The idea of the story hour was broached several years ago and at first
it was taken up as an experiment. Stereopticon slides were made of
several of the more famous pictures in the Museum, and Mrs. Cronan, who
was at the time achieving a well earned success at the Public Library,
was asked to take charge of the story telling. The plan became a success
at once.

Later Mrs. Scales was called in to take afternoon classes, and now more
than 1000 children go to the Museum each week during July and August and
hear stories told entertainingly that fix in their minds the best
pictures of the world. Following the stories they are taken through the
halls of the Museum and are given short talks on some art subject. One
day it may be some interesting thing on Thibetan amulets, or on
tapestries or on some picture, Stuart's Washington or Turner's Slave
Ship, or a colorful canvas of Claude Monet.

It is hoped that the movement may result in greater familiarity with and
love for the Museum, for it is intended by the officials that these
children shall come to love the Museum and to care for the collection
and not to think of it, as many do, as a cold, unresponsive building
containing dark mysteries, or haughty officials, or an atmosphere of
"highbrow" iciness.

"I believe," says Mrs. Cronan, "that our little talks are doing just
this thing. And although some of them, of course, can't get the idea
quite all at once, most of these children will have a soft spot
hereafter for Donatello's St. George."

At least some of them were not forgetting it, for as they filed out the