“Yes, and I remember that I thought it rather silly that in a school book the plants should be spoken of as people, as if it were a fairy story.”
“And yet, my dear, it was only stating an actual fact, and was not, as you fancied, a fairy story. There are really fathers and mothers among plants; if there were not there could be no new plant life. In some plants the male and female are united in the same flower; in other plants there are male and female flowers, but all growing on the same plant. In a third species all the flowers of one plant will be male, and all of another plant will be female. The fertilization 62 of plants is very interesting, for the insects and the bees and the breezes often carry the pollen of the male flowers to the female flowers, and so the seeds are fertilized.
“When we come to study reproduction among the human race, we find the same plan; in fact, we find it in all forms of organized life, plants, animals and man. That is, there must be fathers as well as mothers.
SPERMATOZOA.
“I told you of the germ or ovum that is produced by the ovary of the woman. That ovum of itself could never become a new being. It must be united with a life-giving principle furnished by the man. This principle consists of a fluid in which float tiny little creatures called spermatozoa—one is a spermatozoon. Here is a picture of some. They are too small to be seen without the aid of a microscope. They are about 1⁄500 of an inch long, that is, 500 of them laid end to end, would cover only an inch in length.
“If an ovum starts from the ovary and is not hindered, it will pass on through the uterus and the vagina into the world, and that is the end of it; but if, when the ovum starts from the ovary to make its way through the tube, the spermatozoa are deposited here at the mouth of the uterus, they will find their way up into the cavity, and if one meets an ovum and enters into it, a new life is begun. The ovum will now fasten itself to the walls of the uterus and grow into the little child.
“You can understand that, for the spermatozoa to be placed where they can find their way into the uterus, means a very close and familiar relation of the man and woman.