Part 5 (2/2)

In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly and brutal, I aht to eliminate this element as far as possible fro poor children

Not because I think children should be protected froe comes into their life outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school hours At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story illustration the difference between brutal ugliness without anything to redeeliness, which may be only a veil over the beauty that lies underneath It ht be possible, for instance, to show children the difference between the real ugliness in the priest's face of the ”Laocoon” group, because of theMany stories in everyday life could be found to illustrate this

8 _Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes_ The stories for children forty years ago containedexamples will illustrate this point:

Notes froe, by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter:

Poor Robin, thou canst fly no h Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod, But now art sunk beneath the sod

Here lost and gone poor Robin lies, He treone, forever lost, No ers all are past, He struggled to the very last

Perhaps he spent a happy Life, Without loohtened by the speculative optimism of the last verse

Life, transient Life, is but a dreathened seem Till dawn of day, when the bird's lay Doth charlea year, Another's co face Does welcome winter's snowy drear

Alas! our time is much mis-spent

Then we must haste and now repent

We have a book in which to look, For we on Wisdo of all, Before His judgment-seat now call Us to that place of Joy and Grace Prepared for us since Adam's fall

I think there is no doubt that we have ress in this hly moral (_sic_) stories but we have reached the point of parodying the as Belloc's ”Cautionary Tales” These would be a trifle too grim for a timid child, but excellent fun for adults

It should be our study today to prove to children that the i to Heaven, but of living and--shall we say?--of going to college, which is a far better preparation for the life to co upon the possibility of an early death

In an article signed ”Muriel Harris,” I think, frohtful article on Sunday books, froood little children died young in the storybooks, so that unusual goodness must have been the source of considerable anxiety to affectionate parents I came across a little old book the other day called 'Examples for Youth' On the yellow fly-leaf ritten, in childish, carefully-sloping hand: 'Presented to Mary Palmer Junior, by her sister, to be read on Sundays,' and was dated 1828 The accounts are taken froin with unusual piety in early youth and end with the death-bed of the little paragon, and his or her dying words”

9 _Stories containing a mixture of fairy tale and science_ By this combination one loses what is essential to each, namely, the fantastic on the one side, and accuracy on the other The true fairy tale should be unhampered by any compromise of probability even; the scientific representation should be sufficientlyits own lines to need no supernatural aid Both appeal to the iination in different ways

As an exception to this kind of mixture, I should quote ”The Honey Bee, and Other Stories,” translated from the Danish of Evald by C G

Moore S with the inexorable laws of Nature Some of them will appear hard to the child but they will be of interest to all teachers

Perhaps the worst element in the choice of stories is that which insists upon thethe story In ”Alice in Wonderland” the duchess says, ”'And the moral of _that_ is: Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of theht Alice to herself” (This gives the point of view of the child)

The following is a case in point, found in a rare old print in the British Museum: