overcoming the difficulties which beset the presentation.

I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who _could_ hold an
audience without preparation, but they are so rare in number that we can
afford to neglect them in our general consideration, for this work is
dedicated to the average story-tellers anxious to make the best use of
their dramatic ability, and it is to them that I present my plea for
special study and preparation before telling a story to a group of
children--that is, if they wish for the far-reaching effects I shall
speak of later on. Only the preparation must be of a much less
stereotyped nature than that by which the ordinary reciters are trained
for their career.

Some years ago, when I was in America, I was asked to put into the
form of lectures my views as to the educational value of telling
stories. A sudden inspiration seized me. I began to cherish a dream
of long hours to be spent in the British Museum, the Congressional
Library in Washington and the Public Library in Boston--and this
is the only portion of the dream which has been realized. I planned
an elaborate scheme of research work which was to result in a
magnificent (if musty) philological treatise. I thought of trying to
discover by long and patient researches what species of lullaby were
crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the
elementary dramatic poems in vogue among Assyrian nursemaids which
were the prototypes of "Little Jack Horner," "Dickory, Dickory Dock"
and other nursery classics. I intended to follow up the study of
these ancient documents by making an appendix of modern variants,
showing what progress we had made--if any--among modern nations.

But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from