ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL.
IN “The Choice of Books” Frederic Harrison has said: “The most useful
help to reading is to know what we shall _not_ read, ... what we
shall keep from that small cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of
information which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing
knowledge.”[24]
Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied
myself, during the last chapter, with “clearing my small spot” by
cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am now going to suggest
what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have
“reclaimed from the Jungle.”
Again I repeat that I have no wish to be dogmatic, and that in offering
suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am only catering for a
group of normal school-children. My list of subjects does not pretend
to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude
the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects
to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in choice
of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any subject to
the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation to him and
know his powers of apprehension. In this matter, _age_ has very little
to say: it is a question of the stage of development.
Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children, almost
irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable will contain an
appeal to conditions to which they are accustomed. The reason of this
is obvious: the child, having limited experience, can only be reached
by this experience, until his imagination is awakened and he is enabled
to grasp through this faculty what he has not actually passed through.
Before this awakening has taken place he enters the realm of fiction
(represented in the story) by comparison with his personal experience.
Every story and every point in the story mean more as that experience
widens, and the interest varies, of course, with temperament, quickness
of perception, power of visualising and of concentration.
In “The Marsh King's Daughter,” H. C. Andersen says:
“The Storks have a great many stories which they tell their little
ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and
capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with Kribble, Krabble,
or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want
something with more meaning.”
One of the most interesting experiments to be made in connection with
this subject is to tell the same story at intervals of a year or six
months to some individual child.[25] The different incidents in the
story which appeal to it (and you must watch it closely, to be sure the
interest is real, and not artificially stimulated by any suggestion on
your part) will mark its mental development and the gradual awakening
of its imagination. This experiment is a very delicate one, and will
not be infallible, because children are secretive and the appreciation
is often (unconsciously) simulated, or concealed through shyness or
want of articulation. But it is, in spite of this, a deeply interesting
and helpful experiment.
To take a concrete example: let us suppose the story of Andersen's Tin
Soldier told to a child of five or six years. At the first recital, the
point which will interest the child most will be the setting up of the
tin soldiers on the table, because he can understand this by means of
his own experience, in his own nursery: it is an appeal to conditions
to which he is accustomed and for which no exercise of the imagination
is needed, unless we take the effect of memory to be, according to
Queyrat, retrospective imagination.
The next incident that appeals is the unfamiliar behaviour of the toys,
but still in familiar surroundings; that is to say, the _unusual_
activities are carried on in the safe precincts of the nursery--in the
_usual_ atmosphere of the child.
I quote from the text:
“Late in the evening the other soldiers were put in their box, and the
people of the house went to bed. Now was the time for the toys to play;
they amused themselves with paying visits, fighting battles and giving
balls. The tin soldiers rustled about in their box, for they wanted to
join the games, but they could not get the lid off. The nut-crackers
turned somersaults, and the pencil scribbled nonsense on the slate.”
Now, from this point onwards in the story, the events will be quite
outside the personal experience of the child, and there will have
to be a real stretch of imagination to appreciate the thrilling and
blood-curdling adventures of the little tin soldier, namely, the
terrible sailing down the gutter under the bridge, the meeting with
the fierce rat who demands the soldier's passport, the horrible
sensation in the fish's body, etc. Last of all, perhaps, will come
the appreciation of the best qualities of the hero: his modesty, his
dignity, his reticence, his courage and his constancy: he seems to
combine all the qualities of the best soldier with those of the best
civilian, without the more obvious qualities which generally attract
first. As for the love-story, we must not _expect_ any child to see
its tenderness and beauty, though the individual child may intuitively
appreciate these qualities, but it is not what we wish for or work for
at this period of child-life.
This method could be applied to various stories. I have chosen the _Tin
Soldier_ because of its dramatic qualities and because it is marked off
(probably quite unconsciously on the part of Andersen) into periods
which correspond to the child's development.
In Eugene Field's exquisite little poem of “The Dinkey Bird” we find
the objects familiar to the child in _unusual_ places, so that some
imagination is needed to realise that “big red sugar-plums are clinging
to the cliffs beside that sea”; but the introduction of the fantastic
bird and the soothing sound of the Amfalula Tree are new and delightful
sensations, quite out of the child's personal experience.
