PREFACE



  SOME years ago a collection of short stories under
the title, "Emnmy Lou: Her Book And Heart," was
offered to the American public as a plea for and a
defense of the child as affected by the then prevailing
stupidity of the public schools.
  The present series of stories is written to show
that the same conditions which in the school make for
confusion in the child's mind, exist in the home,
in the Sunday school and in all its earlier points of
contact with life; the child who presents itself at
six or even at five, to the school and teacher, being
already well on the way in the school of life, and
its habits of mind established.
  It is the contention of these new stories that
the child comes single-minded to the experience of
life. That it brings to this experience a fundamen-
tal, if limited, conception of ethics, justice, con-
sistency and obligation. That it is the possessor of
an innate conscience that teaches it to differentiate
                        v.