Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it is worth telling well. Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive stories and short selections which are to be found in general literature.[18] Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in reading. Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it repeated a few times from his mother's lips. Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19] § 2. BOOKS AND READING A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be few, their world narrow and confined.