Bringing up the Boy: A Message to Fathers and Mothers from a Boy of Yesterday Concerning the Men of To-morrowWerner, Carl Avery
Science
Bringing up the Boy: A Message to Fathers and Mothers from a Boy of Yesterday Concerning the Men of To-morrow
Werner, Carl Avery
Boys
“God made everything, as you know. He made the sea and the land, the
sky and the stars and the sun and the moon. He makes the trees and the
plants and the animals and the boys and the girls who grow to be men
and women. But when I say God makes these things I do not mean that
He makes them with tools, as you would make a playhouse, or with His
hands, as you would make a snow-man. He makes all of these things by
a great plan which He has laid out and by which all things, with His
help, spring up and grow, over and over again, so that the world may go
on just as it is for years and years. By this plan all living things
come from a seed. This seed is within all grown-up plants and grown-up
animals. When a new plant is needed, a seed falls from the grown-up
plant and falls into the soil, where it sprouts and becomes a young
plant. Every kind of animal is composed of two sexes, the male sex and
the female sex. The fathers are of the male sex; the mothers of the
female sex. As the seed of plants is within the flower, so the seed of
animals is within the mother animal. When a new animal is needed the
seed within the mother slowly grows into a young animal like the father
or mother, and while it is still very small it comes out into the light
and sunshine; and that is what we mean when we say it is born. Men and
women are animals. They are different from all other animals in that
they can talk and think and are much higher and better in every way.
But the seed forms within the mother just as it does within the plants
and birds and animals of all kinds. And when another child is needed
the seed begins to grow and takes the form of a little child and after
awhile it comes into the world to be dressed and fed and cared for;
that is what we mean when we say that a babe has been born. That is how
you came into the world and how I came and how all of us came. It is
all a part of God’s wonderful plan to keep the world growing greater
and better and more beautiful. It is not good for boys to talk about
these beautiful things in a rough way, and I hope you will not do so.
I tell them to you because I want you to know the truth. If there is
anything you do not understand, ask me and I will explain it. Whatever
you may hear, no matter whether it is good or bad, if you want to know
the truth about it come to me and I will tell you.”
That was all. Science in words of two syllables. Science is truth, and
truth is what your boy demands.
My boy took me at my word. He came back for further enlightenment
more than once. But every time I answered him soberly, freely and
truthfully. And when he knew everything he was immune to that
contamination which mystery breeds. And what is more, the parent
had measured up to the child’s ideal. The father was still the
fountainhead; and no boy will drink from the stagnant pool of vulgarity
when the clear crystal water of truth is close at hand.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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