Another such instance is to be found in Mrs. W. K. Clifford's story of
Master Willie. The abnormal behaviour of familiar objects, such as a
doll, leads from the ordinary routine to the paths of adventure. This
story is to be found in a little book called “Very Short Stories,” a
most interesting collection for teachers and children.
We now come to the second element we should seek in material--namely,
the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the
story of the Tin Soldier.
This element is necessary in response to the demand of the child who
expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: “I want to go
to the place where the shadows are real.” This is the true definition
of “Faerie” lands, and is the first sign of real mental development
in the child when he is no longer content with the stories of his own
little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to appreciate sounds
different from the words in his own everyday language, and when he
begins to separate his own personality from the action of the story.
George Goschen says[26]:
“What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply
deal with our daily life. I like the fancy (even) of little children
to have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and
I confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not
sometimes stimulated by beautiful Fairy Tales which carry them to
worlds different from those in which their future will be passed....
I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is
better than what reminds them of it at every step.”
It is because of the great value of leading children to something
beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the
twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the
artificially-prepared Public School stories for boys. Why not give them
the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket match,
or a football triumph, could present a finer appeal to boys and girls
than the description of the Peacestead in the “Heroes of Asgaard”:
“This was the playground of the Æsir, where they practised trials of
skill one with another and held tournaments and sham fights. These last
were always conducted in the gentlest and most honourable manner; for
the strongest law of the Peacestead was, that no angry blow should be
struck, or spiteful word spoken upon the sacred field.”
For my part, I would unhesitatingly give to boys and girls an element
of strong romance in the stories which are told them even before they
are twelve. Miss Sewell says:
“The system that keeps girls in the schoolroom reading simple stories,
without reading Scott and Shakespeare and Spenser, and then hands them
over to the unexplored recesses of the Circulating Library, has been
shown to be the most frivolizing that can be devised.” She sets forward
the result of her experience that a good novel, especially a romantic
one, read at twelve or fourteen, is really a beneficial thing.
At present many of the children from the elementary schools get their
first idea of love (if one can give it such a name) from vulgar
pictures displayed in the shop windows, or jokes on marriage culled
from the lowest type of paper, or the proceedings of a divorce-court.
What an antidote to such representation might be found in the story of
Hector and Andromache,
Siegfreid and Brunhild,
Dido and Æneas,
Orpheus and Eurydice,
St. Francis and St. Clare.
One of the strongest elements we should introduce into our stories for
children of all ages is that which calls forth love of beauty. And the
beauty should stand out, not necessarily only in delineation of noble
qualities in our heroes and heroines, but in beauty and strength of
language and form.
In this latter respect the Bible stories are of such inestimable
value--all the greater because a child is familiar with the subject,
and the stories gain fresh significance from the spoken or winged word
as compared with the mere reading. Whether we should keep to the actual
text is a matter of individual experience. Professor R. G. Moulton,
whose interpretations of the Bible Stories are so well known both in
England and the States, does not always confine himself to the actual
text, but draws the dramatic elements together, rejecting what seems to
him to break the narrative, but introducing the actual language where
it is the most effective. Those who have heard him will realise the
success of his method.
There is one Bible story which can be told with scarcely any deviation,
and that is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. Thus, I
think it wise, if the children are to succeed in partially visualizing
the story, that they should have some idea of the dimensions of the
Golden Image as it would stand out in a vast plain. It might be well
to compare those dimensions with some building with which the child is
familiar. In London the matter is easy, as the height will compare,
roughly speaking, with that of Westminster Abbey. The only change in
the text I should adopt is to avoid the constant enumeration of the
list of rulers and the musical instruments. In doing this, I am aware
that I am sacrificing something of beauty in the rhythm,--on the other
hand, for narrative purpose, the interest is not broken. The first time
the announcement is made, that is, by the Herald, it should be in a
perfectly loud, clear and toneless voice, such as you would naturally
use when shouting through a trumpet to a vast concourse of people
scattered over a wide plain; reserving all the dramatic tone of voice
for the passage where Nebuchadnezzar is making the announcement to the
three men by themselves. I can remember Professor Moulton saying that
all the dramatic interest of the story is summed up in the words “But
if Not....” This suggestion is a very helpful one, for it enables us to
work up gradually to this point, and then, as it were, _unwind_, until
we reach the words of Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic recantation.
