Groups for storytelling are usually assembled in separate rooms
in the libraries and are made up by an approximate but variable
age limit, dividing the children under ten or eleven years old
from the boys and girls above that age. In the settlements the
group is usually determined by the club organization. On the
playgrounds, the experience of a storyteller in Providence is
probably typical of many other workers and is quoted as
suggestive for group formation in playgrounds.
"During the summer of 1909 the stories I told on the Davis Park
Playground were costly fairy tales and folk stories. 'Grimm's
Fairy Tales' was the favorite of both boys and girls and through
the summer I told every story in the book. The boys also liked
'The Merrie Adventures of Robin Hood,' 'The Three Golden Apples,'
'The Golden Touch,' 'The Golden Fleece,' and all the old Indian
legends. While the girls, if offered a choice, always called for
a fairy tale with a Prince Charming in it. Neither boys nor girls
would listen to historical stories saying they were too much like
school.
"The first day to gain an audience I went up to a group of
children who were playing together and asked them if they would
like to hear a story. Four or five replied that they would, while
some fifteen or twenty disappeared as though by magic, and I
decided that they were not interested. I then took the children
who wished to listen, over to a large tree in one corner of the
grounds, and told them that for the rest of the summer that tree
would be known as 'the storytelling tree.' They would, I told
them, find me there every day promptly at half-past one, and that
I would tell stories for a half hour to the whole playground.
Then from half-past two until three I would tell stories to the
older girls. The first day I had a very small audience, the next
day it doubled, and then increased daily until I had from eighty
to a hundred children in a group. As to forming a group, I think
it is impossible in playground work, for a group worth having
must form itself, the reputation of the storyteller being the
foundation of its formation, and this reputation can only be
gained through constant systematic labor, and a thorough
knowledge of your daily audience. That is why I think a
professional visiting storyteller would be a failure in
playground work, as in visiting each playground once or twice a
week it would be impossible for her to gain that intimate
personal knowledge of her audience, which is so necessary to the
playground storyteller, as she must appeal to a different class
of children on each playground.
"The experience of a professional storyteller with a group of
boys, already assembled as a club, is also quoted for its
valuable suggestion and independence of method in gaining the
interest of boys who had been much experimented upon.
"The most interesting experience I have had in a developed series
of stories was with the Boys' Club of Greenwich, Connecticut,
last year. The club is supported by the wealthy women of the
place, and is an outgrowth of a rather serious and perplexing boy
problem. A number of picture shows, pool rooms, cheap
vaudevilles, etc., have crept into the town, and life on the
street is most attractive.
"The head worker of the club wrote that they had failed to hold
the boys in everything but manual training and baseball; that the
boys were insubordinate and unresponsive, and that their school
reports were very poor. I found the conditions even worse than I
had anticipated. It was necessary to train eighty boys to listen,
as well as to interest them, and so, I told very short stories at
first. I chose the ones that were full of dramatic action, that
had little or no description, and a good deal of dialogue. The
stories were strongly contrasted, and there was no attempt at
literary or artistic finish. I used a great many gestures and
moved about on the platform frequently; it is the quickest way of
focusing laggard attention. To be absolutely honest, I had to
come very close to the level of the moving picture show, and the
ten-cent vaudeville, at first.
"The fourth night I eliminated all but a few gestures, and told
the stories sitting down. I also used less colloquial English;
and from then on, until the end, when I told the stories from Van
Dyke in his own words, there was a steady growth in literary
style. I append the programs in the order they were given: