“Oh, yes,” answered the principal.
“So do we,” said Old Pluck.
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed Tomtit, standing up very straight. “No more fire and tribute for us. We’ve grown out of that kind of nonsense.”
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
These suggestions and questions are prepared to aid the child in getting food for thought. Many ethical questions are touched upon in these stories, phases of the great problems of life which each citizen must solve for himself. The school-room is a little community, of which each child is a unit, and there he should get training for good citizenship. Let him grapple, then, with these questions, for he would better be striving after a large truth than altogether absorbing a little one.
OLD PIPES AND THE DRYAD
This story is akin to the Greek and the Latin myths, and will lead you back to the beginnings of literature, to the myth of Daphne and her changing to a laurel-tree, the myth of Dryope, and Virgil’s account of the transformation of Polydore (Æneid, Book III.)—all of which are tree-myths. Conington’s metrical translation of Virgil tells this story very musically.
These dryad stories have been the inspiration of poets and artists of all ages. I hope you may some day see the beautiful picture of Daphne changing to the laurel-tree that a French artist has painted.
It will add much to the value of the child’s study of literature if the teacher will read or tell these myths to the children. They may be found in Gayley’s “Classic Myths,” Murray’s “Mythology,” Bulfinch’s “Mythology,” or any classical dictionary.
It is easy for us to see that, in this myth of Daphne, the Greek people were telling us, in their poetic way, that the dawn ever flew at the sun’s approach.