If we use this marvelous art of story-telling in the way I have tried to show, then the children who have been confided to our care will one day be able to bring _us_ the tribute which Bjornson brought to Hans Christian Andersen: Wings you gave to my Imagination, Me uplifting to the strange and great; Gave my heart the poet's revelation, Glorifying things of low estate. When my child-soul hungered all-unknowing, With great truths its need you satisfied: Now, a world-worn man, to you is owing That the child in me has never died. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY EMILIE POULSON. CHAPTER VII. QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS. The following questions have been put to me so often by teachers, in my own country and in America, that I have thought it might be useful to give in my book some of the attempts I have made to answer them; and I wish to record here an expression of gratitude to the teachers who have asked these questions at the close of my lectures. It has enabled me to formulate my views on the subject and to clear up, by means of research and thought, the reason for certain things which I had more or less taken for granted. It has also constantly modified my own point of view, and has prevented me from becoming too dogmatic in dealing with other people's methods. QUESTION I: _Why do I consider it necessary to spend so many years on the art of story-telling, which takes in, after all, such a restricted portion of literature?_ Just in the same way that an actor thinks it worth while to go through so many years' training to fit him for the stage, although dramatic literature is also only one branch of general literature. The region of storyland is the legitimate stage for children. They crave drama as we do, and because there are comparatively few good story-tellers, children do not have their dramatic needs satisfied. What is the result? We either take them to dramatic performances for grown-up people, or we have children's theaters where the pieces, charming as they may be, are of necessity deprived of the essential elements which constitute a drama--or they are shriveled up to suit the capacity of the child. Therefore, it would seem wiser, while the children are quite young, to keep them to the simple presentation of stories, because with their imagination keener at that period, they have the delight of the inner vision and they do not need, as we do, the artificial stimulus provided by the machinery of the stage. QUESTION II: _What is to be done if a child asks you: "Is the story true?"_