Confidential Chats with Boys

by William Lee Howard

Both of these mothers, flower and dog, are going to bring forth new lives from the same great cause; the union of the male seed and the female’s eggs.

All life comes from an egg. This is the first law of nature. Every form of female has a method of protecting her eggs so as to bring them ready to receive the life germs of the male. Some flowers bury their ovaries—the organ that makes the eggs—in the ground. Some form of water flowers show us how careful we boys and men should be to protect our powers from being wasted. These flowers protect and keep their seed by closing their sacks—corollas—under the water until the time comes for them to act as fathers. If they kept their seed sacks above the water the wind would carry it away and then they would have none to place in the female flower when she was ready to receive it; or the egg, which is the same thing. Then this female flower would be childless, and soon we should be without the beautiful flowers.

It is on account of this care of the life-giving germ that all nature, including intelligent and strong men, is able to keep the world populated and growing better. For in spite of apparent signs of the non-improvement of the men and women to-day, in reality we are getting to be better men and women. And a plain understanding of life such as I am chatting to you about, is one of the good signs; for in your mother’s and father’s days these important matters were left for them to pick up at hazard and often from the wrong sources. But it will not be so with you; knowing the truth you will all be able to live right, go to your little wife a healthy man, strong in body, clean morals and conscience and not suffer the horrible self-accusation later on in life when seeing your son or daughter a cripple, helpless or incompetent. No, I believe that many of these awful conditions will cease to be; for they can be entirely wiped out if you heed and act upon what I tell you.

Boys and young men have not had the seriousness of this matter fully explained, and through their ignorance have wasted life-energy, ruined themselves and finally become broken down in morals and bodily health, been sent to insane asylums, or died in hospitals from diseases caught through evil habits.

Ignorance has caused them to be fathers of weak boys, sometimes idiots, and of daughters who followed the unmoral life of their father.

Now it may sound funny to you, but the truth is, that if the boys in the past had really known as much as the chipmunks, we should have very few asylums for the insane or hospitals for the horrible diseases. To be sure, the chipmunk’s habits of right living so as to have only healthy and sane children, is due to instinct; but we have the same instinct; let us see that it is not suppressed by ignorance on the one hand and the upheaval of evil thoughts and acts on the other.

Of course there are many diseases which are not due to wasting of life’s energy or vicious habits, but more than one-half of the degeneracy and insanity in our land is due to these awful mistakes.

We do not have crazy foxes or idiotic colts; we seldom have any wild animal born unfit to live. Yet the method of reproduction, the mating of the male with the female, is just the same as with man. The great difference is that animals mate when in PERFECT condition. Neither the lion, eagle, nor the rose, has wasted or poisoned the vital fluid or dust by bad habits, or lost their power by ruinous indulgence.

All these facts are a wonderful and plain lesson to us; and when we think it over carefully and recognize all it means, the question rises: why have we done as we have been doing all these long years of supposed intelligence? Because your parents and grandparents were not allowed to know the truth.