In this connection, it is a good plan occasionally during the story
hour to introduce really good poetry which, delivered in a dramatic
manner (far removed, of course, from the melodramatic), might give
children their first love of beautiful form in verse. And I do not
think it necessary to wait for this. Even the normal child of seven
(though there is nothing arbitrary in the suggestion of this age) will
appreciate the effect--if only on the ear--of beautiful lines well
spoken. Mahomet has said, in his teaching advice: “Teach your children
poetry: it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes heroic
virtues hereditary.”
To begin with the youngest children of all, here is a poem which
contains a thread of story, just enough to give a human interest:
MILKING-TIME.
When the cows come home, the milk is coming,
Honey's made when the bees are humming.
Duck, Drake on the rushy lake,
And the deer live safe in the breezy brake,
And timid, funny, pert little bunny
Winks his nose, and sits all sunny.
_Christina Rossetti._
Now, in comparing this poem with some of the doggerel verse offered
to small children, one is struck with the literary superiority in the
choice of words. Here, in spite of the simplicity of the poem, there
is not the ordinary limited vocabulary, nor the forced rhyme, nor the
application of a moral, by which the artist falls from grace.
Again, in Eugene Field's “Hushaby Lady,” the language of which is most
simple, the child is carried away by the beauty of the sound.
I remember hearing some poetry repeated by the children in one of
the elementary schools in Sheffield which made me feel that they had
realised romantic possibilities which would prevent their lives from
ever becoming quite prosaic again, and I wish that this practice
were more usual. There is little difficulty with the children. I can
remember, in my own experience as a teacher in London, making the
experiment of reading or repeating passages from Milton and Shakespeare
to children from nine to eleven years of age, and the enthusiastic
way they responded by learning those passages by heart. I have taken,
with several sets of children, such passages from Milton as “Echo
Song,” “Sabrina,” “By the rushy fringed Bank,” “Back, shepherds, back,”
from _Comus_, “May Morning,” “Ode to Shakespeare,” “Samson on his
blindness,” etc. I even ventured on several passages from _Paradise
Lost_, and found “Now came still evening on” a particular favourite
with the children.
It seemed even easier to interest them in Shakespeare, and they learned
quite readily and easily many passages from “As You Like It,” “Merchant
of Venice,” “Julius Cæsar”; from “Richard II,” “Henry IV,” and “Henry
V.”
The method I should recommend in the introduction of both poets
occasionally into the Story-hour would be threefold.
First, to choose passages which appeal for beauty of sound or beauty
of mental vision called up by those sounds: such as, “Tell me where is
Fancy bred,” Titania's Lullaby, “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon
this bank.”
Secondly, passages for sheer interest of content, such as the Trial
Scene from “The Merchant of Venice,” or the Forest Scene in “As You
Like It.”
Thirdly, for dramatic and historical interest, such as, “Men at some
time are masters of their fates,” the whole of Mark Antony's speech,
and the scene with Imogen and her foster-brothers in the Forest.
It may not be wholly out of place to add here that the children learned
and repeated these passages themselves, and that I offered them the
same advice as I do to all Story-tellers. I discussed quite openly
with them the method I considered best, trying to make them see that
simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most
effective means to use; and, by the end of a few months, when they
had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began
to see that mere ranting was not force, and that a sense of reserve
power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere external
presentation.
I encouraged them to criticise each other for the common good, and
sometimes I read a few lines with over-emphasis and too much gesture,
which they were at liberty to point out, so that they might avoid the
same error.
A very good collection of poems for this purpose of narrative is to be
found in:
Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series of _Song and Story_,
Published by A. and C. Black.
And for older children:
_The Call of the Homeland_, Anthology.
Edited by Dr. Scott and Miss Katharine Wallas, Published by
Blackie and Son.
