agent for furthering a proper national pride in children. Genuine
patriotism, neither arrogant nor melodramatic, is so generally recognised
as having its roots in early training that I need not dwell on this
possibility, further than to note its connection with the instinct of
hero-worship which is quick in the healthy child. Let us feed that hunger
for the heroic which gnaws at the imagination of every boy and of more
girls than is generally admitted. There have been heroes in plenty in the
world's records,--heroes of action, of endurance, of decision, of faith.
Biographical history is full of them. And the deeds of these heroes are
every one a story. We tell these stories, both to bring the great past
into its due relation with the living present, and to arouse that generous
admiration and desire for emulation which is the source of so much
inspiration in childhood. When these stories are tales of the doings and
happenings of our own heroes, the strong men and women whose lives are a
part of our own country's history, they serve the double demands of
hero-worship and patriotism. Stories of wise and honest statesmanship, of
struggle with primitive conditions, of generous love and sacrifice,
and--in some measure--of physical courage, form a subtle and powerful
influence for pride in one's people, the intimate sense of kinship with
one's own nation, and the desire to serve it in one's own time.

It is not particularly useful to tell batches of unrelated anecdote. It is
much more profitable to take up the story of a period and connect it with
a group of interesting persons whose lives affected it or were affected by
it, telling the stories of their lives, or of the events in which they
were concerned, as "true stories." These biographical stories must,
usually, be adapted for use. But besides these there is a certain number
of pure stories--works of art--which already exist for us, and which
illuminate facts and epochs almost without need of sidelights. Such may
stand by themselves, or be used with only enough explanation to give