before
birth, and even, as we have seen, reduced in number after
birth. A process of growth of each individual ovum goes on
during the reproductive period in which a sheltering envelop,
the follicle, forms about it. Yolk is accumulated and the
nuclear material is reduced by half in preparation for the
union with the nuclear material of the sperm cell. This

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

65

reduction of nuclear material is made so that when the union
with the sperm cell (which has also been reduced) occurs there
will be no absolute increase in this substance from generation
to generation.

At intervals of about four weeks and associated in some
way with the menstrual period of the female, an ovum,

FIGURE 8

Four large structures are shown in this diagram of the human female pelvis, viewed from the
side. The lower vertebra of the spinal column I; the lower bowel (rectum) II; the uterus
(womb) III; the vagina or vestibule leading to the outside IV; the bladder V.

sometimes one from each ovary, breaks through its follicle
on the surface of the ovary and is drawn into the enlarged
end of the oviduct or fallopian tube (Figure 7) by the cur-
rents set up by the many little ciliated, or whip-like cells
which line the tube and its mouth. At any moment after
entering the tube the ovum may encounter sperm cells which
have made their way slowly through the uterus and up the

66

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

THE CHILD

tubes. The instant the first
sperm cell gets through
the outer zone of the egg
a sheath or membrane is
thrown about the surface
of the egg which prevents
other sperm cells from
getting in. Occasionally,
however, it is believed,
two sperm get in. One
way of accounting for twins
that are physically united
like the Siamese twins is
to suppose that two sperm
cells have divided the egg
and the nuclear material
between them. United
bodies of this kind are
called 'identical twins'.
Twins are, of course, also
produced by the fertilizing
of two ova at the same
time, such being known as
'fraternal twins'.

After the ovum has
united with a sperm cell it
is known as a fertilized cell,
whose hereditary substance
is derived from both par-
ents. The fertilized cell
of man and the mammals
cannot be distinguished,
and is very much like that

THE RABBIT

FIGURE g
The striking similarity in the appearance of the growing embryos of man and the mammals
is illustrated by comparing the human embryo of 21 days with the rabbit of a few days
(first pair of embryos above). There is, further, no essential difference between the human
embryo of 28 days and the rabbit of 7 or S days (second pair). After this time, however, the
difference becomes marked and increases as the rabbit approaches birth at 30 days and the
child at nine months (third pair). The child is of course larger at time of birth than the
rabbit (after Haeckel).

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 67

of the corals, sponges, and star-fish. Indeed the first steps in
making the embryo, the multiplication of cells, the mulberry-
like ball which results, the hollowing out of the ball, and the
cupping in of one side as one would press in a hollow rubber
ball, to make the alimentary canal or stomach, and the for-
mation of the two resulting layers are the same for all crea-
tures from sponges to man. Some idea of these early stages
in the formation of animal bodies may be had by a study of
the frog's development (Figure 2, page 36).

The relation of the fertilized ovum to its environment, on
the other hand, sometimes floating in the water, now shell
covered — or again nestling in the walls of the uterus, differs
greatly. The protective envelops or membranes surrounding
the growing embryo differ also in birds and mammals.

It is essential to remember that human life, in common
with animal life, starts from a single fertilized egg or stem
cell. Biologically, this means, when taken in connection with
evidence from many other sources, that the sex cells were
once independent, free-swimming beings — all of life that
then existed — and later, when they gave rise to many celled
bodies, they retained the power of reproducing themselves and
their bodies. Through them, it naturally follows, all inherit-
ance is transmitted, rather than directly from body to body.
It is interesting to know that sex cells, those that go to make
the ovaries and the testes of the new individual, are set aside
soon after the first cell divisions begin, which indicates how
closely these cells are linked together as they pass from genera-
tion to generation of the bodies which they build.

Growth of the Human Embryo Compared
with that of the Rabbit

We have seen that the fertilized ovum, the first cup-shaped
(gastrula) structure, and the two primitive layers of cells
(a third layer is introduced between the other two in embryos
of animals above sponges) are the same for all animals. With
the advance to the higher back-boned forms the resemblance
continues, as the digestive and excretory (the kidneys and
the reproductive organs are included here) tracts are elabo-

68 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

rated, with increasing divergences in different animals in the
case of the vascular, respiratory, muscular, and nervous
systems.

