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Life in the making: 335 total pages.

coloring them to suit his purposes. Usually these experiments are made at first play-fully. Whether the child develops a keen apprecia­tion of the truth or becomes an unreliable exaggera­tor and prevaricator will depend largely on his environment. Rightly guided, the ability to enter into the land of make-believe, as is the case with many other characteristics which develop at this time, has possibilities of being of very valuable serv­ice to the individual. The proper cultivation of the imagination opens up vast stores of literature and poetry. It creates artists, writers, inventors. It makes it possible for social reformers to suffer for an ideal. On the other hand, it may degenerate into idle daydreaming and willful exaggeration. If a child seems to be in danger of not being able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, it will be well. to make a distinction between "really-truly" stories and "once-upon-a-time" stories. This need not mar his appreciation of an imaginative tale. When he himself is inventing something it will be well

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