likely to be a failure as a success. It must be compounded with the greatest care, and the scientific facts must be generously diluted and mixed in small proportions with other and more attractive elements, or it will be rejected by the mental stomach; or, if received in one ear, will be unceremoniously ushered from the other with an “Avaunt! cold fact! What have thou and I in common!”      

       Did you ever tell a story of this kind and watch its effect upon children? Did you ever note that fatal moment when it BEGAN to BEGIN to dawn upon the intelligence of the dullest member of your flock that your narrative was a “whited sepulchre,” and that he was being instructed within an inch of his life?     

       “Treat me at least with honesty, my good woman!” he cries in his spirit.       “Read me lessons if you will, but do not make a pretense of amusing me at the same moment!”      

       This obvious attitude of criticism is very disagreeable to you, but never mind, it will be a salutary lesson. Did you think, O clumsy visitor in childhood land, that simply because you called your stuffed dolls “Prince”        and “Princess” you could conduct them straight through the mineral kingdom, and allow them to converse with all the metals with impunity? Nest time make your scientific fact an integral part of the story, and do not try to introduce too much knowledge in one dose. All children love Nature and sympathize with her (or if they do not, “then despair of them, O Philanthropy!”), and all stories that bring them nearer to the dear mother's heart bring them at the same time nearer to God; therefore lead them gently to a loving observation of     

                           “The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods; rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green.”  

       Stories bring the force of example to bear upon children in the very best possible way. Here we can speak to the newly awakened soul and touch it to nobler issues. This can be done with very little of that abstract moralizing which is generally so ineffective. A moral “lugged in” by the heels, so to speak, without any sense of perspective on the part of the Story-Teller, can no more incline a child to nobler living than cold victuals can serve as a fillip to the appetite. 

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