EXPERIENCES OF HUMAN CONDUCT
It is always difficult to see the beginnings of things: we know that
stories form the raw material of morality, it is not easy to trace
morality in _Little Black Sambo, The Three Bears, Alice in Wonderland,_
or _The Sleeping Beauty,_ but nevertheless morality is there if we
recognise morality in everyday things. It is not too much to say that
everybody should have an ideal, even a burglar: his ideal is to be a
good and thorough burglar, and probably if he is a burglar of the finer
sort, it is to play fair to the whole gang. It is better to be a burglar
with an ideal than a blameless person with very little soul or
personality, who just slides through life accepting things: it is better
to have a coster's ideal of a holiday than to be too indifferent or
stupid to care or to know what you want.
Now ideals are supposed to be the essence of morality and morality comes
to us through experience, and only experience tests its truth. The
story with a moral is generally neither literature nor morality, except
such unique examples as _The Pilgrim's Progress _or _Everyman_. The kind
of experience with which morality is concerned is experience of human
life in various circumstances, and the way people behave under those
circumstances. The beginning of such experience is our own behaviour and
the behaviour of other people we know, but this is too limited an
experience to produce a satisfactory ideal; so we crave for something
wider. It is curious how strong is the craving for this kind of
experience in all normal children, in whom one would suppose sense
experiences and especially muscular experiences to be enough. The need
to know about people other than ourselves, and yet not too unlike, in
circumstances other than our own, and yet not too strange, seems to be a
necessary part of our education, and we interpret it in the light of our
own personal conduct. Out of this, as well as out of our direct
experience, we build our ideal. When one realises how an ideal may
colour the whole outlook of a person, one begins to realise what
literature means to a child. The early ideal is crude; it may be Jack
the Giant-Killer, or an engine-driver, Cinderella, or the step-cleaner;
this may grow into Hiawatha or Robinson Crusoe, for boys, and a fairy
tale Princess or one of the "Little Women" for girls. In every hero a
child half-unconsciously sees himself, and the ideal stimulates all that
hidden life which is probably the most important part of his growth. As
indirect experiences grow, or in other words as he hears or reads more
stories, his ideal widens, and his knowledge of the problems of life is
enlarged. This is the raw material of morality, for out of his answers
to these problems he builds up standards of conduct and of judgement. He
projects himself into his own ideal, and he projects himself into the
experiences of other people: he lives in both: this is imagination of
the highest kind, it is often called sympathy, but the term is too
limited, it is rather imaginative understanding.
There is another side of life grasped by means of this new world of
experience, and that is, the spiritual side that lies between conduct
and ideals; children have always accepted the supernatural quite readily
and it is not to be wondered at, for all the world is new and therefore
supernatural to them. Magic is done daily in children's eyes, and there
is no line between what is understandable and what is not, until adults
try to interpret it for them.
They are curious about birth and death and all origins: thunder is
terrifying, the sea is enthralling, the wind is mysterious, the sky is
immense, and all suggest a power beyond: in this the children are
reproducing the race experience as expressed in myths, when power was
embodied in a god or goddess. Therefore the fairy world or the giant
world, or the wood full of dwarfs and witches' houses, is as real to
them, and as acceptable, as any part of life. It is their recognition of
a world of spirits which later on mingles itself with the spiritual life
of religion. That life is behind all matter, is the main truth they
hold, and while it is difficult here to disentangle morality from
religion, it is supremely evident that a very great and significant side
of a child's education is before us.
It is by means of the divine gift of imagination, probably the most
spiritual of a child's gifts, that he can lay hold of all that the world
of literature has to offer him. Because of imagination he is independent
of poverty, monotony, and the indifference of other people; he has a
world of his own in which nothing is impossible. Edwin Pugh says of a
child of the slums who was passionately fond of reading cheap
literature:--"It was by means of this penny passport to Heaven that she
escaped from the Hell of her surroundings. It was in the maudlin fancies
of some poor besotted literary hack maybe, that she found surcease from
the pains of weariness, the carks and cares of her miserable estate."
