s will themselves
lead him on to new inquiries. For they will give him not so much new
facts as a new method of attack. I have further assumed that any of this
material which by taking on a pattern form can thereby enhance or deepen
its intrinsic quality is susceptible of becoming literature. Material
which does not lend itself to some sort of intentional design or form,
may be good for informational purposes but not for stories as such.

The task, then, is to examine first the things which get the
spontaneous attention of a two-year-old, a three-year-old and so up to a
seven-year-old; and then to determine what relationships are natural and
intelligible at these ages. Obviously to determine the mere subject of
attention is not enough. Children of all ages attend to engines. But the
two-year-old attends to certain things and the seven-year-old to quite
different ones. The relationships through which the two-year-old
interprets his observations may make of the engine a gigantic extension
of his own energy and movement; whereas the relationships through which
the seven-year-old interprets his observations may make of the engine a
scientific example of the expansion of steam or of the desire of men to
get rapidly from one place to another. What relationship he is relying
on we can get only by watching the child's own activities. The second
part of the task is to discover what _is_ pattern to the untrained but
unspoiled ears, eyes, muscles and minds of the little folk who are
to consume the stories. Each part of the task has its peculiar
difficulties. But fortunately in each, children do point the way if
we have the courage to forget our own adult way and follow theirs.

CONTENT

In looking for content for these stories I followed the general lines of
the school for which they were written. The school gives the children
the opportunity to explore first their own environment and gradually
widens this environment for them along lines of their own inquiries.
Consequently I did not seek for material outside the ordinary
surroundings of the children. On the contrary, I assumed that in stories
as in other educational procedure, the place to begin is the point at
which the child has arrived,--to begin and lead out from. With small
children this point is still within the "here" and the "now," and so
stories must begin with the familiar and the immediate. But also stories
must lead children out from the familiar and immediate, f