Also in a collection published (I believe) in Boston by Miss Agnes
Repplier.
_Golden Numbers_.
(K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith).
It will be realised from the scanty number of examples offered in
this section that it is only a side issue, a mere suggestion of an
occasional alternative for the Story-hour, as likely to develop the
imagination.
I think it is well to have a good number of stories illustrating the
importance of common sense and resourcefulness. For this reason I
consider that stories treating of the ultimate success of the youngest
son are very admirable for the purpose, because the youngest child,
who begins by being considered inferior to the elder ones, triumphs in
the end, either from resourcefulness, or from common sense, or from
some high quality, such as kindness to animals, courage in overcoming
difficulties, etc.[27]
Thus we have the story of Cinderella. The cynic might imagine that it
was the diminutive size of her foot that ensured her success: the child
does not realise any advantage in this, but, though the matter need not
be pressed, the story leaves us with the impression that Cinderella had
been patient and industrious, forbearing with her sisters. We know that
she was strictly obedient to her godmother, and in order to be this
she makes her dramatic exit from the ball which is the beginning of
her triumph. There are many who might say that these qualities do not
meet with reward in life and that they end in establishing a habit of
drudgery, but, after all, we must have poetic justice in a Fairy Story,
occasionally, at any rate.
Another such story is “Jesper and the Hares.” Here, however, it is
not at first resourcefulness that helps the hero, but sheer kindness
of heart, which prompts him first to help the ants, and then to
show civility to the old woman, without for a moment expecting any
material benefit from such actions. At the end, he does win by his own
ingenuity and resourcefulness, and if we regret that his _trickery_
has such wonderful results, we must remember that the aim was to win
the princess for herself, and that there was little choice left him. I
consider the end of this story to be one of the most remarkable I have
found in my long years of browsing among Fairy Tales. I should suggest
stopping at the words: “The Tub is full,” as any addition seems to
destroy the subtlety of the story.[28]
Another story of this kind, admirable for children from six years and
upwards, is “What the Old Man does is always Right.” Here, perhaps,
the entire lack of common sense on the part of the hero would serve
rather as a warning than a stimulating example, but the conduct of
the wife in excusing the errors of her foolish husband is a model of
resourcefulness.
In the story of “Hereafter--this”[29] we have just the converse: a
perfectly foolish wife shielded by a most patient and forbearing
husband, whose tolerance and common sense save the situation.
One of the most important elements to seek in our choice of stories is
that which tends to develop, eventually, a fine sense of humour in a
child. I purposely use the word “eventually,” because I realise first
that humour has various stages, and that seldom, if ever, can you
expect an appreciation of fine humour from a normal child, that is,
from an elemental mind. It seems as if the rough-and-tumble element
were almost a necessary stage through which children must pass--a
stage, moreover, which is normal and healthy; but up to now we have
quite unnecessarily extended the period of elephantine fun, and though
we cannot control the manner in which children are catered for along
this line in their homes, we can restrict the folly of appealing too
strongly or too long to this elemental faculty in our schools. Of
course, the temptation is strong, because the appeal is so easy. But
there is a tacit recognition that horse-play and practical jokes are
no longer considered an essential part of a child's education. We note
this in the changed attitude in the schools, taken by more advanced
educationists, towards bullying, fagging, hazing, etc. As a reaction,
then, from more obvious fun, there should be a certain number of
stories which make appeal to a more subtle element, and in the chapter
on the questions put to me by teachers on various occasions, I speak
more in detail about the educational value of a finer humour in our
stories.
At some period there ought to be presented in our stories the
superstitions connected with the primitive history of the race, dealing
with the Fairy (proper), giants, dwarfs, gnomes, nixies, brownies
and other elemental beings. Andrew Lang says: “Without our savage
ancestors we should have had no poetry. Conceive the human race born
into the world in its present advanced condition, weighing, analysing,
examining everything. Such a race would have been destitute of poetry
and flattened by common sense. Barbarians did the _dreaming_ of the
world.”
But it is a question of much debate among educationists what should
be the period of the child's life in which these stories are to be
presented. I myself was formerly of opinion that they belonged to
the very primitive age of the individual, just as they belong to the
primitive age of the race, but experience in telling stories has taught
me to compromise.
Some people maintain that little children, who take things with brutal
logic, ought not to be allowed the Fairy Tale in its more limited
form of the Supernatural; whereas, if presented to older children,
this material can be criticised, catalogued and (alas!) rejected as
worthless, or retained with flippant toleration.
Now, whilst recognising a certain value in this point of view, I am
bound to admit that if we regulate our stories entirely on this basis,
we lose the real value of the Fairy Tale element--it is the one element
which causes little children to _wonder_, simply because no scientific
analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat
heartrending to feel that Jack and the Bean-Stalk and stories of that
ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the
quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and
wonder why Jack was not playing football in the school team instead of
climbing trees in search of imaginary adventures.
A wonderful plea for the telling of early superstitions to children is
to be found in an old Indian Allegory called “The Blazing Mansion.”
“An old man owned a large, rambling mansion--the pillars
were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and
combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there
was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he
saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching
fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But
inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The
distracted father said: ‘I will run in and save my children. I will
seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the
falling rafters and the blazing beams.’ Then the sad thought came
to him that the children were romping and ignorant. ‘If I say the
house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize
them, they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a moment to
be lost!’ Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's
mind. ‘My children are ignorant,’ he said; ‘they love toys and
glittering playthings. I will promise them playthings of unheard-of
beauty. Then they will listen.’
So the old man shouted: ‘Children, come out of the house and see
these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and
tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such
goats as these? Children, children, come quickly, or they will all
be gone!’
Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The
word ‘plaything’ was almost the only word they could understand.
Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring was freed from peril,
procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen:
the chariot had a canopy like a pagoda: it had tiny rails and
balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew the
chariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.”
(_From the “Thabagata.”_)
Perhaps, as a compromise, one might give the gentler superstitions to
very small children, and leave such a blood-curdling story as Bluebeard
to a more robust age.
There is one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be
condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for
fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this
we are tampering with folk-lore and confusing stages of development.
Now, I know that there are individual children that, at a tender
age, might be alarmed at such a story, for instance, as Little Red
Riding-Hood; in which case, it is better to sacrifice the “wonder
stage” and present the story later on.
I live in dread of finding one day a bowdlerized form of “Bluebeard”
(prepared for a junior standard), in which, to produce a satisfactory
finale, all the wives come to life again, and “live happily for ever
after” with Bluebeard and each other!
And from this point it seems an easy transition to the subject of
legends of different kinds. Some of the old country legends in
connection with flowers are very charming for children, and as long as
we do not tread on the sacred ground of the Nature Students, we may
indulge in a moderate use of such stories, of which a few will be found
in the Story Lists.
With regard to the introduction of legends connected with saints into
the school curriculum, my chief plea is the element of the unusual
which they contain, and an appeal to a sense of mysticism and wonder
which is a wise antidote to the prosaic and commercial tendencies of
to-day. Though many of the actions of the saints may be the result of
a morbid strain of self-sacrifice, at least none of them were engaged
in the sole occupation of becoming rich: their ideals were often lofty
and unselfish; their courage high, and their deeds noble. We must be
careful, in the choice of our legends, to show up the virile qualities
rather than to dwell on the elements of horror in details of martyrdom,
or on the too-constantly recurring miracles, lest we should defeat our
own ends. For the children might think lightly of the dangers to which
the saints were exposed if they find them too often preserved at the
last moment from the punishment they were brave enough to undergo. For
one or other of these reasons, I should avoid the detailed history of
St. Juliana, St. Vincent, St. Quintin, St. Eustace, St. Winifred, St.
Theodore, St. James the More, St. Katharine, St. Cuthbert, St. Alphage,
St. Peter of Milan, St. Quirine and Juliet, St. Alban and others.
The danger of telling children stories connected with sudden
conversions is that they are apt to place too much emphasis on the
process, rather than the goal to be reached. We should always insist on
the splendid deeds performed after a real conversion--not the details
of the conversion itself; as, for instance, the beautiful and poetical
work done by St. Christopher when he realised what work he could do
most effectively.
