"Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly. "Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like _water_, _what_ do they like?" "Milk," cried Sarah Fuller confidently. "They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. Smith. "Now, what do you suppose the dog did?" It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners. Itmay be that the very range of choice presented to them and the dog alike dazzled their imagination. At all events, they made no answer. "Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little kitten like that?" And Philip remarked gloomily: "I'd pull its tail." "And what do the rest of you think? I hope you are not as cruel as that little boy." A jealous desire to share Philip's success prompted the quick response: "I'd pull it too." Now, the reason of the total failure of this story was the inability to draw any real response from the children, partly because of the hopeless vagueness of the questions, partly because, there being no time for reflection, children say the first thing that comes into their heads without any reference to their real thoughts on the subject. I cannot imagine anything less like the enlightened methods of the best kindergarten teaching. Had Mrs. R. B. Smith been a real, and not a fictional, person, it would certainly have been her last appearance as a raconteuse in this educational institution. 5. _The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story upon the audience_ rises from lack of observation and experience; it is the want of these qualities which leads to the adoption of such a method as I have just presented. We learn in time that want of expression on the faces of the audience and want of any kind of external response do not always mean either lack of interest or attention. There is often real interest deep down, but no power, or perhaps no wish, to display that interest, which is deliberately concealed at times so as to protect oneself from questions which may be put. 6. _The danger of overillustration_. After long experience, and after considering the effect produced on children when pictures are shown to them during the narration, I have come to the conclusion that the appeal to the eye and the ear at the same time is of doubtful value, and has, generally speaking, a distracting effect: the concentration on one channel of communication attracts and holds the attention more completely. I was confirmed in this theory when I addressed an audience of blind people[4] for the first time, and noticed how closely they attended, and how much easier it seemed to them because they were so completely "undistracted by the sights around them."