STIMULATING THE EMOTIONS BY MEANS OF A STORY
A group of school children recently started quarreling in the school
yard during the morning recess time. The storm center was two small
boys who had fallen out over a game of marbles. The entire class took
sides; _for_ Edgar and _against_ Edgar, _for_ Lawrence and _against_
Lawrence and proceeded to wage individual warfare like a miniature
army. Even the ringing of the school bell failed to stop the quarrel.
The children took their seats unwillingly and with sour faces carrying
the feud with them into the classroom.
The teacher was a wise young person who believed in attacking the
matter of discipline along the lines of least resistance. She saw
immediately that a general feeling of anger possessed the children;
no one child could be blamed. So she set about creating an opposite,
general feeling as quickly as possible. Setting aside other work for
ten minutes she announced a story. Instantly, the tension was loosened.
By the time she had finished Grimm’s story of “The Pot and the Kettle,”
in which, as a climax, neither is able to taunt the other with being
black, the children’s anger was gone, peace was restored, and the
children were smiling. An emotional crisis had been successfully met by
means of a story.
Our emotions, that is, our feelings of anger, joy, sorrow, hatred,
jealousy, and love are older than we are. They may almost be classed
as instinctive, for they manifest themselves so early. The baby gives
examples of emotional explosions in his first month. These feelings
have their rise in mental conditions over which we have no control;
they are not dependent upon sensory stimuli; they are isolated,
incoherent. They take hold of the personality of the subject in a
hypnotic fashion, for the period of the feeling’s mastery we _are_
anger, love, sorrow, or whatever emotion enthralls us.
The psychologists classify and subdivide the emotions into many
divisions but the story teller is most concerned with making one
elastic, wide classification of a child’s emotions; those that are
concerned with _bodily expression_. A child is happy, he laughs; he is
sad and he cries; he is angry, he fights; he is afraid, and he gives
active evidence of cowardice. Because, during the time of his obsession
by one of these emotions, a child is so completely mastered by his
feelings, we discover that we can create for him by story suggestion a
similar mental state.
_The story which a child feels is going to be a force in his emotional
development._
I came across one of my own, old Mother Goose books not long ago with
the leaves that held the story of the “Babes in the Wood” _pinned_
securely together. It told me as nothing else could have done the
emotion caused in a child’s mind by this gruesome tale. I was afraid
when I read the story. I felt all the terror experienced by the Babes
in the Wood. My fear emotion was so unpleasant that I had pinned the
story out of my sight. I wanted to feel some other emotion. Other
children have similar emotions.
We will study stories, then, asking ourselves:
_What emotion does this story stimulate?_
By its unpleasant situations and images, does it inspire fear in a
child? Does it make a child happy because of its bubbling good humor?
Does it create child sympathy, courage, grief, anger, malice, charity,
temperance? Each one of these states of feeling is characterized by
bodily expression and we can almost mold character, and influence a
child’s future life activity by means of the stories which we tell him.
Sometimes our sole object in this story emotion work will be to create
an atmosphere of good humor and happiness in our children. Not by any
means to be despised is the ability to make a child laugh. The power to
feel humor in childhood means the power to take life not too seriously
in adult life and the story that simply amuses and entertains has an
important place in the story hour. In this class of happiness-making
stories are: “Bre’r Rabbit and the Little Tar Baby,” “Johnny Cake,”
“Epaminondos and His Aunty,” “The Mouse and the Sausage,” “The Greedy
Cat,” “Lambikin,” “Chicken Little,” “The Cat and the Mouse” and a
score more of sheer nonsense stories whose very improbability makes
them tickle a child’s sense of humor and gives him the opportunity to
express his feelings in laughter.
So many more stories than we realize put children into a state of fear.
Oldest of all our emotions, since we share it alike with animals, fear
peculiarly takes hold of a child during the early years when he is most
interested in stories. The story situation that seems quite plausible
to us and not in the least terrorizing, haunts a child at night,
peers from shadowy corners at him in the daytime and makes of him,
unwittingly, a little coward. The troll with only one eye, the giant
who cracks human bones, the witch who exercises horrible spells should
all be buried in some tomb of forgetfulness. Stories having such themes
do nothing toward creating worthwhile emotions in the child’s mind.
