These latter stories were always favorites, and as the authors told them in the first person, my interested auditors grew to know them by the name of the "I" stories, and regarded them as adventures all of which happened to the same individual.

When Selous, the African hunter, visited us, I had to get him to tell to the younger children two or three of the stories with which they were already familiar from my reading; and as Selous is a most graphic narrator, and always enters thoroughly into the feeling not only of himself but of the opposing lion or buffalo, my own rendering of the incidents was cast entirely into the shade.
Besides profiting by the more canonical books on education, we profited by certain essays and articles of a less orthodox type.

I wish to express my warmest gratitude for such books--not of avowedly didactic purpose--as Laura Richards's books, Josephine Dodge Daskam's "Madness of Philip," Palmer Cox's "Queer People," the melodies of Father Goose and Mother Wild Goose, Flandreau's "Mrs.White's," Myra Kelly's stories of her little East Side pupils, and Michelson's "Madigans." It is well to take duties, and life generally, seriously.

It is also well to remember that a sense of humor is a healthy anti-scorbutic to that portentous seriousness which defeats its own purpose.
Occasionally bits of self-education proved of unexpected help to the children in later years.

Like other children, they were apt to take to bed with them treasures which they particularly esteemed.