criptive writing fails to
appeal to them. It is their misfortune. To others every word brings a
picture that appears almost as vivid and as full of detail as those upon
which the material eye gazes. Like any other power of the mind, this may
be cultivated, even among the mature. Children are highly gifted with
this power, to begin with, and only a little training is necessary to
make them use the faculty freely for their own delight. Suggest to them
the outlines of a picture, and see how rapidly they will fill in the
details.

No two can see precisely the same imaginary picture; in fact, no two
people looking at the same landscape will see precisely the same things,
and if they are asked to describe what they see, it will appear that
things which are most vivid to one may have made little impression upon
the other. It is not to be expected, then, that two children reading a
description of some scene will get the same picture of it. Each will
color his own from the previous impressions and experiences he has had.
Yet to each the picture may be very real and very pleasing. Good
teachers of reading spend much time and effort in teaching the young to
visualize the scenes of which they read, not only because of the
pleasure it will afford the young when they are mature, but because the
power to see vividly is of greatest assistance in every department of
study.

In some stories little attention is given to the scene; in fact, the
persons might appear anywhere and not be in the least affected by their
surroundings, and the events might have happened in China as well as in
England. Even then, however, there will be found mention of many things
that seem to give locality to the story. At the other extreme are
writers who lose themselves in descriptive flights and pause to describe
a sunset while the heroine is perishing, and the hero must stand
helpless until the author has painted the last color in the sky. In the
best literature for children, description is so mingled with narrative
that while there are fine pictures to see, they do not fall in the way
of the events which the young reader follows with such breathless
interest. In fact, the pictures aid the narrative.

There is of course in every story much descriptive writing that does not
apply to the scenes among which the plot is laid, yet it is well to make
a study of description from the scenes, for it is here that the author
has his greatest opportunity for pictorial