While their very improbability makes them plausible for us, they are,
on the other hand, very real to children and should be avoided.
But we can make children self reliant and brave by giving them feelings
of courage through listening to courage stories. The child who hears
the stories of “Cedric, the Little Hero of Harlem,” “The Story of a
Short Life,” “David and Goliath,” “Jean D’Arc,” “Tiny Tim,” “Jenny
Wren,” is made one with each child hero, feels with them, dares with
them, acts with them.
_Each emotion that will prevail over and influence human action in
adult life may be appealed to in childhood through stories._
The child who is greedy and selfish is led into a better state of
feeling when he hears the story of “The King of the Golden River.”
Always greed and avarice will be associated in his mind with the tragic
end of the brothers, and the Happy Valley, full of plenty, and enjoyed
by Gluck, will symbolize for him the reward of unselfishness. The child
who is proud will feel the opposite emotion, humbleness, when he hears
Oscar Wilde’s wonderful parable of “The Star-Child.” As children
follow the wanderings of the Star-Child, his beauty gone, his mother
lost to him because of his pride and, with him, find the successful end
of the journey, they lose their own pride of heart with their story
hero.
“And the gate of the palace opened, and the priests and the high
officers of the city ran forth to meet him, and they abased
themselves before him, and said, ‘Thou art our lord for whom we
have been waiting, and the son of our King.’
“And the Star-Child answered them and said, ‘I am no king’s son,
but the child of a poor beggar-woman. And how say ye that I am
beautiful, for I know that I am evil to look at.’
“Then he, whose armour was inlaid with gilt flowers, and on whose
helmet couched a lion that had wings, held up a shield, and cried,
‘How saith my lord that he is not beautiful?’
“And the Star-Child looked, and lo! his face was even as it had
been, and his comeliness had come back to him, and he saw that in
his eyes which he had not seen there before.
“And the priests and the high officers knelt down and said to him,
‘It was prophesied of old that on this day should come he who was
to rule over us. Therefore, let our lord take this crown and this
sceptre, and be in his justice and mercy our King over us.’
“But he said to them, ‘I am not worthy, for I have denied the
mother who bare me, nor may I rest till I have found her, and known
her forgiveness. Therefore, let me go, for I must wander again over
the world, and may not tarry here, though ye bring me the crown and
the sceptre.’ And as he spake he turned his face from them towards
the street that led to the gate of the city, and lo! amongst the
crowd that pressed round the soldiers, he saw the beggar-woman who
was his mother, and at her side stood the leper, who had sat by the
road.
“And a cry of joy broke from his lips, and he ran over, and
kneeling down he kissed the wounds on his mother’s feet, and wet
them with his tears. He bowed his head in the dust, and sobbing,
as one whose heart might break, he said to her: ‘Mother, I
denied thee in the hour of my pride. Accept me in the hour of my
humility. Mother, I gave thee hatred. Do thou give me love. Mother,
I rejected thee. Receive thy child now.’ But the beggar-woman
answered him not a word.
“And he reached out his hands, and clasped the white feet of the
leper, and said to him: ‘Thrice did I give thee of my mercy. Bid my
mother speak to me once.’ But the leper answered him not a word.
“And he sobbed again, and said: ‘Mother, my suffering is greater
than I can bear. Give me thy forgiveness, and let me go back to the
forest.’ And the beggar-woman put her hand on his head, and said to
him: ‘Rise,’ and the leper put his hand on his head, and said to
him ‘Rise,’ also.
“And he rose up from his feet, and looked at them, and lo! they
were a King and a Queen.
“And the Queen said to him, ‘This is thy father whom thou hast
succored.’
“And the King said, ‘This is thy mother whose feet thou hast washed
with thy tears.’
