of any
other part of the body that would be safer than just this place. At
any rate there they are, and our duty is to understand them as best
we can, and take mighty good care of them as our most wonderful
possession.

Looking at Plate I, you will see that the woman's body provides the
egg or ovum. These grow, many thousands of them, in two small sacs
called ovaries, and every little while (usually every four weeks, but
not always) an ovum ripens and passes out from the ovary through the
fallopian tube (there are two of these, one leading from each ovary)
into the uterus or womb, a process which takes several days. Here it
may be met by the male life element, and if so, it becomes fertilized
and remains in the uterus to grow into a baby. This is called
fertilization, fecundation, impregnation or conception. But if the
egg is not fertilized, it passes from the uterus through the vagina
and out of the body. The ovaries take turns in developing the ovum.

Every twenty-eight days or so a woman, from the time she is about
thirteen or fourteen till she is about fifty, has a slight flow of
blood from the uterus, which is called menstruation. The reasons for
this are not wholly understood, but it is supposed there is an extra
supply of blood provided periodically for the growth of a baby, but
when there is no baby starting to grow, the blood is not needed so it
flows away (about once in four weeks). Often the unfertilized ovum is
carried away with it, but the two things do not necessarily happen at
the same time. Menstruation lasts from three to five days and young
girls sometimes have pain then and feel languid and "unwell." If so
they should be quieter than usual and avoid cold baths and getting
their feet wet. But menstruation is not an illness, and a girl in
perfect health finds it only a slight inconvenience.

The ovaries not only produce the egg, but they also produce a
secretion that is absorbed by the blood and which is most necessary
in the development of a girl into a woman. It has an almost magical
effect in adding the specially womanly qualities to the body and
character.

Looking at Plate 2, you will see the man's sex machinery. The
testicles are to a man what the ovaries are to a woman. They are two
sacs held in a bag of rather thin loose skin called the scrotum, and
it is here that the sperm (spermatozoa) or germ of life grows. Just
how no one really knows. The spermatozoa are very tiny and the
testicles h