Nevertheless,
there is a legitimate place for the instruction-story. Within
its own limits, and especially in a school use, it has a real
purpose to serve, and a real desire to meet. Children have a
genuine taste for such morsels of practical information, if the
bites aren't made too big and too solid. And to the teacher of
the first grades, from whom so much is demanded in the way of
practical instruction, I know that these stories are a boon.
They must be chosen with care, and used with discretion, but they
need never be ignored.
I venture to give some little stories of this type, which I hope
may be of use in the schools where country life and country
work is an unknown experience to the children.
There was once a little girl named Margery,
who had always lived in the city.
The flat where her mother and father lived
was at the top of a big apartment-house,
and you couldn't see a great deal from the
windows, except clothes-lines on other people's
roofs. Margery did not know much
about trees and flowers, but she loved
them dearly; whenever it was a pleasant
Sunday she used to go with her mother
and father to the park and look at the
lovely flower-beds. They seemed always
to be finished, though, and Margery
was always wishing she could see them
grow.
One spring, when Margery was nine,
her father's work changed so that he could
move into the country, and he took a little
house a short distance outside the town
where his new position was.
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