the temperament of the reader, a combination of all these or of any number of them, or of other things too numerous or too elusive to be named. Every good story has it, or gets it as soon as a sincere and sympathetic reader learns how to read it. If one should ever find a story which after repeated readings develops nothing of this most essential and intangible quality of charm, let him not try to teach it. Either it is not a good story, or he has no temperament for art. But, however interesting these matters may be to readers of the gentle guild, and to the impressionist critic, they do not carry us far upon our practical educational choice. This must be guided by a study of those aspects and elements of story which yield to plain observation; which, however artistic, are yet amenable to judgment, and may therefore be impersonally and unemotionally discussed--such as the structure of the story, its use of incident, its movement, its plot, its outcome, the fitness of the whole for the training and best amusement of the children. In the second place, we limit and define our discussion, if another reminder of this important fact may be allowed, by the determination to discuss, not the art of literature, not all or any literature, not all literature for children, but such literature as it may be found expedient and desirable to give to a class of children. 1. In order to get it into the summary, it having been sufficiently amplified in a previous chapter, and being indeed, self-evident, we will say again that a story, good to teach in class should be one whose material corresponds to the needs and tastes of the children. The experiences portrayed should be, not necessarily those that they have had, but such as they can conceive and imaginatively appropriate, or such as they might safely experience. And since children of this age are living, or ought to be encouraged to live, active, achieving lives, and are not, or ought not to be, introspective or too meditative; since they know little or nothing of intricate social complications or psychic experience, and we do not desire that they should, we will choose their literature with these things in mind. We may safely say that there should be nothing reflected in his story which the inquisitive child may not probe to the very bottom without coming upon knowledge too mature for him. This must be reconciled with the fact that one of the valuable services of literature is to forestall experience and to supplement it. The reconciliation is not difficult to make when once the teacher has grasped the principle of fitness and really walks in the light of what he may easily know about the nature of children.