Part 31 (1/2)
”O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!” said 27 little girls
”A-, gosh!+” said 30 little boys ”Say, Mis' Cronan, there wasn't no real dragon, was they?” A shock-headed youngster pushed his way to the platform where Mrs Mary C Cronan, professional story teller, stood s and wistfully looked up at her ”They wasn't no really dragon, was they?”
”'Course they was a dragon! Whadd'ye think the on? Certn'y there was a dragon I leave it to Mis' Cronan if there wasn't”
Steering a narrow course between fiction and truth, Mrs Cronan told her class that she thought there certainly on or the picture wouldn't have been painted
It was at one of the regularstory hours at the Museuo at the museum by Mrs Cronan and Mrs Laura Scales, a department which has become so popular that now hundreds of children a week are entertained, children frorounds and from the settlement houses
On this particular day it was children frouidance of two teachers from the Lucretia Crocker School, Miss Roche and Miss Hayes, who had, in some mysterious manner, convoyed these 57 atoms to the museum by car without etting theh to the uninitiated it appeared a task beside which grasping a comet by the tail was a pleasant afternoon's ae and the Dragon was a new thing to these children They h his costuular for
”I don't believe it,” insisted an 8-year-old ”I seen every anis” But the wistful little boy kept insisting that there must be such an animal or Mrs
Cronan wouldn't say so
”That is the way they nearly always take it at first,” said Mrs Cronan
”Nearly all of these children are here for the first ti their fathers andthe pictures upstairs as if they were the docents of the museum
”The object of the story hour is to familiarize the children with as et theo away they are given cards bearing a reproduction of the picture about which the story of the day has been told, and on these cards is always an invitation to the their families to the Museum on Saturday and Sunday, when there is no entrance fee”
The idea of the story hour was broached several years ago and at first it was taken up as an experiment Stereopticon slides were made of several of the more famous pictures in the Museu a well earned success at the Public Library, was asked to take charge of the story telling The plan became a success at once
Later Mrs Scales was called in to take afternoon classes, and nowJuly and August and hear stories told entertainingly that fix in theirthe stories they are taken through the halls of the Museuiven short talks on so on Thibetan amulets, or on tapestries or on soton or Turner's Slave shi+p, or a colorful canvas of Claude Monet
It is hoped that the reater familiarity with and love for the Museum, for it is intended by the officials that these children shall come to love the Museum and to care for the collection and not to think of it, asdark hbrow” iciness
”I believe,” says Mrs Cronan, ”that our little talks are doing just this thing And although soet the idea quite all at once, most of these children will have a soft spot hereafter for Donatello's St George”
At least so it, for as they filed out the wistful little boy was still talking about it
”Ya,” he said to the scoffer, ”you ht, but you never went over to the 'quariuot one over there Gee! I wish I could see a dragon What color are they?”
But the smallest boy of all, who had hold of Miss Hayes's hand and who had been an interested listener to all this, branched out mentally into other and further fields
”Aw,” said he, ”I know a feller what's got a ginny pig wit' yeller spots on 'im and he--” And they all trailed out the door
(_Christian Science Monitor_)
One illustration, a half-tone reproduction of a photograph showing the interior of the greenhouse with girls at work
WHERE GIRLS LEARN TO WIELD SPADE AND HOE