DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BEING 
Breathing, too, is quicker in the infant life, ranging from 
thirty-five per minute at birth to twenty-eight in the second 
year, twenty-six in the fifth, and so onwards. In the 
early years there 1s a continual storing up of reserves in 
the form of complex chemical compounds. Energy is being 
laid up against the exigencies of life in the form of rapidly 
increasing masses of flesh. The infant and growing child 
require pound for pound, over and above the needs of 
adult man, a larger income of energy corresponding to the 
imperious demands of growth. 
Let us embrace in a single view the long panorama of 
life and survey the mysterious march of progressive evolu- 
tion from its marvelous beginning in the individual cell, 
through the complex organizations of cells making up the 
many orders and species which have occupied the earth in 
the past or occupy it now, looking forward towards the 
undisclosed unfolding of the life of the future. In this 
far-ranging view, reproduction, not present activity, is by 
far the most important of all functions. Without it 
the glory of life is indeed but evanescent. With it 
the potentialities of the life of the future are beyond 
estimate. 
From this point of view it is wholly fitting that the 
period of life which is marked by the most outstanding 
changes in form, activity of growth, behavior, mental out- 
look, and assertion of individuality should be the period of 
puberty, when the organs of reproduction become func- 
tional. In savage life, the significance of this period is 
frankly recognized and has led to rites and ceremonies, 
fasts, vigils, self-torturings, and other curious practices 
emblematic of the mysterious importance associated with 
this vital epoch. 
It would be superfluous to describe changes of bodily 
form and habits of thought which accompany the onset of 
the reproductive period of life, for no one can avoid know- 
ing them. The literature of romance, of motherhood, and 
of chivalry, which makes up so preponderating a part of 
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