These jingles were written by a child for children. The young author does not expect that any one will imagine they were intended to be a contribution to poetry or literature. They will be of interest to adults principally as an illustration of the way a child's mind views some of the every-day situations of life. Grown people will also be interested to see how easily a young child can put facts into the jingle form when freedom of expression is acquired early.

Those who have read Mrs. Stoner's Natural Education will recall that Winifred learned almost as a babe to use the typewriter. This helped her in her spelling and composition, so that she gained ease and freedom in expressing herself on any topic that she understood. She wrote out everything she learned so that she might the better get a grasp of it and remember it. And she found that when some kinds of facts were put together in a jingle they could be fixed with less effort and retained more securely than if they were learned in the ordinary way—by rote and without any method of organization.

Rhyme and rhythm seem to furnish to the young mind an easy and effective method of relating and expressing facts ordinarily dissociated from anything of interest to a child. As long as such facts are presented to the young in home and school, the jingle will prove of service to teachers and parents, and of interest and value to children. In addition, some of these jingles will delight the young merely because of their rhythmical quality, while others will afford amusement because of the humorous interpretation they put on many of the events that are daily experienced by children everywhere.

Any adult who may read these jingles should be informed that many of them were written when Winifred was hardly more than a babe. And all of them were dashed off without effort to achieve poetic merit. One characteristic that makes them of interest is their spontaneity. As an illustration of the readiness with which Winifred can construct a jingle, I may say that when she was twelve years of age, I happened one day to read her the following essay on Bones written by a pupil:

"Bones is the framework of the body. If I had no bones in me, I should not have so much shape as I have now. If I had no bones my brain, heart, lungs, and larger blood vessels would be lying around in me, and might get hurt. If my bones were burned I should be brittle, because it would take the animal out of me. If I was soaked in acid I should be limber. I'd rather be soaked than burned. Some of my bones don't grow close to my others snug like the branches to the trunk of a tree. The reason why they don't grow that way is because they have joints. Joints is good things to have in bones. All my bones put together make a skeleton. Some animals have their skeleton on the outside. I am glad I am not them animals, for my skeleton like it is on the chart would not look very well on my outside."

I asked her if she would put the essay into a rhyme. She ran off to her typewriter, and in twelve minutes came back with the jingle, I'm glad I'm not an Exo. It is published exactly as she handed it to me, without change in content or in form.

Mrs. Stoner's Natural Education describes in detail how Winifred has been educated up to this point in her career. This book of jingles presents some concrete evidence of the results of Mrs. Stoner's method of teaching freedom of expression, and her many devices for assisting a child to retain more or less formal facts in history, the sciences, and so on. The book will prove of interest and help to children, and parents and teachers should be able to get suggestions and practical teaching devices from it.

M. V. O'Shea.

Madison, Wisconsin.

Ever since I was five years old my dear friends, the fairies, have whispered jingles to me as keys to Memory's storehouse. As these jingles have been of great assistance in my studies, I have asked my good publishers to put them in book form with the hope that they may help, or at least amuse, many girls and boys.

Winifred Sackville Stoner, Jr.