Excerpt from The Art of the Story-Teller The justification of the old-fashioned moral was not artistic but didactic. It embodied the determina tion of the story-teller to see that his pupils got the full benefit of the lesson involved. If the moral is to be cut out, the story-teller must be sure that the lesson is so clearly conveyed in the text that any further elaboration would be felt as an impertinent addition. Whately assures us that men prefer metaphors to Similes because in the Simile the point is baldly stated, whereas in the metaphor the reader or hearer has to be his own interpreter. All education is in the last resort self-education, and Miss Shedlock sees to it that her stories compel her hearers to make the application she desires. In two other points modern opinion is prepared to give our authoress rein where our forefathers would have been inclined to restrain her. The sense of humour has come to its proper place in our school rooms - pupils' humour, be it understood, for there always was scope enough claimed for the humour of the teacher. So with the imagination. The time is past when this mode of being conscious was looked at askance in school. Parents and teachers no longer speak contemptuously about the busy faculty, and quote Genesis in its condemnation. Miss Shedlock has been well advised to keep to her legitimate subject instead of wandering afield in a Teutonic excursion into the realms of folk-lore. What parents and teachers want is the story as here and now existing and an account of how best to manipulate it. This want the book now before us admirably meets. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.