attention and help along this line. I give the titles of two stories
of this kind in the collection at the end of the book.[39]

Thus far we have dealt only with the negative results of stories, but
there are more important effects, and I am persuaded that if we are
careful in our choice of stories, and artistic in our presentation,
so that the truth is framed, so to speak, in the memory, we can
unconsciously correct evil tendencies in children which they recognize
in themselves only when they have already criticized them in the
characters of the story. I have sometimes been misunderstood on this
point, and, therefore, I should like to make it quite clear. I do
_not_ mean that stories should take the place entirely of moral or
direct teaching, but that on many occasions they could supplement
and strengthen moral teaching, because the dramatic appeal to the
imagination is quicker than the moral appeal to the conscience. A
child will often resist the latter lest it should make him uncomfortable
or appeal to his personal sense of responsibility: it is often not in
his power to resist the former, because it has taken possession of him
before he is aware of it.

As a concrete example, I offer three verses from a poem entitled, "A
Ballad for a Boy," written some twelve years ago by W. Cory, an Eton
master. The whole poem is to be found in a book of poems known as
"Ionica."[40]

The poem describes a fight between two ships, the French ship,
_Temeraire_, and the English ship, _Quebec_. The English ship was
destroyed by fire; Farmer, the captain, was killed, and the officers
take prisoners: