The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1921-04-06
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
BY Margaret w. Morley

Sooner or later every normal child
will be curious as to his origin. Fortu-
note is the one whose mother real
ICES the importance of answering
truthfully this natural question of
origin and of answering it soon
enough that is. before harmful and
ugly thoughts have been put into the
: child's mind by ignorant or vicious
persons. Any mother can prepare the
way for a fell answer as soon as her
child is old enough to be interested
in planting seed and watching it
grow If there is no out-of-doors gar
den at hand, pretty way to impart
the knowledge is to plant bean in
flower pc: and interest the child III
watching its growth from day to day.
How pleased he will be when the
bean plant begins to blossom! Try to
make this poisoning important, and
thus hold his interest Show the little
blossom to his friends and playmates,
or better still encourage him to show
it. Tell him that he must not pick the
blossom because from it will come
more beans How can that be? Wait
and see! If possible place the plant in
an open window where the bees can
find the flowers
After a time. the flower will wither
and its pretty petals fall off, but there
is left behind tiny green bean which
grew in the heart of the flower. Watch
it become larger and larger as the
DAYS pass. Finally. the pod will be
filled with little bean children! Hold
the plant against the light and show
the child the tiny beans in the pod
without picking it. Each bean is at
tached to the pod by tiny stem. Tell
the child how the life of the mother
plant passes into the little young
beans and feeds them and enables
them to grow until they are large
enough to leave the mother plant and
start out in life for themselves. When
the young beans are fully formed and
quite ready the bean pod opens and
the beans fall out. and, if they fall on
good soil in time they too will begin
to sprout and grow into other bean
plants
Show the child as many seeds and
seed pods as possible. those hanging
from the trees. those growing on the
plants and weeds in the garden. All
flowers grow from seeds. Everything
that lives seems to come from seeds
Why, yes. even the little young kitten
started as tinv seed that grew in a
place prepared for il within its moth
err We should be very careful of the
mother cat very kind and gentle with
her and never hurt her. Teach the
child to respect motherhood in the
animals as we'll as in humanity: give
him a lovely thought about mothers
and their and their young children.
and thus make motherhood beautiful
and sacred in his mind. Make the
development and birth of the infant
life so familiar and so natural to the
child that when the time comes for
him to ask questions. the answer can
be easily given by the mother and
easily understood by the child who
has been prepared and who will often
answer the question himself with a
little help from his mother She might
say. "You remember about the seeds.
don't you and how they grew in their
home at the heart of the flower? You
remember how we talked about the
little kittens and how they started the
same wav as the little seeds?" The
child will often ask. "And was ! a
little seed like that?" If mott. the mo-
ther can say, "You were once a tiny
seed like that Everybody was. And
think what lot of growing YOU did
to make such dear, big child with
hands and feet and ears and eyes
and everything else"
Where pure thoughts are lodged
loose thoughts cannot enter