It is, in fact, a law of the development of organisms that
the peculiarities which distinguish groups of animals — those,
for example, that separate the rabbit from man — only appear
gradually. The closer the resemblance or relationship, the
later these differences appear.

Compare, for the illustration of this law, the appearance of
the human embryo of twenty-one days with that of the
rabbit only a few days old. (Figure 9.) Their sizes are prac-
tically the same, being about two-tenths of an inch long. Both
show the gill clefts, which are expressions of nature's inability
to forget that man and all the vertebrates were once fish;
the two higher sense organs, the eye and the ear, are marked
out, but there is no trace of limbs.

By the twenty-eighth day the human embryo is almost
half an inch long, and the rabbit within two days of birth.
Comparing, however, similar stages, there is little difference
between them. The head and its various parts are clearly
marked out, and the rudiments of the eye, ear and limbs are
seen. The head bends almost at right angles to the body.
The tail of the human embryo is twice as long as the legs.
Inside of the body, all of the principal organs are outlined.
There are still no essential features that set man off from the
dog, rabbit, or horse, although the various embryos may be
distinguished by different proportions of the body parts.

Beginning with the eighth week of the human embryo,
there are important differences of the size and shape of the
head that clearly set man apart from the mammals. The cor-
respondence which has been noted between man and the
mammals continues, now, with the higher apes, the gorilla,
and especially the chimpanzee. Not until the seventh or
eighth month can the foetuses, as they are now called, of man
and the apes be told apart. After passing the plane of the
apes, the child enters the heritage of the human races,
and it is not until sometime in the ninth month that the
racial features are distinguished. Family resemblances

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 69

follow, some aspects of which, indeed, do not become
apparent until maturity.

Birth

The outer surface of the egg, immediately after fertiliza-
tion, throws out processes which enter the walls of the uterus
much as though it were a parasite. As soon as this is done
the surface of the egg grows rapidly, so that it becomes an
envelop about the embryo which occupies, at the outset, but
a relatively small space in the interior. The embryo is
attached to the inner wall of the now very much expanded
egg by means of a stalk, through which the blood courses to
and from the mother as soon as the yolk with which the
embryo is supplied is used. The stalk then becomes the
navel, or umbilical cord. The villi, or processes which have
entered the uterus, withdraw from all portions of the envelop
except in the neighborhood of the stalk attachment of the
embryo. (Plate IX.) Here they enter more deeply into the
uterus and make a circular disk of soft, spongy texture, six or
eight inches in diameter and perhaps an inch thick, known as
the placenta.

There is no direct connection between the blood of the
mother and that of the growing child. The nutritive serum
from the mother is deposited in the placental region of the
uterus and there absorbed by the many terminal blood vessels
leading through the umbilical cord to the placenta. All of
the higher animals have placentas, those of the higher apes
and man being almost identical, but the mammals showing
different sizes and shapes.

As the time for birth approaches, the child takes up a
position with its head toward the outlet. The muscular walls
of the uterus have thickened and grown. By rhythmic con-
traction, sometimes long continued, the head of the child is
forced through the two envelops which have sheltered it
through nine long months, at the same time freeing the fluid
within the inner one. The pelvic bones are stretched apart
and the child makes its way through the vaginal canal to
the outside. It brings with it the cord of blood vessels, which

70

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

the attendant severs close to the body of the child. The
animal mother instinctively cuts this cord with her teeth.
The placenta, together with parts of the uterus wall which,

FIGURE 10

The relation of the human embryo to the uterus of the mother is shown in the diagram.
The two oviducts or egg-tubes I, lead into the uterus. The uterus, during the time the child
is being carried, may be divided into two main portions: the solid muscular wall II, and a
spongy interior lining III. The blood vessels from the 'mother IV, penetrate the lining,
enabling the circulation V,from the embryo VI, to obtain nourishment from the mother and
to transfer to her waste materials. The embryo itself, VI, floats, at this stage in a liquid
within a cavity VIII. In reality there is no open space as represented at IX, the membrane
covering the embryo pressing close upon the walls of the uterus. At birth the mouth of the
uterus X, is greatly expanded to permit the passage of the child.

