When we were little, before we could read for ourselves, did we
not gather eagerly round father or mother, friend or nurse, at
the promise of a story? When we grew older, what happy hours did
we not spend with our books. How the printed words made us
forget the world in which we live, and carried us away to a
wonderland,
"Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings."*
*Robert Browning.
And as it is with us, so it is with a nation, with a people.
In the dim, far-off times when our forefathers were wild, naked
savages, they had no books. Like ourselves, when we were tiny,
they could neither read nor write. But do you think that they
had no stories? Oh, yes! We may be sure that when the day's
work was done, when the fight or the chase was over, they
gathered round the wood fire and listened to the tales of the
story-teller.
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