On the other hand, there are many stories of the saints dealing with
actions and motives which would appeal to the imagination and are not
only worthy of imitation, but are not wholly outside the life and
experience even of the child.[30]
Having protested against the elephantine joke and the too-frequent
use of exaggerated fun, I now endeavour to restore the balance by
suggesting the introduction into the school curriculum of a few purely
grotesque stories which serve as an antidote to sentimentality or
utilitarianism. But they must be presented as nonsense, so that the
children may use them for what they are intended, as pure relaxation.
Such a story is that of “The Wolf and the Kids.” I have had serious
objections offered to this story by several educational people, because
of the revenge taken by the goat on the wolf, but I am inclined to
think that if the story is to be taken as anything but sheer nonsense,
it is surely sentimental to extend our sympathy towards a caller who
has devoured six of his hostess' children. With regard to the wolf
being cut open, there is not the slightest need to accentuate the
physical side. Children accept the deed as they accept the cutting
off of a giant's head, because they do not associate it with pain,
especially if the deed is presented half-humorously. The moment in the
story where their sympathy is aroused is the swallowing of the kids,
because the children do realise the possibility of being disposed of
in the mother's absence. (Needless to say, I never point out the moral
of the kids' disobedience to the mother in opening the door.) I have
always noticed a moment of breathlessness even in a grown-up audience
when the wolf swallows the kids, and that the recovery of them “all
safe and sound, all huddled together” is quite as much appreciated by
the adult audience as by the children, and is worth the tremor caused
by the wolf's summary action.
I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers that this
story _must_ be taken lightly. A very earnest young student came to
me once after I had told it, and said in an awestruck voice: “Do you
Correlate?” Having recovered from the effect of this word, which she
carefully explained, I said that as a rule I preferred to keep the
story apart from the other lessons, just an undivided whole, because
it had effects of its own which were best brought about by not being
connected with other lessons.[31] She frowned her disapproval and said:
“I am sorry, because I thought I would take The Goat for my Nature
Study lesson, and then tell your story at the end.” I thought of the
terrible struggle in the child's mind between his conscientious wish to
be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of the abnormal habits of a goat
who went out with scissors, needle and thread; but I have been most
careful since to repudiate any connection with Nature Study in this and
a few other stories in my répertoire.
One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's “Book of
Nonsense.” For instance:
There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,
Who wished he had never been born;
So he sat in a chair till he died of despair,
That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.
Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly be
taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would recognise
the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents a man from at least an
attempt to rise from his chair.
The following I have chosen as repeated with intense appreciation and
much dramatic vigour by a little boy just five years old:
There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!
I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
When they said, “Is it small?” he replied, “Not at all!
It is four times as big as the bush!”[32]
One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our stories
is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very young children
this is easy, because in those early years when the mind is not clogged
with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination enables them to enter into
the feelings of animals. Andersen has an illustration of this point in
his “Ice Maiden”:
“Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and
ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as
Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small,
and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them
that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail.
With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such
we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they
have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit of
saying strange things.”
Felix Adler says: “Perhaps the chief attraction of Fairy Tales is due
to their representing the child as living in brotherly friendship with
nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals, wild and tame, even
the stars are represented as comrades of children. That animals are
only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the Fairy Tales. Animals
are humanised, that is, the kinship between animal and human life
is still keenly felt; and this reminds us of those early animistic
interpretations of nature which subsequently led to doctrines of
metempsychosis.”[33]
I think that beyond question the finest animal stories are to be found
in the Indian Collections, of which I furnish a list in the Appendix.
