that have a dramatic quality, these are the things natively interesting
to childhood, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and the
teacher of young children, until more artificial interests have grown
up, will keep in touch with his pupils by constant appeal to such
matters as these."[32]

Of course the savor of danger and blood is only _one_ of the things to
which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point
clearer.

This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how
to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough
constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for
"blugginess" is slaked.

And here I should like to say that, while wishing to encourage in
children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine
qualities which have been displayed in times of war and which have
mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest
moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession
as soldiers. Thus, we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sydney
and the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of
his dead friends to receive the blessing of the Archbishop after the
battle of Roncesvall;[33] and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to
England. There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in
the midst of the slaughter of his enemies, and says, "I wonder if I am
less base than others, because I kill men less willingly than they."

And in the "Burning of Njal,"[34] we have the words of the boy, Thord,
when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges him to go out of the burning