ousness of _others_ as sharply distinguished from themselves.
They are also acquiring a sense of workmanship, of technique,--of
_things_ as sharply distinguished from themselves. They seek information
in and for itself,--not merely in its immediate application to
themselves. Their inquiries take on the character of "how?" This means,
does it not, that the children have oriented themselves in their narrow
personal world and that they are reaching out for experience in larger
fields? It means that the "not-me" which was so shadowy in the earlier
years has gained in social and in physical significance. And this again
means that opportunity for exploration in ever-widening circles should
be given. Stories should follow this general trend and open up the
relationships in larger and larger environments until at last a child is
capable of seeing relationships for himself and of regarding the whole
world in its infinite physical and social complexity, as his own
environment.

Probably the first extra-personal excursions should be into alien
scenes or experiences which lead back or contribute directly to their
old familiar world. Stories of unknown raw material which turn into
well-known products are of this type,--cattle raising in Texas, dairy
farms in New England, lumbering in Minnesota, sheep raising in
California. It is a happy coincidence that raw materials are often
produced under semi-primitive conditions, so that a vicarious
participation in their production gives to children something of that
thrilling contact with the elemental that does the life of primitive
men, and this without sending them into the remote and, for modern
children, "unnatural" world of unmodified nature. The danger here is
that the story will be sacrificed to the information. Indeed it can
hardly be otherwise, if the aim is to give an adequate picture of some
process of production. This, of course, is a legitimate aim,--but for
the encyclopedia, not for the story. What I have in mind is a dramatic
situation which has this process as a background, so that the child
becomes interested in the process because of the part it plays in the
drama just as he would if the process were a background in his own life.
I am thinking of the opportunities which these comparatively primitive
situations give for adventure rather than for the detailed elucidation
of a process of production.

It is the peculiar function of a story to raise inquiries, not to give
inst