“And they fell on his neck and kissed him, and brought him into
the palace, and clothed him in fair raiment, and set the crown
upon his head, and the sceptre in his hand, and over the city that
stood by the river he ruled, and was its lord. Much justice and
mercy did he show to all, and the evil Magician he banished, and to
the Woodcutter and his wife he sent many rich gifts, and to their
children he gave high honour. Nor would he suffer any to be cruel
to bird or beast, but taught love and loving-kindness and charity,
and to the poor he gave bread, and to the naked he gave raiment,
and there was peace and plenty in the land.”
What more effective emotional stimulus could be found than this?
The children whom we wish to feel pity should hear Andersen’s “Ugly
Duckling”; Oscar Wilde’s, “The Birthday of the Infanta”; Daudet’s,
“The Last Lesson”; “The House in the Wood” and “The Star Dollars” by
Grimm and many other _sympathy_ stories that only wait for our timely
rendering.
In telling a story, having in mind its emotional effect upon a
child’s mental life, we will need to use the greatest delicacy of
discrimination in order to create just the story effect which we wish.
We will not tell such stories so often as to cause them to lose their
magic spell. We will appeal to but one emotion at a time through the
story medium. We will make an appeal most strongly to those emotions
that have bodily expression in a child’s daily speech and acts. We will
remember that a child is so quick to smiles, so quick to tears that
the pleasanter feelings should be the aim of our telling of emotion
stories rather than the unpleasant ones.
Some of us may class Miss Mulock’s story of “The Little Lame Prince”
as just a purely imaginative one; others of us are appealed to by its
dramatic qualities. But, after all, the story has survived the test
of years because of its big emotional appeal. It stands for pity,
sympathy, courage, nearly all the emotions which we wish to strengthen
in children.
THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born. Everybody was
exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King
and Queen of Nomansland. The only person who did not love the Prince
was the King’s brother, who would have been king one day if the royal
baby had not come.
Of course a little Prince must be christened. The day came at last, as
lovely as the Prince himself, and they carried the baby, magnificent
in his christening robe, to the bedside of the Queen, his mother. She
admired him very much. She kissed and blessed him, and then she gave
him up with a gentle smile, and turned peacefully over in her bed,
saying nothing more to anybody.
It was a wonderful christening procession: dukes and duchesses, princes
and princesses, heralds, and ladies in waiting were in line. Every one
was so busy shouting out the little Prince’s four and twenty names that
they never noticed the accident. It was the Prince’s state nurse maid,
an elegant young lady of rank, who let him fall just at the foot of the
marble staircase. She had been so busy arranging her train--that was
the reason she dropped him--but she contrived to pick him up again the
next minute before any one saw. The baby had turned very pale under the
heap of lace and muslin, and he had moaned a little, but that was all.
There were pages in crimson and gold, troops of little girls in
dazzling white with baskets of flowers, the King and his train on one
side--as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.
“The only thing the baby wants is a fairy godmother,” said one of the
children.
“Does he?” said a shrill, but soft voice behind.
She was no bigger than a child, and certainly had not been invited
to the christening. She was a little old woman dressed all in gray;
gray gown, gray hooded cloak of a material tinted like the gray of an
evening sky, gray hair, and her eyes were gray also. Even her face had
a soft gray shadow over it, but she was not unpleasantly old, and her
smile was as sweet and childlike as the Prince’s own.
“Take care,” she said. “Don’t let the baby fall again!”
The grand lady nurse started.
“Who spoke? His Royal Highness is just going to sleep,” she said.
“Nevertheless I must kiss him,” said the little old woman. “I am his
godmother.”
And she stretched herself up on tiptoe, and gave the little Prince
three kisses.
“An insult to His Royal Highness,” said the nurse.
“His Majesty shall hear of this,” said a lord-in-waiting. But just then
the little gray woman faded away like air, and the great bell of the
palace--the bell which was only heard on the death of some member of
the Royal family--began to toll--one--two--three--nine and twenty--just
the Queen’s age!
So when the little Prince was carried back to his mother’s room, there
was no mother to kiss him. She had turned her face to the window whence
one could just see the Beautiful Mountains where she was born. So
gazing, she had quietly died.
Everybody was very kind to the poor little Prince, but, somehow, after
his mother died, things seemed to go wrong with him. From a beautiful
baby he became sickly and pale, and his legs, which had been so fat and
strong, withered and shrank. When he tried to stand he only tumbled
down.
