even in a grown-up audience when the wolf swallows the kids, and that
the recovery of them "all safe and sound, all huddled together" is quite
as much appreciated by the adult audience as by the children, and is
worth the tremor caused by the wolf's summary action.

I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers the fact that
this story _must_ be taken lightly. A very earnest young student
came to me once after the telling of this story and said in an awe-
struck voice: "Do you cor-relate?" Having recovered from the effect
of this word, which she carefully explained, I said that, as a rule, I
preferred to keep the story quite apart from the other lessons, just
an undivided whole, because it had effects of its own which were best
brought about by not being connected with other lessons. She frowned
her disapproval and said: "I am sorry, because I thought I would take
the Goat for my nature study lesson and then tell your story at the
end." I thought of the terrible struggle in the child's mind between
his conscientious wish to be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of
the abnormal habits of a goat who went out with scissors, needle and
thread; but I have been most careful since to repudiate any connection
with nature study in this and a few other stories in my repertoire.

One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's "Nonsense
Rhymes." For instance:


There was an Old Man of Cape Horn
Who wished he had never been born.
So he sat in a chair
Till he died of despair,
That dolorous Old Man of Cape Horn.