A teacher realising this, should feel an almost unspeakable sense of
responsibility in having to select and present matter: but the problem
should be solved on the one hand by her own high standard of story
material, and on the other by her knowledge of the child's needs.
According to his experiences of life the interpretation of the story
will differ: for example, it was found that the children of a low slum
neighbourhood translated _Jack the Giant-killer_ into terms of a street
fight: to children living by a river or the sea, the _Water-Babies_ would
mean very much, while _Jan of the Windmill_ would be more familiar
ground for country children. Fairy stories of the best kind have a
universal appeal.
In choosing a story a teacher should be aware of the imperishable part
of it, the truth around which it grew; sometimes the truth may seem a
very commonplace one, sometimes a curious one. For example, very young
children generally prefer stories of home life because round the family
their experience gathers: the subject seems homely, but it is really one
of the fundamental things of life and the teacher should realise this in
such a way that the telling or reading of the story makes the kernel its
central point. To some children the ideal home life comes only through
literature: daily experiences rather contradict it. Humour is an
important factor in morality; unless a person is capable of seeing the
humor of a situation he is likely to be wanting in a sense of balance;
the humor of a situation is often caused by the wrong proportion or
wrong balance of things: for example the humour of _The Mad Tea-Party_
lies, partly at least, in the absurd gravity with which the animals
regarded the whole situation, the extreme literal-mindedness of Alice,
and the exaggerated imitation of human beings: a really moral person
must have balance as well as sympathy, else he sees things out of
proportion. These examples make evident that we are not to seek for
anything very patently high-flown in the stories for children; it is
life in all its phases that gives the material, but it must be true
life: not false or sentimental or trivial life: this will rule out the
"pretty" stories for children written by trivial people in teachers'
papers, or the pseudo-nature story, or the artificial myth of the "How
did" type, or the would-be childish story where the language is rather
that of the grown-up imitating children than that of real children. Of
late years, with the discovery of children, children's literature has
grown, and there is a good deal to choose from past and present writers.
There is no recognised or stereotyped method of telling a story to
children: it is something much deeper than merely an acquired art, it is
the teacher giving something of her personality to the children,
something that is most precious. One of the finest of our English
Kindergarten teachers once said, "I feel almost as if I ought to prepare
my soul before telling a story to young children," and this is the sense
in which the story should be chosen and told. There are, of course,
certain external qualifications which must be so fully acquired as to be
used unconsciously, such as a good vocabulary, power over one's voice, a
recognition of certain literary phases in a story, such as the working
up to the dramatic crisis, the working down to the end so that it shall
not fall flat, and the dramatic touches that give life; these are
certainly most necessary, and should be studied and cultivated; but a
teacher should not be hampered in her telling by being too conscious of
them. Rather she should feel such respect and even reverence for this
side of a child's education that the framework and setting can only be
of the best, always remembering at the same time what is framework and
setting, and what is essence.
Much that has been said about the method and aim of stories might apply
to those taken from the Bible, but they need certain additional
considerations. Here religion and morality come very closely together:
the recognition of a definite personality behind all circumstances of
life, to whom our conduct matters, gives a soul to morality. The Old
Testament is a record of the growth of a nation more fully conscious of
God than is the record of any other nation, and because of this children
can understand God in human life when they read such stories as the
childhood of Moses and of Samuel. Children resemble the young Jewish
nation in this respect: they accept the direct intervention of God in
the life of every day. Their primitive sense of justice, which is an eye
for an eye, will make them welcome joyfully the plagues of Egypt and the
crossing of the Red Sea. It would be premature to force on them the more
mature idea of mercy, which would probably lead to confusion of
judgement: they must be clear about the balance of things before they
readjust it for themselves.