After the birth of the child the two portions of the uterus mentioned above divide along the
line indicated by VII, and the inside portion passes out of the uterus as the afterbirth.

thus united, form a solid mass, soon passes out after the
birth of the child. (Figure 10.)

Birth is a difficult thing for both mother and child. Mam-
mal and human embryos grow in a fluid which gives them no
opportunity to practice breathing and probably little in

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 71

swallowing. They are thus called upon suddenly at birth to
assume functions that have never before been tried. The
heart, the muscular and nervous systems have long been
active. With the prepared food of the mother, digestion does
not seem difficult.

The Two Factors that Separate Man from the Animals

We have referred repeatedly to the very close parallel in
the development of man and the mammals, and, at earlier
stages, of a similar parallel between the mammals and the
simpler animals. The purpose in doing so is not only to state
the facts, but to simplify, as far as possible, the task of un-
derstanding the nature of animal and human development.

There is, however, a great difference between man and
the mammals. For most people, the differences far out-
weight the similarities. From the viewpoint of physical
development this cannot be true, but there are two factors
intimately related to man's sexual life which are decisive
advances upon anything found in the animal world.

The first and most important of these is the lengthened
period of human infancy — a period measured before, as
well as after, birth. Although there have been greatly dif-
ferent rates of growth, there is, at the moment of birth, little
difference between the young of man, the mammals, and
many birds as far as helplessness is concerned. In a matter
of a few weeks, however, the mammal — the rabbit, for exam-
ple, is able to care for itself. For the child it is a question of
years, due to both its slow development, and, in the case of
the child born in civilization, to a complex and difficult envi-
ronment. The prolongation of infancy is unique for the human
species, for although the elephant, the slowest breeder among
animals, has fewer offspring than man and carries the young
longer in utero, there is a relatively shorter growth period
for the young after birth. This lengthened period of infancy
and early childhood has had much to do with the development
of family and communal life. * Probably family life has in
turn lengthened the period of development.

1 Cf. John Fiske. Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 344 et seq.

72 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

A second factor is the existence of self-conscious thought in
human beings and the play of this thought upon the repro-
ductive instincts. Further reference to this factor will be
made in the next chapter. It is sufficient here to recall that
thought, including, of course, memory, has the power of
greatly modifying the instinctive sex behavior of man. This
may take the direction of sexual degeneration or perversion,
on the one hand, or of restraint and of a reduced birth rate
on the other. The conflict of thought and instinct operating
under the conditions of civilization, introduces the most
serious problems in human life.

NATURE STUDY AND THE PERSONAL
PROBLEMS OF LIFE

Up to the time of adolescence or puberty the child lives in
but one world and that is an outer or objective one. The self
is forming, but it is not set off sharply in contrast with the
outer world and the interests of others. While there are
desires demanding gratification, these are not really problems.
The mind goes eagerly outward in search of experience, infor-
mation, and adventure. It is the time when the greatest
possible number of objects are got together in collections;
when curiosity is aroused and welcomes information about
the plants and animals; when the habits, behavior, and
devices by which plants and animals maintain and propagate
themselves are of enthralling interest. It is the time when
nature study means most. In these years the child should
become familiar with the way in which reproduction is accom-
plished in the plants and in the animals. This information
will be quickly assimilated if it is available, unless, indeed, the
curiosity about the ways of natural things is dulled by the
lack of interest on the part of parents and teacher.

The Coming of Puberty

The coming of puberty and the attendant adolescent changes
bring real problems to the life of the growing self. The mind
is no longer disinterestedly looking outward. There is the
coming, the birth, of a real person within. Nature is only
seen with half an eye now, so to speak; the other half being
occupied with the events and emotions going on within.
Interest no longer ranges freely, but is confined, in most
youth, to those objects which subserve some personal end, or
means thereto. Things begin to have meaning, not abstractly
and for themselves, but for the self. Sex in nature is no longer
merely one of the activities of life, but it is something that
has a personal bearing and meaning, something that may
illumine the dark passages within. It were well, perhaps, it

73

74 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

youth continued to look upon nature singly, with the eye of
the child; it were well, perhaps, if there existed for him
but one world instead of two, so that when the stage of re-
flection and full self-consciousness is reached, the youth
might still see the self as a closely membered form of the
natural creation. This power may come again with the years,
it may be the continuing possession of gifted minds, but for
most of us, it passes with adolescence.