With regard to the development of the love of nature through the
telling of the stories, we are confronted with a great difficult in the
elementary schools, because so many of the children have never been out
of the towns, have never seen a daisy, a blade of grass and scarcely a
tree, so that in giving, in form of a story, a beautiful description
of scenery, you can make no appeal to the retrospective imagination,
and only the rarely gifted child will be able to make pictures whilst
listening to a style which is beyond his everyday use. Nevertheless,
once in a way, when the children are in a quiet mood, not eager for
action but able to give themselves up to the pure joy of sound, then
it is possible to give them a beautiful piece of writing in praise of
Nature, such as the following, taken from _The Divine Adventure_, by
Fiona Macleod:
“Then he remembered the ancient wisdom of the Gael and came out of the
Forest Chapel and went into the woods. He put his lip to the earth,
and lifted a green leaf to his brow, and held a branch to his ear,
and because he was no longer heavy with the sweet clay of mortality,
though yet of human clan he heard that which we do not hear, and saw
that which we do not see, and knew that which we do not know. All the
green life was his. In that new world, he saw the lives of trees, now
pale green, now of woodsmoke blue, now of amethyst; the gray lives of
stone; breaths of the grass and reed, creatures of the air, delicate
and wild as fawns, or swift and fierce and terrible, tigers, of that
undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost invisible but for their
luminous wings, and opalescent crests.”
The value of this particular passage is the mystery pervading the whole
picture, which forms so beautiful an antidote to the eternal explaining
of things. I think it of the highest importance for children to realise
that the best and most beautiful things cannot be expressed in everyday
language and that they must content themselves with a flash here and
there of the beauty which may come later. One does not enhance the
beauty of the mountain by pulling to pieces some of the earthy clogs:
one does not increase the impression of a vast ocean by analysing the
single drops of water. But at a reverent distance one gets a clear
impression of the whole, and can afford to leave the details in the
shadow.
In presenting such passages (and it must be done very sparingly)
experience has taught me that we should take the children into our
confidence by telling them frankly that nothing exciting is going
to happen, so that they will be free to listen to the mere words. A
very interesting experiment might occasionally be made by asking the
children some weeks afterwards to tell you in their own words what
pictures were made on their minds. This is a very different thing from
allowing the children to reproduce the passage at once, the danger of
which proceeding I speak of later in detail. (See Chapter on Questions.)
We now come to the question as to what proportion of _Dramatic
Excitement_ we should present in the stories for a normal group of
children. Personally, I should like, while the child is very young
(I mean in mind, not in years) to exclude the element of dramatic
excitement, but though this may be possible for the individual child,
it is quite Utopian to hope we can keep the average child free from
what is in the atmosphere. Children crave for excitement, and unless we
give it to them in legitimate form, they will take it in any riotous
form it presents itself, and if from our experience we can control
their mental digestion by a moderate supply of what they demand, we
may save them from devouring too eagerly the raw material they can so
easily find for themselves.
There is a humorous passage bearing on this question in the story of
the small Scotch boy, when he asks leave of his parents to present the
pious little book--a gift to himself from his Aunt--to a little sick
friend, hoping probably that the friend's chastened condition will make
him more lenient towards this mawkish form of literature. The parents
expostulate, pointing out to their son how ungrateful he is, and how
ungracious it would be to part with his Aunt's gift. Then the boy can
contain himself no longer. He bursts out, unconsciously expressing the
normal attitude of children at a certain stage of development: “It's
a _daft_ book ony way; there's naebody gets kilt en't. I like stories
about folk getting their heids cut off, or stabbit through and through,
wi' swords an' spears. An' there's nae wile beasts. I like Stories
about black men gettin' ate up, an' white men killin' lions and tigers
an' bears an'----”
Then, again, we have the passage from George Eliot's “Mill on the
Floss”:
“Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?”
“Hurt me? No,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:
“I gave Spooner a black eye--that's what he got for wanting to leather
me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”
“Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came
a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?”
“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions
only in the shows.”
“No, but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa where it's
very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book
where I read it.”
“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”
“But if you hadn't got a gun?--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come
towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you
do, Tom?”
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: “But the
lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?”
This passage illustrates also the difference between the
highly-developed imagination of the one and the stodgy prosaical
temperament of the other. Tom could enter into the elementary question
of giving his school-fellow a black eye, but could not possibly enter
into the drama of the imaginary arrival of a lion. He was sorely in
need of Fairy Stories.
It is for this element we have to cater, and we cannot shirk our
responsibilities.
