⁶ "Making an Orator" ends on a somewhat different note than the other stories in "Whilomville Tales." Though many of them conclude without reaching a happy ending, all the others have endings that are simply transitory moments in the lives of the children. But in this story, the concluding event creates a trauma that would render the child permanently incapable of speaking in public: "...on this day there had been laid for him the foundation of a finished incapacity for public speaking which would be his until he died."
   Unlike the other cruelties in other stories, this one is inflicted on the children by adults, which may explain its more lasting effects. When Crane refers to the next child who must speak in front of the class as "the next victim of education," he makes it clear that he looks back on his schooling with some bitterness.