Yet even here there are compensations. Strange passions
and appetites are awakening. An intense, one might even say,
an intelligent selfishness, prepares the way for lust as the
great and unregulated forces of creation come to birth in the
boy. But along with lust comes chivalry. Man seems to have
inherited the impulses or instincts that make the higher life
possible. A devotion to ideals, a capacity for sacrifice, and,
for the moment, a power to enter into high social ideals,
struggle side by side with impulses which lead directly and
without circumlocution to reproduction. It makes a tre-
mendous difference to youth which of these two sets of forces
receive reinforcement from the environment. Sexual impulses
may be turned into depraved and vicious acts, or they may
be controlled, adjusted to social life, and made the agents of
personal and racial good. There are those whose heredity
or early environment commit them without a struggle to the
worst; there are, on the other hand, those whose environment
is fortunate, whose physical and mental development goes
on uninterruptedly, and who have the rare privilege of enter-
ing upon marriage with all of its obligations and steadying
influences at the time when these are most needed. For the
great majority of youth, however, there are many dangers
and many problems of life to be settled and adjusted.

What May Nature Study Do

There is no intention to maintain here that nature study,
even though it deal with the entire life history of living
creatures rather than conventionally acceptable portions of
them, will of itself solve the problems of youth, or indeed,
greatly lessen the strain of the 'storm and stress' period. It

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 75

is asserted, however, that such information will be of service
especially when given early, and by those who can makr it a
part of the wisdom of life. In fact, nature study, thus under-
stood, is only another cultural influence, a means such as all
culture offers of looking upon life broadly and humanely.
There is nothing that can be offered youth, not even religion
itself, which carries with it a guarantee of safety and security.
On the whole we are gaining more confidence in methods of
intelligent preparedness to meet the issues of life than in
moral suasion alone. Example is good, but how seldom it is at
hand at the right hour, and how rarely it fits the particular crisis !
The success with which nature study is used in sex educa-
tion will be proportionate to our information and the richness
and fullness of our own interpretative power. Mere facts,
of themselves, will not go far, but when to them is added the
sympathetic and seeing eye, much may be accomplished.
We shall, for example, no longer think of sex or reproduction
as degraded, debased, or alien to our humanity. That sex does
become so and that it is the root of so much misery does
not alter the fact that, as far as the natural creation is con-
cerned, sex and all of its associated structures and activities
are wholly good and have been mainly instrumental in giving
rise to those things we prize most highly in life. Our dignity,
our sovereignty, though they exist only potentially, are
affirmed by the fact that we may become more blinded with
passion than the animals can ever be. Nature study will
show us that our problem is a dual one. There is, first, the
action of the instinctive forces of reproduction which are in
unavoidable conflict with the restraints of civilization, with
monogamous marriage and with the long and involved
preparation for marriage. Then, second, the human intelli-
gence, which, seeing the instincts thwarted and opposed by
social requirements, joins in with the instincts to gain satis-
faction by deceit, subterfuge, and the sacrifice of others.

The Best Course to Pursue

The best preparation that can be made to meet the inevita-
ble crises in the life of youth, we reaffirm, is not to avoid the

76 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

issues, not to trust to the exemptions of innocence, not to
feel that somehow the young person will stumble through as
others have, but to take the full measure of the situation.
Equip the contestant with a full knowledge of the enemy.
The conflict, however, is not to resolve itself into one of
Puritan against Satan, but rather into one of disciplining
and turning to useful service a power that, unregulated, may
wreck life.

