es." She said, "It was hard at first, but now it is a
matter of course; _and the children do it too, when they tell the
story_." That was the pity! I saw the illustration myself a little
later. The child who played fox began with a story: he said, "Once there
was an old fox, and he saw some grapes"; then the child walked to the
other side of the room, and looked at an imaginary vine, and said, "He
wanted some; he thought they would taste good, so he jumped for them";
at this-point the child did jump, like his role; then he continued with
his story, "but he couldn't get them." And so he proceeded, with a
constant alternation of narrative and dramatisation which was enough to
make one dizzy.

The trouble in such work is, plainly, a lack of discriminating analysis.
Telling a story necessarily implies non-identification of the teller
with the event; he relates what occurs or occurred, outside of his
circle of consciousness. Acting a play necessarily implies
identification of the actor with the event; he presents to you a picture
of the thing, in himself. It is a difference wide and clear, and the
least failure to recognise it confuses the audience and injures both
arts.

In the preceding instances of secondary uses of story-telling I have
come some distance from the great point, the fundamental point, of the
power of imitation in breeding good habit. This power is less noticeably
active in the dramatising than in simple retelling; in the listening and
the retelling, it is dominant for good. The child imitates what he
hears you say and sees you do, and the way you say and do it, far more
closely in the story-hour than in any lesson-period. He is in a more
absorbent state, as it were, because there is no preoccupation of
effort. Here is the great opportunity of the cultured teacher; here is
the appalling opportunity of the careless or ignorant teacher. For the
implications of the oral theory of teaching English are evident,
concerning the immense importance of the teacher's habit. This is what
it all comes to ultimately: the teacher of young children must be a
person who can speak English as it should be spoken,--purely, clearly,
pleasantly, and with force.

It is a hard ideal to live up to, but it is a valuable ideal to try to
live up to. And one of the best chances to work toward attainment is in
telling stories, for there you have definite material, which you can
work into shape and practise on in private. That practice