The librarian sees this indifference and its fruit and realizes that it adds another responsibility to her already long list, and another opportunity to serve. She may doubt whether her province is to educate the taste of the public at large, but there can be no question that in the case of the children the choice is not left for her to make; the only reason for the child's reading at all is that he may grow mentally and spiritually. There is no way to protect the child against worthless books except by giving him a decided taste for what is good. Hamilton Mabie says that "tastes depend very largely on the standards with which we are familiar," and if these standards are acquired hit and miss, without training, they are likely to be of a most doubtful character. The love of literature, like the love of any of the fine arts, is susceptible of cultivation and is strengthened by constant contact with the beauty and greatness which can compel it. "They are exceptional children who read everything regardless of its character and come out all right. We do not know that any child is of such a make-up. We must deal with him as though he were not the exceptional but the normal child." The influence of all that he reads upon the mind of the child is sufficiently appalling, but it is not to be compared with the influence on his character. Henry Churchill King says: "It is his susceptibility to the faintest suggestion that makes the child so marvelous an imitator." The significance of this truth lies not only in the fact that he responds to the example in manners and morals of those about him, but equally, and perhaps even more exactly, to the heroes who live within the covers of his books. If the dangers are great, our response must be as forceful and our search untiring for the influence which will most surely lead the child to the best. And what means shall be found? The answer seems ready to hand in the use of one of the oldest, yet one of the newest arts, the art of story-telling. You may talk to a child about books, he will give a certain kind of response, particularly if he respects your judgment because of previous experience, but tell him a story and you have fastened him with chains he does not care to resist. The inauguration of the story hour then is but the grasping of an opportunity, first of all to give keenest joy to the child, and at the same time to set his standard for judging the value of other stories by those he hears, to give him a love for beautiful form, to introduce him to books he might never choose for himself and to bind him to the friend who tells him stories, so that he will feel a confidence in her suggestions.