ever in our mental life."

CHILDREN'S STORIES

"To be a good story-teller is to be a king among children."

The business of story-telling is carried on from the soundest of
economic motives, in order to supply a constant and growing demand.
We are forced to satisfy the clamorous nursery-folk that beset us on
every hand.

Beside us stands an eager little creature quivering with expectation,
gazing with wide-open eyes, and saying appealingly, "Tell me a story!"
or perhaps a circle of toddlers is gathered round, each one offering
the same fervent prayer, with so much trust and confidence expressed
in look and gesture that none but a barbarian could bear to disappoint
it.

The story-teller is the children's special property. When once his
gifts have been found out, he may bid good-by to his quiet snooze by
the fire, or his peaceful rest with a favorite book. Though he hide in
the uttermost parts of the house, yet will he be discovered and made
to deliver up his treasure. On this one subject, at least, the little
ones of the earth are a solid, unanimous body; for never yet was seen
the child who did not love the story and prize the story-teller.

Perhaps we never dreamed of practicing the art of story-telling till
we were drawn into it by the imperious commands of the little ones
about us. It is an untrodden path to us, and we scarcely understand
as yet its difficulties and hindrances, its breadth and its
possibilities. Yet this eager, unceasing demand of the child-nature we
must learn to supply, and supply wisely; for we must not think that
all the food we give the little one will be sure to agree with him.
because he is so hungry. This would be no more true of a mental than
of a physical diet.

What objects, then, shall our stories serve beyond the important one
of pleasing the little listeners? How can we make them distinctly
serviceable, filling the difficult and well-nigh impossible _role_ of
"useful as well as ornamental"?

There are, of course, certain general benefits which the child gains
in the hearing of all well-told stories. These are, familiarity with
good English, cultivation of the imagination, development of sympathy,
and clear impression of moral truth. We shall find, however, that all
stories appropriate for young children naturally divide themselves
into the following classes:--

I. The purely imaginative or fanciful, and here belongs the so-called
fairy story.

II. The realistic, de