William James says: “Living things, moving things or things that
savour of danger or blood, that have a dramatic quality, these are
the things natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion of
almost everything else, and the teacher of young children (until more
artificial interests have grown up) will keep in touch with his pupils
by constant appeal to such matters as those.”[34]
Of course the savour of danger and blood is only _one_ of the things to
which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point
clearer.
This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how
to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough
constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for
“blugginess” is slaked.
And here I should like to say that, whilst wishing to encourage in
children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine
qualities which have been displayed in times of war, and which have
mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest
moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession
as soldiers. Thus we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sidney and
the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his
dead friends to receive the blessing of the archbishop after the battle
of Roncevalles[35]; and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England.
There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of
the slaughter of his enemies, and says, “I wonder if I am less brave
than others, because I kill men less willingly than they.”
And in the “Njal's Burning” from Andrew Lang's “Book of Romance” we
have the words of the boy Thord when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges
him to go out of the burning house.
“You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I never should go
from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you
than live after you.”
Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown; none of these heroes
feared to die in battle or in open single fight, but to face a death by
fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to
the child.
In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our
soldiers and sailors,[36] should we not try to offer also in our
stories the romance and excitement of saving as well as _taking_ life?
I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures
of the Life-Boat and the Fire Brigade, of which I hope to present
examples in the final Story List.
Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with
Death, especially with children who are of an age to realise that it
must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly
natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably
connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories
of Death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great
cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and
unselfishness; or of Death coming as a result of treachery, such as
we find in the death of Baldur, of Siegfried, and of others, so that
children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of
stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done
and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of
a leaf from the tree. In this way we can give children the first idea
that the individual is so much less than the whole.
Quite small children often take Death very naturally. A boy of five
met two of his older companions at the school door. They said sadly
and solemnly: “We have just seen a dead man!” “Well,” said the little
philosopher, “that's all right. We've _all_ got to die when our work's
done.”
In one of the Buddha stories which I reproduce at the end of this book,
the little Hare (who is, I think, a symbol of nervous Individualism)
constantly says: “Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would become
of me?”
As an antidote to the ordinary attitude towards death, I commend an
episode from a German folk-lore story called “Unlucky John,” which is
included in the list of stories recommended at the end of this book.
The following sums up in poetic form some of the material necessary for
the wants of a child:
THE CHILD.
The little new soul has come to Earth,
He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.
His sandals are girt on his tender feet,
And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.
What will you give to him, Fate Divine?
What for his scrip on the winding road?
A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?
A sword to wield, or is gold his load?
What will you give him for weal or woe?
What for the journey through day and night?
Give or withhold from him power and fame,
But give to him love of the earth's delight.
Let him be lover of wind and sun
And of falling rain; and the friend of trees;
With a singing heart for the pride of noon,
And a tender heart for what twilight sees.
Let him be lover of you and yours--
The Child and Mary; but also Pan,
And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,
And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.
Love and a song and the joy of earth,
These be the gifts for his scrip to keep
Till, the journey ended, he stands at last
In the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.
_Ethel Clifford._
And so our stories should contain all the essentials for the child's
scrip on the road of life, providing the essentials and holding or
withholding the non-essentials. But, above all, let us fill the scrip
with gifts that the child need never reject, even when he passes
through “the gate of sleep.”
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Chapter I, page 3.
[25] This experiment cannot be made with a group of children, for
obvious reasons.
[26] From an address on the “Cultivation of the Imagination.”
[27] “The House in the Wood” (Grimm) is a good instance of triumph for
the youngest child.
[28] To be found in Andrew Lang's Collection. See list of Stories.
[29] To be found in Jacob's “More English Tales.”
[30] For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, see
Story Lists.
[31] I believe that I am quite in a minority among Educationists in
this matter. Possibly my constantly specialising in the stories may
have formed my opinion.
[32] These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss
Margaret Ruthven Lang. (Boston.)
[33] From “Moral Instruction of Children,” page 66. “The Use of Fairy
Tales.”
[34] From “Talks to Teachers,” page 93.
[35] An excellent account of this is to be found in “The Song of
Roland,” by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender.
[36] This passage was written before the Great War.