Children do not feel drawn to abstract things; this is an old truth, whose correctness is established best by story-telling. All virtues and qualities, no matter how well concealed they may be, are very quickly pronounced stupid by children. For fables, children have seldom any taste, least of all for essays. The introduction of a fox or a bear into the story or in a real adventure makes the story-teller the dearest friend of children. But the most lively and childish essay on the bear or the fox leaves them cold, unless it is made real by some personal experience in the country or by a visit to a zoölogical garden. This truth is so recognised and proved from so many points of view, that I will simply say here that experience in story-telling gives additional evidence of it. Children show, in listening to stories, a finely developed sensitiveness to all attempts to descend to, or to adopt, the standpoint of the child, to everything that is artificial in the narrative. In intercourse with children, especially with those who represent progressive methods, can be seen how the reaction against the old lesson and hidebound methods has produced an artificial naïveté, a richness of illustrations, and a liveliness that children soon feel as something specially prepared for them, something not quite real. This way of partially giving to children their own imaginative power puts them to sleep, even when it succeeds at first in giving them a good entertainment in their lessons. For the illustrations and comparisons, as well as the consequences which another has thought out for them, obstruct the initiative of the child; besides they are all soon forgotten. It is the same with playthings; those they make themselves give inexhaustible pleasure, while those that are ready made only confer joy once or twice. They are shown and then broken in pieces in order to extract the clockwork, for this is the only possible way for the child to do something with it himself. Instruction is beginning to resemble children's playthings and children's books; it is too complete, too richly illustrated. It hinders individual free voyages of discovery of the imagination. Even good illustrations are often injurious; but we do not intend to speak at length on this subject. As a matter of fact children often feel themselves deceived by illustrations. The reserve in a story is also a property that attracts the child. Its pictures are indicated with a few definite but repeated details. The imagination is allowed to fill the picture with colours. The uniformity, the rhythm, and the symmetry, all qualities belonging to the folk-lore tale, are for the child extremely absorbing. They enjoy such repetitions as "the first, second, and third year" and so on, quite like the refrain in rhyme and poetry.