A prince, and not able to walk! People began to say what a misfortune
it was to the country. Rather a misfortune to him, also, poor little
lad, but he still had the old sweet look in his little face, and his
body grew if his legs did not. His Majesty, the King, took very little
notice of his son, and one day he died, too, and they made the Crown
Prince, Regent, in his stead, and then things went much worse with the
little Prince.
Perhaps the Prince Regent did not mean to do wrong. He told the country
that the little Prince would be better if he were sent for a while to
the Beautiful Mountains. So the poor little Prince started, with two
whole regiments to guard him, and then there came back word that he had
gone on a much longer journey. They said that he had died on the road,
so the country went into mourning, and then forgot all about their
little lame Prince. And the Regent was proclaimed King.
What really became of the Prince? Beyond the Mountains there lay a
barren tract of country, with not a bush--not a tree. In summer the
sunshine fell upon it hour after hour, and in winter the snow covered
it steadily and noiselessly in one great sheet. Not a pleasant place to
live--and no one did live there, evidently. The only human habitation
for miles and miles was one large, round stone tower, circular, with
neither doors nor windows, save some slits in the wall near the top.
And the top was a hundred feet from the plain.
One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there
was seen crossing it a great black horse, ridden by a man equally
black, and carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a child. The
woman had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for she was a criminal
under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed. She was to
live in the lonely tower with a child--only as long as he lived. He
was a little gentle boy, with a sweet, sleepy smile. He had been tired
with his long journey. And he was very helpless, with his poor, small,
shrivelled legs, which could neither stand nor run away--for the little
boy was the Prince.
When they reached the foot of the tower there was light enough to see a
huge chain dangling from the top, half way. The man fitted together a
ladder and mounted, drawing up the Prince and his nurse. Then he came
down again and left them alone.
And there they stayed for years.
It was not an unhappy life for the little boy. He had all sorts and
kinds of beautiful toys, and more picture books than he could look at.
He learned to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog. He played
about from room to room--there were four; parlor, kitchen, his nurse’s
room, and his own--and as he grew older he would sit at the slits of
windows and watch the sky, and wonder about things--for his nurse never
talked much.
“I wish I had somebody to tell me all about the world,” he said to
himself once, “a real, live person. Oh, I want somebody dreadfully!”
As he spoke, there sounded behind him, the tap-tap-tap of a cane,
and--what do you think he saw?
A little woman, no larger than he, with gray hair, and a dress of gray,
and there was a gray shadow over her wherever she moved. But she had
the sweetest smile, and the prettiest hands, which she laid on his
shoulders, as she said:
“My own little boy, I couldn’t come until you said you wanted me, but
here I am!”
“Are you my mother?” asked the little Prince. He had always wondered
what had become of his mother.
“No, only your godmother,” said the little woman, “but I love you as
much as your mother did, and I want to help you all I can, my poor
little boy. I am going to give you a present--a traveling cloak,” but
just then in came the Prince’s nurse, and his lovely old godmother
melted away, as a rainbow melts out of the sky. He knew, for he had
watched one many a time.
And what of the traveling cloak? I will tell you all about it.
It was the commonest-looking bundle imaginable--shabby and small. It
seemed no treasure at all; only a circular, green piece of cloth, and
quite worn and shabby. It had a slit cut to the center, forming a round
hole for the neck, and that was all its shape.
“Of what use will it be to me?” thought the little Prince sadly.
“I never go out. She must be a rather funny person, this dear old
godmother of mine.”
But he spread it out on the floor, and sat down in the center for all
the world like a frog on a water lily leaf. The edges of the cloak
began turning up--and--the cloak rose, slowly and steadily, and higher
and higher until the little Prince was obliged to open the skylight to
let himself through. There they were outside. Oh, it was wonderful,
nothing but earth and sky for a while. Then came the patches of flowers
that grew on the plain, white saxifrage, and yellow lotus, and ground
thistles. Next, he saw a farm where cows and horses, lambs and sheep
fed in the meadows. Presently he heard a murmur in the distance, like
a gigantic hive of bees. It was a great city which he was sailing over
and the cloak stopped directly over a palace.
