344 . Report oH Farmers' Institutes 



interested in pictures of other children and of animals, and will 

 listen to simple stories about them. Let the first pictures shown 

 to the child be accurate ones. Can you believe that a child, seeing 

 an elephant for the first time, was bitterly disappointed because it 

 did not wear a ruff about its neck and walk on its hind legs as did 

 the pictured elephant in her nursery book ? The child depends on 

 us for truth — let us give him true concepts of the world beyond 

 his little sphere. 



While still very young, the rhythm of that time-honored classic, 

 " Mother Goose," will appeal to children. They love the jingles 

 and will pore over the crude pictures with delight. I know of one 

 child who early learned the rhymes and actually taught herself to 

 read by fitting the spoken word to the printed page. Give the 

 children Mother Goose, by all means. It gives them a sense of 

 rhythm, trains their imagination, and teaches many a wholesome 

 lesson. The preface from one of the earliest editions is prophetic, 

 for at the end is this couplet : 



" No, no, my melodies will never die, 

 Wliile nurses sing or babies cry." 



There is a series of books, called ''the Little Black Sambo books," 

 written by a mother in India to amuse her owm children on the 

 long, tedious journeys they must take. The drawings are of the 

 crudest, the text a mere nothing, yet they have great charm for 

 children, especially if told why they were written. They arouse 

 an interest in the children of other lands, and perhaps pave the way 

 to a joy in geography. 



When the children are interested in stories of animals, choose 

 those in which animals are depicted as acting like animals and 

 not like naughty humans. Fairy tales should have a place in 

 every child's reading; and, if at all imaginative, he will people 

 his own haunts with the wee folk and weave tales of his own. 

 Seldom is there any danger of overstimulating the imagination. 

 A well-trained imagination is one of the best assets for a successful 

 and happy life. With the fairy tales come the myths and the 

 legends that are so woven into the best of our literature. Put 

 within reach of the child the " Wonder Book " and '' Tanglewood 

 Tales," and " The Princess and the Goblins " and " The Princess 

 and Curdie " — two tales which are really allegories ; read with 

 him " Water-Babies," and see if you, too, do not learn a lesson 



