2. _Altering the story to suit special occasions_ is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt to "turn and rend" the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the Siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the class, namely, nine years. I threw, therefore, a domestic coloring over the whole subject and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was strong-minded woman thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[1] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy, but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited them to reproduce in writing for the next day the story I had just told them. A small child presented _me_, as you will see, with the ethical problem from which I had so laboriously protected _her_. The essay ran: Once upon a time the King of Troy's son was called Paris. And he went over to _Greace_ to see what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helen_er,_ and likewise her husband Menela_yus_. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: "Do you not feel _dul_ in this _palis_?"_[2] And Helener said: "I feel very dull in this _pallice_," and Paris said: "Come away and see the world with me." So they _sliped_ off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and _he_ said: "Who _is_ the young lady"? So Paris told him. "But," said the King, "it is not _propper_ for you to go off with other people's _wifes_. So Helener shall stop here." Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home, _he_ stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers, and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it was no use _standing_ any longer, so they built a wooden horse in memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town. Now, the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay any particular stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate original form.