Much of the material in the Old Testament is hardly suitable for very
young children, but the most should be made of what there is: the lives
of Eastern people are interesting to children and help to make the
phraseology of the Psalms and even of the narratives clear to them.
Wonder stories such as the Creation, the Flood, the Burning Bush,
Elijah's experiences, appeal to them on another side, the side that is
eager to wonder: the accounts of the childhood of Ishmael, Isaac,
Joseph, Moses, David and Samuel, and the little Syrian maid, come very
close to them. Such stories should be given to young children so that
they form part of the enchanted memory of childhood--which is permanent.
With the New Testament the problem is more difficult: one hesitates to
bring the life of Christ before children until they are ready to
understand, even in some degree, its significance; the subject is apt to
be dealt with either too familiarly, and made too commonplace and
everyday a matter, or as something so far removed from human affairs as
to be mysterious and remote to a child. To mix Old and New Testament
indiscriminately, as, for example, by taking them on alternate days, is
unforgivable, and no teacher who has studied the Bible seriously could
do so, if she cared about the religious training of her children, and
understood the Bible.
If the children can realise something of the sense in which Christ
helped human beings, then some of the incidents in His life might be
given, such as His birth, His work of healing, feeding and helping the
poor, and some of His stories, such as the lost sheep, the lost son, the
sower, the good Samaritan. It is difficult to speak strongly enough of
the mistreatment of Scripture, under the name of religion: it has been
spoilt more than any other subject in the curriculum, chiefly by being
taken too often and too slightly, by teachers who may be in themselves
deeply religious, but who have not applied intelligence to this matter.
The religious life of a young child is very direct: there is only a
little in the religious experiences of the Jews that can help him, and
much that can puzzle and hinder him; their interpretation of God as
revengeful, cruel and one-sided in His dealings with their enemies must
greatly puzzle him, when he hears on the other hand that God is the
Father of all the nations on the earth. What is suitable should be taken
and taken well, but there is no virtue in the Bible misunderstood.
Poetry is a form of literature which appeals to children _if they are
not made to learn it by rote_. Unconsciously they learn it very quickly
and easily, if they understand in a general way the meaning, and if they
like the sound of the words. Rhythm is an early inheritance and can be
encouraged by poetry, music and movement. The sound of words appeals
strongly to young children, and rhyming is almost a game. The kind of
poetry preferred varies a good deal but on the whole narrative or
nonsense verses seem most popular; few children are ready for sentiment
or reflection even about themselves, and this is why some of Stevenson's
most charming poems about children are not appreciated by them as much
as by grown-up people. And for the same reason only a few nature poems
are really liked.
Without doubt, the only aim in giving poetry to children is to help them
to appreciate it, and the only method to secure this is to read it to
them appreciatively and often.
Besides such anthologies as _The Golden Staircase,_ E.V. Lucas's _Book
of Verses for Children,_ and others, we must go to the Bible for poems
like the Song of Miriam, or of Deborah, and the Psalms; to Shakespeare
for such songs as "Where the Bee Sucks," "I know a Bank," "Ye Spotted
Snakes," either with or without music; to Longfellow's _Hiawatha_ for
descriptive pieces, and to Scott and Tennyson for ballads and songs, and
to many other simple classic sources outside the ordinary collections.
In both prose and poetry, probably the ultimate aim is appreciation of
beauty in human conduct. Clutton Brock says, "The value of art is the
value of the aesthetic activity of the spirit, and we must all value
that before we can value works of art rightly: and ultimately we must
value this glory of the universe, to which we give the name of beauty
when we apprehend it." Again he says, "Parents, nurses and teachers
ought to be aware that the child when he forgets himself in the beauty
of the world is passing through a sacred experience which will enrich
and glorify the whole of his life."
If all this is what literature means in a child's experiences of life,
then it must be given a worthy place in the time-table and curriculum
and in the serious preparation by the teacher for her work.