heir images simple without being humdrum? Are they
repetitive? The last quality is not an absolute requisite; but it is at
least very often an attribute of a good child-story.

Having this touchstone in mind for general selection, we can now pass to
the matter of specific choices for different ages of children. No one can
speak with absolute conviction in this matter, so greatly do the taste and
capacity of children of the same age vary. Any approach to an exact
classification of juvenile books according to their suitability for
different ages will be found impossible. The same book in the hands of a
skilful narrator may be made to afford delight to children both of five
and ten. The following are merely the inferences drawn from my own
experience. They must be modified by each teacher according to the
conditions of her small audience. In general, I believe it to be wise to
plan the choice of stories much as indicated in the table given on page 64.

At a later stage, varying with the standard of capacity of different
classes, we find the temper of mind which asks continually, "Is that
true?" To meet this demand, one draws on historical and scientific
anecdote, and on reminiscence. But the demand is never so exclusive that
fictitious narrative need be cast aside. All that is necessary is to state
frankly that the story you are telling is "just a story," or--if it be the
case--that it is "part true and part story."

At all stages I would urge the telling of Bible stories, as far as is
allowed by the special circumstances of the school. These are stories
from a source unsurpassed in our literature for purity of style and
loftiness of subject. More especially I urge the telling of the
Christ-story, in such parts as seem likely to be within the grasp of the
several classes. In all Bible stories it is well to keep as near as
possible to the original unimprovable text.[1] Some amplification can be
made, but no excessive modernising or simplifying is excusable in face of
the austere grace and majestic simplicity of the original. Such adaptation
as helps to cut the long narrative into separate units, making each an
intelligible story, I have ventured to illustrate according to my own
personal taste, in two stories given in Chapter VI. The object of the
usual modernising or enlarging of the text may be far better attained for
the child listener by infusing into the text as it stands a strong
realising sense of its meaning and vi