mosphere may seem incongruous
and unnecessary to teachers used to more conventional methods, but I feel
sure that an actual experience of it would modify that point of view
conclusively. The children of the schools where story-telling and
"dramatising" were practised were startlingly better in reading, in
attentiveness, and in general power of expression, than the pupils of like
social conditions in the same grades of other cities which I visited soon
after, and in which the more conventional methods were exclusively used.
The teachers, also, were stronger in power of expression.

But the most noticeable, though the least tangible, difference was in the
moral atmosphere of the schoolroom. There had been a great gain in
vitality in all the rooms where stories were a part of the work. It had
acted and reacted on pupils and teachers alike. The telling of a story
well so depends on being thoroughly vitalised that, naturally, habitual
telling had resulted in habitual vitalisation.

This result was not, of course, wholly due to the practice of
story-telling, but it was in some measure due to that. And it was a result
worth the effort.

I beg to urge these specific uses of stories, as both recreative and
developing, and as especially tending toward enlarged power of expression:
retelling the story; illustrating the story in seat-work; dramatisation.

STORIES SELECTED AND ADAPTED FOR TELLING

ESPECIALLY FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLASS I.

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,
"Are the children in their beds, for now it's eight o'clock?"

* * * * *

There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

* * * * *

Cushy cow bonny, let down thy milk,
And I will give thee a gown of silk;
A gown of silk and a silver tee,
If thou wilt let down thy milk to me.

* * * * *

"Little girl, little girl, where have you been?"
"Gathering roses to give to the queen."
"Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?"
"She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe."

* * * * *

Little Bo