The Girl, as well as the Boy, Should Understand
the Biological Meaning of Sex

The male, as we have had occasion to see, has by slow
process of selection, assumed the active part in propagation.
This fact makes the problem of the boy much more difficult
of solution than that of the girl. The disproportion in the
intensity of the impulse in the boy and the girl should not,
however, be taken to mean that the girl is less in need of
enlightenment and preparation. On the contrary, her igno-
rance of the manner in which sex expresses itself in the man
as contrasted with the woman, is responsible, both before and
after marriage, for much of the disharmony, disillusionment,
perhaps pain and misery of life. After marriage very serious
adjustments and adaptations of two highly different natures,
remain to be made, not once but constantly. It is a time
when sympathy, even love itself, is not enough. With these
qualities must go good insight and an understanding of the
meaning and purpose of sex.

The Justification for Sex Education

The revelations of the inner life of the soul in the modern
psychological laboratory show how great has been the havoc
of mind caused by the inability of the growing person to
bring about an equilibrium between the torrent of impulse
within and the many outward barriers which civilization
has raised against what it considers improper expressions of
sex. The youth of savages and of the native races experience
no such crisis, since the racial welfare usually demands all
of the procreative resources of these people. But modern

THE WAY LIFE BEGINS 77

civilization would be impossible with a free play of sexual
impulse, realizing itself in temporary and promiscuous union,
in degeneracy, and in the wide spread of social diseases which
follow. Society exists because a sufficient number of people
live clean and strong lives. Our customs are therefore basi-
cally right in suppressing and penalizing these racially dis-
advantageous, for such they are, expressions of sex. Social
regulations are usually blind and irrational in their modes of
operation, if not in their intentions. They are lamentably
weak and their failure to control is expressed by the existence
of such classes of men and women as those who are openly
depraved and defiant of the moral order; those who secretly,
and to them, profitably, desecrate the ethical ideals of the
race; and those who, in conforming to the moral mandates
of society, do so at such cost to themselves in inner suffering
that mental derangements frequently follow.

We must say again, in conclusion, as we have said before,
the mitigation of the miseries and wastes of human life that
arise from the misuse and misdirection of sex does not lie in
continuing ignorance of the facts of life, or in more arbitrary
suppression of the natural tendencies in youth. It equally
does not lie in granting more license to the individual in
realizing his sexual desires; nor does it lie in merely acquiring
biological facts.

If there is any justification for sex education it must be
because it offers definite help in solving the intimate problems
of life as far as sex is concerned. The broader sex education
proposes to enlist the cooperation of youth's own intelligence.
It opens for him the vistas of nature and discovers to him the
vital and necessary place that sex has occupied in the living
world, thus aiding in the translation of a personal interest,
liable to perversion, into the appreciation of a universal and
pivotal principle of creation. New avenues for the employ-
ment of the energies of body and mind are to be provided in
order that the outward-going forces may not be turned back
upon themselves. Though parents and teachers do their best,
the hour of trial will come, and, if circumstances are adverse,
it will come repeatedly; it is now that a victory over the sub-

78 THE WAY LIFE BEGINS

human impulses of sex is a victory for both self and civiliza-
tion. It will be shown to youth that a clean, upreaching and
outspreading life is good in and of itself and carries its own
reward; that there is, indeed, an inner and sufficient reason
for what the race calls morality.

A cold and impersonal policy of silence or of intolerance
supplies none of these aids; and the problem is too difficult
for many youths to solve unaided. Our help must be human
and individual; not in the old way, by crude, mass action,
merciless, torturing both the guilty and the innocent alike,
gaining here and losing there. Rather it should be as parent
to child, teacher to pupil, physician to his patient, prophet
to his people.

SUGGESTIONS ABOUT BOOKS

JL HIS BOOK is but an introduction to
sex education; moreover it barely touches
the field of nature study. As the reader
follows his interest further in this
field he will desire, probably, to consult
more comprehensive books. There is an
abundant nature literature which is readily
available. With regard to sex education, a
number of excellent books have been pub-
lished and others will no doubt appear from
time to time. Owing to the fact that there
are so many aspects of the subject, each
adapted to special needs and purposes, it
has been deemed advisable not to recommend
here a general list of books. An inquiry of
this nature, however, addressed to The
American Social Hygiene Association, 105
West 40th Street, New York City, will
receive in answer a selected list of books,
suited, as far as possible, to the needs of the
inquirer.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Santa Barbara College Library
Santa Barbara, California

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