I have often heard objections raised to this theory by teachers
dealing with children whose knowledge of objects outside their own
circle is so scanty that words we use without a suspicion that they
are unfamiliar are really foreign expressions to them. Such words as
sea, woods, fields, mountains, would mean nothing to them, unless some
explanation were offered. To these objections I have replied that
where we are dealing with objects that can actually be seen with the
bodily eyes, then it is quite legitimate to show pictures before you
begin the story, so that the distraction between the actual and mental
presentation may not cause confusion; but, as the foregoing example
shows, we should endeavor to accustom the children to seeing much more
than mere objects themselves, and in dealing with abstract qualities
we must rely solely on the power and choice of words and dramatic
qualities of presentation, and we need not feel anxious if the
response is not immediate, nor even if it is not quick and eager.[7]

7. _The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many
details_ is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it shown only in the
narrative form. I have often heard really brilliant after-dinner
stories marred by this defect. One remembers the attempt made by
Sancho Panza to tell a story to Don Quixote. I have always felt a
keen sympathy with the latter in his impatience over the recital.

"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd--no, I mean a
goatherd--which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called
Lope Ruiz--and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess
called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich
herdsman---"