"Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!"

"It couldn't," remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious
to be funny than to sympathized with the child, "it was the purest
Grecian, modeled from the Elgin marbles."

Now, for grownup people this is an excellent joke, but for a child has
not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the whole
remark is pointless and hampering.[16]

6. _Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness_. This is a
class of story which scarcely counts today and against which the
teacher does not need a warning, but I wish to make a passing allusion
to these stories, partly to round off my subject and partly to show
that we have made some improvement in choice of subject.

When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals
offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that,
though our progress may be slow, it is real and sure. One has only to
take some examples from the Chaps Books of the beginning of last
century to realize the difference of appeal. Everything offered then
was either an appeal to fear or to priggishness, and one wonders how
it is that our grandparents and their parents every recovered from the
effects of such stories as were offered to them. But there is the
consoling thought that no lasting impression was made upon them, such
as I believe _may_ be possible by the right kind of story.

I offer a few examples of the old type of story:

Here is an encouraging address offered to children by a certain Mr.