CHAPTER V. ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL.

In his "Choice of Books," Frederic Harrison has said: "The most useful
help to reading is to know what we shall _not_ read, what we shall keep
from that small, cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of information
which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing knowledge."

Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied
myself during the last chapter with "clearing my small spot" by
cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am no going to suggest
what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have
"reclaimed from the jungle."

Again, I repeat, I have no wish to be dogmatic and in offering
suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am catering only for a
group of normal school children. My list of subjects does not pretend
to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude
the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects
to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in
choice of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any
subject to the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation
to him and know his powers of apprehension. In this matter, age has
very little to say; it is a question of the stage of development.

Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children,
irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable for them will
contain an appeal to conditions to which the child is accustomed. The