ONE of the most interesting developments of the League idea was the
organization of Junior Leagues. The originators of the League thought
only of an organization for adults. But where the children have, under
the guidance of a wise teacher, had a League, the work they have done
and the interest shown reveals one of its greatest educational
possibilities. As the child likes to build with clay, sand or wood, and
in doing so educates himself, so he likes to build with words, voice and
gesture an ideal world, peopling it with life as he sees it.
While we are training children for all sorts of skilled trades, it is a
matter of no small satisfaction to record an experiment that has for its
object the revival of the ancient art of telling stories—for it is an
art.
The children of Corinth, Miss., under the supervision of Susie E.
Blitch, were the first to organize a Junior League. The League began
with the children of the fifth grade. They had the usual officers, and a
program of stories, songs and games, meeting out of doors when possible.
Those who have had charge of Junior Leagues report the following
principles for the guidance of those who wish to organize Leagues among
the young people:
(1) Help the children to make the organization thoroughly democratic.
(2) The supervisor has no right to stop or correct a member in telling a
story. The speaker has the floor; the atmosphere and the spirit he
brings with his story is the essential thing, and not grammar or
pronunciation.
(3) To hear other children tell a story is a better model for a child
than the criticism of an older person who cannot tell a story.
(4) Reciting a story is not telling a story.
Last December Miss Anna C. Tyler formed a “Junior Story-Tellers’ League”
in the children’s room of Pratt Institute Library, in Brooklyn. Out of
an audience of from forty to sixty children, two Junior Leagues were
formed. They all assemble regularly to hear the evening story, and the
leagues meet afterward.
Each league elects its own officers and conducts its own meetings. The
president takes the names of seven or eight of the children present,
most of whom volunteer to have a story ready for the next meeting, and
of those so chosen there have only been a few who have not been ready
with a story when called upon. They know they can call upon Miss Tyler
for help, but seldom require her services.
There has been but little attempt to dictate to them the kind of story
that they shall tell, the director’s only request being that they shall
not tell silly stories. Some of the best Norse, Greek, and Indian myths;
animal and nature stories by Kipling, Seton-Thompson, Charles Dudley
Warner, and John Burroughs; “Macbeth,” “Evangeline,” “The Lady of the
Lake,” “A Yankee at King Arthur’s Court;” stories of adventure, and some
of the most famous of the fairy-tales have been told—and nearly always
well told—by boys and girls from ten to fifteen years old. The children
are learning to read—the careful search through book after book for the
story they think will be the best to tell. The final selection is always
their own.
“After the cycle of eighteen stories from King Arthur had been
finished,” says Miss Tyler, “the children asked me to tell them Indian,
detective, and ghost stories, and tales from ‘Arabian Nights’—to be told
in that order, and I was not to tell stories that they would read for
themselves. The Indian myths were not so difficult to find, but good
detective and ghost stories were another matter; at last I remembered
the delicious thrill of those wondrous tales of Poe. I began with ‘The
Purloined Letter,’ telling it, as it is written, in the first person,
but ‘skipping’ the parts that I knew would weary. Then followed ‘The
Black Cat;’ then Stephenson’s ‘The Bottle Imp.’ So fascinated were they
that they voted to change the evening of fairy-tales for another story
by Poe, and the story they chose was ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’ By the
children’s urgent request these stories were told with the lights turned
low, as the best substitute for fire-light, and it is hard to say
whether the absorbed young listeners or the story-teller enjoyed those
hours most.”
The leagues have voted that their story-teller shall tell them Indian
stories next winter, and she hopes, therefore, by beginning with the
Indian myths and folk-lore, then telling of their life, warfare, and
famous battles, to bring her boys and girls to a vivid interest in
reading history as told by Francis Parkman.
The writer recalls with so much pleasure a visit to a young people’s
story tellers’ league. He happened once upon a time to visit one of our
smaller towns, and was invited to a meeting of the Junior Story Tellers’
League that met on the day of his visit. He had never heard of the
organization among children before, and was of course interested in
seeing what the children were doing with such an organization. The
meeting was held out of doors on the lawn. It was in the month of May
when the weather permitted such a meeting. The League was composed of
children of the fifth grade, who sat in a circle on the grass. The
teacher of the grade was present, but the children conducted their own
meeting—a program of stories, songs and games in which all joined. The
stories told by the children were their own selections, and were told in
a creative way. One was especially impressive, being loudly applauded by
the children. It was told by a twelve year old girl and was one of her
own creation. Since then she has written enough stories to make a small
volume, and so popular is she as a story-teller that the children in her
neighborhood flock to her home to hear her tell stories. Several years
after that the writer saw this same girl, now passing into young
womanhood, stand before a thousand teachers and tell in the same easy,
natural way some of her stories. Not seeking this opportunity to appear
in public, [only in rare instances would the author allow children to
appear in public], it came to her because she had something to give;
something that she had for several years given every week to her
playmates and friends, as naturally as she would give herself to them in
games and play; something too, that had made her life a radiant one.
Miss Elizabeth J. Black, teacher of the sixth grade in one of the public
schools of Greensboro, N.C., has been very successful with a League
among her pupils. Through the League she got hold of the children as
never before, and is enthusiastic over the results.
We give below a program of one League meeting. Miss Black has laid
special emphasis on Norse stories.