Such a magnificent palace! It had terraces and gardens, battlements and
towers. Its windows looked in all directions, but mostly toward the
Beautiful Mountains.
“I wonder if there is a king in this palace,” thought the little Prince.
Just then the cloak settled down to the palace roof between some great
stacks of chimneys as comfortably as if it were on the ground. There
were some broken tiles in the roof, and the Prince peered in.
It was the largest room he had ever seen, and very grand. There was the
loveliest carpet ever woven on the floor, a bed of flowers; but the
room was perfectly empty and silent. In the center of a magnificent
bed, large enough to hold six people, lay a small figure, something
like wax work, fast asleep--very fast asleep. There were some
sparkling rings on the fingers and the nose was sharp and thin, and a
long gray beard lay over the breast. Two little flies buzzed about the
curtains of the bed, and made the only sound--for the King was dead.
Then there came a great shouting from the city.
“Long live the King! The King is dead--down with the King! Hurrah for
the Republic! Hurrah for no government at all!”
“Oh, dear godmother,” cried the little Prince. “Let me go back to
the tower.” And he suddenly found himself in his own room alone and
quiet--for the traveling cloak had taken him there; after which it
folded itself into the tiniest bundle, and tied its own knots, and
rolled itself into the farthest and darkest corner.
The clock was striking ten, and no nurse was to be seen. The little
lame Prince crawled about from room to room on his weak little knees,
but all the four chambers were deserted.
“Nurse--dear nurse--please come back!” he cried. “Come back and I will
be the best boy in the land!”
But she did not answer, nor come.
In truth the poor woman had not been such a wicked woman after all.
As soon as she heard of the death of the King, she determined to go
to Nomansland, and set upon the throne its rightful heir. She had
persuaded the old black messenger to take her down from the tower, and
together they galloped like the wind from city to city spreading the
news that the little lame Prince was alive and well, and the noblest
young Prince that ever was born.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded.
“Hurrah for the Prince! Let the little Prince be our King,” came from
end to end of the Kingdom.
Everybody tried to remember what a dear baby he once was, and nobody at
all spoke of his lameness. They went with great rejoicing; lords and
gentlemen, and soldiers traveling night and day to fetch the little
lame Prince.
They found him sitting on the floor--quite pale, for he expected a far
different end from this, although he had decided to die, if die he
must, courageously, like a Prince.
“Yes,” he said, “I am only a little boy, but I will try to be your
King. I will do my best to make the people happy.”
Then there arose from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as
never yet was heard across the lonely plain.
So the little lame Prince came to his own after all, and every one
says he was the best King that ever ruled Nomansland. His reign lasted
for years and years, and then he went away.
Whither he went, or who went with him, it is impossible to say. But I
myself believe that his godmother took him on his traveling cloak to
the Beautiful Mountains. What he did there, or where he is now, who can
tell? I cannot. But one thing I am quite sure of, that, wherever he is,
he is perfectly happy.
And so, when I think of him, am I.
_Adapted, from Miss Mulock._
STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF A SPECIAL EMOTIONAL APPEAL IN EACH
BRE’R RABBIT AND THE LITTLE TAR BABY (_Merriment_) _Joel Chandler
Harris, in Nights with Uncle Remus_
THE STORY OF CEDRIC (_Courage_) _Elizabeth Harrison, in
In Storyland_
THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER (_Unselfishness_) _John Ruskin,
adapted by Sara Cone Bryant, in
How to Tell Stories to Children_
THE STAR CHILD (_Humility_) _Oscar Wilde, in The Happy Prince_
THE UGLY DUCKLING (_Pity_) _Hans Christian Andersen_
LITTLE COSETTE (_Sympathy_) _Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables_
EPAMINONDAS AND HIS AUNTY (_Glee_) _Sara Cone Bryant, in Best
Stories to Tell to Children_
THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER (_Industry_) _Grimm’s Tales_
TINY TIM (_Love_) _Adapted from Charles Dickens, in For the
Children’s Hour_