peating become more or less poetic. Besides the placing of rhyme; e. g., "the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn," as well as the alliteration, gives further rhythmical effect. It is to be noted that the many repetitions of the same words are of distinct educational value to the child as distinct pronunciation of and familiarity with the words are thereby insured.

In "The Old Woman and Her Pig" the prose element still more fully prevails, yet the recurrence of the jingle still gives all the charm of the mother-goose melody. The story beginning "A mouse in the oven was spinning blue wool" in the "Stepping Stones" Readers, is another example of this class of children's literature. These prose-rhythms make an easy step into the appreciation of the prose of the reading-book, as they lie on the borderland of myth and story.

Throughout the kindergarten and primary years, rhythm continues to be the chief element in poetry attractive to the pupil.

So strong is the instinct for music that the six-year-old may be taught to memorize pieces far beyond his years in thought and emotion. Teachers, therefore, often deceive themselves into thinking their classes fully appreciate such poems as "The Children's Hour" (Longfellow), and "The Little Boy Blue" (Field), because of certain incidental childish ideas in the poems; but this apparent interest of the children is the inborn love of childhood for exquisite poetic music. The attempting of work thus in thought and action beyond the child's mental capacity, leads to arrested development. The teacher should watch carefully the materials and should select not only the rhythmical, but that which combines the rhythmical with childish experience.

One of the daintiest conceptions, "Daisies," by Frank Dempster Sherman, is illustrative:

At evening when I go to bed
I see the stars shine overhead;

They are the little daisies white
That dot the meadow of the night.

And often while I'm dreaming so,
Across the sky the moon will go;
It is a lady, sweet and fair,
Who comes to gather daisies there.

For, when at morning I arise,

There's not a star left in the skies;

She's picked them all, and dropped them down
Into the meadows of the town.

Note, also, that the rhythm of the following lines by Charles Warren Stoddard, "The Voice of the Mission Bell," imitating the ringing of a bell, is to the point: And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel, rang Gabriel, In the tower left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel.

Again the tender love childhood has for animals is a most fruitful suggestion of material for the reading or memory lesson. Thus "Kittie and Mouse", "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "The Owl and the Pussy Cat” and “The Tree Toad", and others, carry the child into this real realm of his play life. The following poems are much beloved by the little ones:

When the teeth bit the little mousie

Mousie cried out, “Oh"

But it got away from little kittie

Long time ago.

DAPPLE GRAY.

I had a little pony;

His name was Dapple Gray.
I lent him to a lady,

To ride a mile away.

She whipped him, she lashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would not lend my pony now
For all the lady's hire.

SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP.

Sleep, baby, sleep,

Thy father's watching the sheep,

Thy mother's shaking the dreamland tree
And down drops a little dream for thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sleep, baby, sleep!

The big stars are the sheep;

The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
The bright moon is the shepherdess,
Sleep, baby, sleep!

LITTLE BIRDIE.

What does little birdie say,
In her nest at peep of day?
"Let me fly," says little birdie—
"Mother, let me fly away."

"Birdie, rest a little longer,
Till the little wings are stronger."
So she rests a little longer,
Then she flies away.

What does little baby say
In her bed at peep of day?
Baby says, like little birdie,

"Let me rise and fly away."

"Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till the little limbs are stronger."
If she sleeps a little longer,

Baby, too, shall fly away.

-Alfred Tennyson.

(Permission of Houghton Mifflin & Co., Publishers.)

THE VOICE OF THE DOVE.

Come, listen, O Love, to the voive of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say;

There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,
There is only one To-day!

And all day long you can hear him say

This day in purple is rolled,

And the baby stars of the milky way

They are cradled in cradles of gold.

Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove,

Of singing so sweetly alway?

"Many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,

Only one To-day, To-day!

-Joaquin Miller.

(Permission of the author, The Whitaker and
Ray Co., Publishers.)

Children's poetry in the kindergarten and largely in the primary grades falls as regards subject-matter under two heads, the "wonder-poem" and the "make-believepoem."

Good examples of these are respectively, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "Winter Jewels.'

THE STAR.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star;
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!