ty from
religion, it is supremely evident that a very great and significant side
of a child's education is before us.

It is by means of the divine gift of imagination, probably the most
spiritual of a child's gifts, that he can lay hold of all that the world
of literature has to offer him. Because of imagination he is independent
of poverty, monotony, and the indifference of other people; he has a
world of his own in which nothing is impossible. Edwin Pugh says of a
child of the slums who was passionately fond of reading cheap
literature:--"It was by means of this penny passport to Heaven that she
escaped from the Hell of her surroundings. It was in the maudlin fancies
of some poor besotted literary hack maybe, that she found surcease from
the pains of weariness, the carks and cares of her miserable estate."

A teacher realising this, should feel an almost unspeakable sense of
responsibility in having to select and present matter: but the problem
should be solved on the one hand by her own high standard of story
material, and on the other by her knowledge of the child's needs.
According to his experiences of life the interpretation of the story
will differ: for example, it was found that the children of a low slum
neighbourhood translated _Jack the Giant-killer_ into terms of a street
fight: to children living by a river or the sea, the _Water-Babies_ would
mean very much, while _Jan of the Windmill_ would be more familiar
ground for country children. Fairy stories of the best kind have a
universal appeal.

In choosing a story a teacher should be aware of the imperishable part
of it, the truth around which it grew; sometimes the truth may seem a
very commonplace one, sometimes a curious one. For example, very young
children generally prefer stories of home life because round the family
their experience gathers: the subject seems homely, but it is really one
of the fundamental things of life and the teacher should realise this in
such a way that the telling or reading of the story makes the kernel its
central point. To some children the ideal home life comes only through
literature: daily experiences rather contradict it. Humour is an
important factor in morality; unless a person is capable of seeing the
humor of a situation he is likely to be wanting in a sense of balance;
the humor of a situation is often caused by the wrong proportion or
wrong balance of things: for example the humour of _The Mad Tea-Party_
lies,