action, it would be difficult to find a more suitable instrument than a fitting story.

But a good primary teacher knows better than to establish brusque and fixed standards of uniform success for all children. It will take much time and patience to get anything like good oral responses from some children. Like budding flowers some unfold their leaves and petals much quicker at the touch of sunshine than others. But the sun does not stop shining because all do not come out at once. The crudest efforts of little children must be received with kindness and encouragement. The power of reproducing thought and language is very slowly acquired by many children. They are timidly self-conscious, distrustful of their own powers, and have not learned to throw themselves with confidence upon the good-will of their teachers. It may take months with some children to overcome these obstacles, and to bring them to a confident use of their powers, but it is the highest delight of a teacher to reach this result.

Some children, on the other hand, are so talkative and impulsive that they will monopolize the time of the class to no good purpose. Their enthusiasm requires tempering and their soberer thought strengthening.

Another difficulty lies in the necessary effort to get correct English, to gradually mould the language of children into correct forms. The perverse habits of children, the influence of home and playground, the inveterate preference for slang and crude, crass expressions, and their sensitive pride against unusual refinements of speech, make the cultivation of good English an uphill task. But roads must be laid out through this wilderness of hills and valleys, stumps and brush. And these roads must be gradually worked down into smooth highways of travel. It is pioneer toil, requiring the steady use of axe and mattock and spade.

There is no kind of school training where good English can be cultivated to better advantage, where the power of correct, independent, well-articulated speech can be so well strengthened as in oral story. It is in the close contact of this work that the teacher is dealing directly with the original stock of experiences, ideas, and words of every child, and with these as instruments of acquisition, helping him to get a spirited introduction to the world of ideas in books and literature.

It is here that we can get a glimpse of that vast work which the elementary schools of the country are doing in the way of Americanizing the children of various nationalities and in giving them not only a common language, but a common body of ideas rooted in the earliest experiences of childhood and already laying hold of many of the richest treasures of American history and of the world's literature.

9. As children advance from the first year into the second and third years the character of the oral story-telling gradually changes. Children should acquire more power of attention, greater command of language and ability to grasp and hold at one telling a larger section of a story. The stories themselves become more complex, the questions and problems set by the teacher more difficult. The necessity for sharp, logical outlines of leading topics increases as one advances in the grades. Older children can be held more rigidly to common standards of excellence in thought and language. In this, however, the teacher should always remember that children differ greatly in their natural powers of expression, and that a forcing process will not be so successful as a stimulating and encouraging attitude in the teacher.

10. The good oral treatment of most stories leads the children to much activity in material constructions. Where the minds of children are brought to a healthy activity their bodies and physical energies are pretty sure to be called into play to work out the suggested lines of thought. "Robinson Crusoe" invariably leads the children to a multitude of building and making enterprises, such as moulding vessels in clay, constructing the barricade around his tent and cave, the making of chairs and tables, etc.

We have already noticed the readiness of children to make blackboard or other drawings of interesting objects in a story, or to cut them out with scissors from paper. This effort to experience the realities of life more directly by making objects of common utility and necessity is a characteristic and powerful tendency of childhood. It is commonly seen in children about the house, when, for example, they must have wagons, wheelbarrows, tools, or a set of garden implements with which to imitate the employments of their elders. Parkman and others often speak of the constant practice of little Indian boys with bow and arrows.

Our purpose here is not to discuss this matter at length, but simply to notice its prominent place in connection with the oral lesson in story. The intense interest awakened in stories leads quickly to these efforts at construction. What shall the teacher do with this powerful tendency of children to carry over these ideas into the field of practical constructive labor? To the thinker this tendency is perhaps the surest proof of the value of the story. It does not stop with words nor ideas. It pushes far into the region of voluntary, physical, and mental labor and application of knowledge.

The teacher who will make good use of this enterprising constructive desire of children must know definitely about tools, boards, shops, various industries, and technical trades, the special materials, inventions, and devices of artisans in the common occupations, such as farming, gardening, blacksmithing, the carpenter shop, the baker, the quarry, the brick kiln, etc.

It will not be strange if many teachers recoil, at first glance, from this leap into industrial life. It suggests that the schoolhouse must become a big machine shop, agricultural station, etc. The trouble is, of course, that teachers do not feel themselves qualified in these things. They know almost as little as the children about such matters, and have much less inclination to know more.

But our modern education is taking a decided turn in this direction, and with good reason. The close acquaintance of our teachers with the common occupations of life, with their materials, tools, machines, constructions, and skill would supply them with a rich collection of practical, concrete, illustrative knowledge of the greatest use in instructing children. It is impossible to mention anything which would be of more service to them in the details of instruction. The advantages to the children of such teaching, re-enforced by this concrete detail of common life, are so numerous and important as to deserve a special effort. The benefit to teachers would quickly more than recompense them for the labor involved. By occasional visits of observation in shops, fields, stores, and factories, by assisting children in their constructive efforts, the teacher will acquire knowledge, strength, and confidence for such work. The unfamiliarity of teachers with these everyday industrial matters, and their feeling of helplessness as regards things not in the usual routine of school, are the real hindrances to be overcome.

There are other subjects in the school course, like home geography and the early lessons in nature study, which deal more directly than stories with these practical forms of industrial life and constructive activity. They will also demand and cultivate an increasing knowledge of this practical phase of life and education. The lessons in oral story-telling stand thus closely linked with progressive experimental knowledge in other studies.

A brief retrospect and summary of the