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year?” “Where does the action take place, indoors or out, in city or country, and in what land?” “Who are the actors? and what are they doing?” This process is called picture-reading, and forms the basis of the pupil’s story composition. The method is one which easily lends itself to exaggeration, if we go beyond the limits of these questions. It is best to keep our “reading” to just what is really written in the picture, merely getting out of it the meaning the artist put into it for our pleasure. When we build upon this foundation a long imaginary tale about the persons of the picture, the process is apt to lead far afield from the proper use of pictures. The sharp distinction which is made in language work between description and narration applies equally to pictures. Sully’s Torn Hat, for instance, or Manet’s Boy with the Sword, is a subject for description, while Blommers’s Shrimp Fishers or Kaulbach’s Pied Piper is really a story picture. A story picture may be treated in either way, descriptively or dramatically, but the non-story picture is less flexible, and should be merely described. A landscape, for instance, is not, properly speaking, a story picture, and in language work should be reserved for pure nature description. The chapters on “Animals,” “Children’s Pictures,” and “Story Pictures” will suggest abundant material to the language teacher. The writer of a composition based upon a picture is bound to scrutinize the subject until every detail is stamped on the memory, and thus the child’s art repertory is enlarged.