Such stories must be spread out over many days of telling, but they gain rather than lose from that, though for quite young children the stories do require to be short and simple, and often repeated.  If children get plenty of these, the stage for longer stories is reached wonderfully soon.

Pseudo-scientific stories, in which, for example, a drop of water discusses evaporation and condensation, are not stories at all, but a kind of mental meat lozenge, most unsatisfying and probably not even fulfilling their task of supplying nourishment in form of facts.  Fables usually deal with the faults and failings of grown-ups, and may be left for children to read for themselves, to extract what suits them.

Illustrations are not always necessary, but if well chosen they are always a help.  Warne has published some delightfully illustrated stories for little children, “The Three Pigs,” “Hop o’ my Thumb,” “Beauty and the Beast,” etc.  They are illustrated by H.M.  Brock and by Leslie Brooke, and they really are illustrated.  The artists have enjoyed the stories and children equally enjoy the pictures.

The teacher must consider what ideas she is presenting and whether words alone can convey them properly.  We must remember that most children visualise and that they can only do so from what they have seen.  So, without illustrations, a castle may be a suburban house with Nottingham lace curtains and an aspidistra, while Perseus or Moses may differ little from the child’s own father or brothers.  Again, town children cannot visualise hill and valley, forest and moor, brook and river, not to mention jungles and snowfields and the trackless ocean.  It is not easy to find pictures to give any idea of such scenes, but it is worth while to look for them, and it is also worth while for the teacher to visualise, and to practise vivid describing of what she sees.  Children, of course, only want description when it is really a part of the story, as when Tom crosses the moor, descends Lewthwaite Crag, or travels from brook to river and from river to sea.

As to how a story should be told, opinions differ.  It must be well told with a well-modulated voice and with slight but effective gesture.  But the model should be the story as told in the home, not the story told from a platform.  The children need not be spellbound all the time, but should be free to ask sensible questions and to make childlike comments in moderation.  The language should fit the subject; beautiful thoughts need beauty of expression, high and noble deeds must be told in noble language.  A teacher who wishes to be a really good teller of stories must herself read good literature, and she will do well not only to prepare her stories with care, but to consider the language she uses in daily life.  There is a happy medium between pedantry and the latest variety of slang, and if daily speech is careless and slipshod, it is difficult to change it for special occasions.  Our stories should not only prepare for literature, they should be literature, and those who realise what the story may do for children will not grudge time spent in preparation.  If the story is to present an ideal, let us see that we present a worthy one; if it is to lead the children to judge of right and wrong, let us see that we give them time and opportunity to judge and that we do not force their judgement.