Although these words were written nearly half a century ago, they
are so specially applicable today that they seem quite "up-to-date."
Indeed, I think they will hold equally good fifty years hence.

In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly
and brutal, I am sure that we ought to eliminate this element as far
as possible from the school stories, especially among poor children.
Not because I think children should be protected from all knowledge of
evil, but because so much of this knowledge comes into their life
outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school
hours. At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I
come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story
illustration the difference between brutal ugliness without anything
to redeem it and surface ugliness, which may be only a veil over the
beauty that lies underneath. It might be possible, for instance, to
show children the difference between the real ugliness in the priest's
face of the "Laocoon" group, because of the motive of courage and
endurance behind the suffering. Many stories in everyday life could
be found to illustrate this.

8. _Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes_. The stories
for children forty years ago contained much of this element, and the
following examples will illustrate this point:

Notes from poems written by a child between six and eight years of
age, by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter:


Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more,