POETRY
There are certain results in literary training that can be secured with
children only by the teaching of poetry. In story we and they are intent
upon subject-matter, and on the larger matters of the imaginative
creation. And, while we older students know that the choice and
arrangement of material involved in the making of a story are extremely
important and most truly educative, we also know that they belong in the
larger framework of the story and do not lend themselves to close
inspection or detailed study when our scholars are elementary children.
Again, most of the stories best suited to the children must be used in
translated and adapted versions, and all of them should be told in a way
that varies more or less from telling to telling, in vocabulary, in
figure, and occasionally in material detail. As a result, the stories,
until we come down to the very last year of the period, make on the
children no impression of the inevitableness of form, or of any of the
smaller devices of style and finish. These may be brought to bear in
verse. It should not be necessary to say again that the children will
know nothing of "larger effects" and "smaller details;" but the teacher
should know them, and should have some plan that will include both in
his teaching. Neither is it necessary to say that these minor matters of
style and finish that we will pause over with our elementary class will
prove to be very simple matters from the point of view of the expert and
adult critic.
It is verse that gives the child most experience in the musical side of
literature. The rhythm and cadence of prose have their own
music--perhaps more delicate and pleasing to the trained adult ear than
the rhythm of verse. But the elementary children need the simple
striking rhythm of verse, of verse whose rhythm is quite unmistakable.
Indeed, it is profitable in the first verses that children learn to have
an emphatic meter, so that the musical intention may not be missed, and
that it may be possible easily to accompany the recitation of the verses
with movement, even concerted movement as of clapping or marching. One
who is trying to write a sober treatise in a matter-of-fact way dares
not, lest he be set down as the veriest mystic, say all the things that
might be said about the function of rhythm, especially in its more
pronounced form of meter, among a community of children, no matter what
the size of the group--how rhythmic motion, or the flow of measured and
beautiful sounds, harmonizes their differences, tunes them up to their
tasks, disciplines their conduct, comforts their hurts, quiets their
nerves; all this apart from the facts more or less important from the
point of view of literature, that it cultivates their ear, improves
their taste, and provides them a genuinely artistic pleasure. If it
happens that the sounds they are chanting be a bit of real poetry, it
further gives them perhaps more than one charming image, and many
pleasant or useful words.
Most children are pleased with the additional music of rhyme. This is
true of all kinds of rhyme, but of course it is the regular terminal
rhyme that most children notice and enjoy and remember.
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.
all the children will rejoice in _rye_--_pie_. But there will be some to
whom _sing_--_song_--_sixpence_--_pocket_, _full_--_four_,
_blackbirds_--_baked_, are so many delights, and there may be some to
whom the wonderful chime of the vowels will make music. Anyone who knows
children will have noticed the pleasure that the merest babies will
take in beautiful or especially pat collocations of syllables. A child
whom I knew, just beginning to talk, would say to himself many times a
day, and always with a smile of amused pleasure, the phrases
"apple-batter pudding," "picallilli pickles," "up into the cherry tree,"
"piping down the valleys wild." It is probably true that some of his
apparent pleasure was that species of hysteria produced in most babies
by any mild explosion, and the little fusillade of _p's_ in the examples
he liked best would account for a part of his enjoyment. But we must
think that there was pleasure there, and, whether it were physical or
mental, it arose from the pleasing combination of verbal sounds. Most
children have this ear for the music of words; and some attempt should
be made to evoke it in those that have it not.
This quality, then, is the first thing we ask of the verse we choose for
the youngest children. The mere jingles, provided they are really
musical, are useful to emphasize this side of verse, because, being free
from content, they can give themselves entirely to sound. It is also
most desirable that some of these earliest verses be set to music that
the children can sing; that the class march to the rhythm of recited
verses; that they be taught, if possible, to dance to some of them.
Some such form of accompaniment of the verses, deepens the impression of
the music, records in the child's consciousness an impression of the
poem as an image of motion, and opens a channel for the expression of
the mood produced in the children by the verses--a more acceptable
channel of expression, certainly, for all the lyrics and for most of the
narrative verses, than mere recitation, and a more artistic one than
what we commonly know and dread as elocution.
The teaching of verse gives a chance and an invitation to linger over
and enjoy many fine and delicate aspects of the art that we are likely
to miss in the story. Something in the nature of verse--the
condensation, the careful arrangement, the chosen words--seems to call
upon us to go slowly with it. It may be that we linger to apprehend one
by one the details of an image or picture, like--
Daffy-down dilly has come up to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown,
The captain was a duck, with a jacket on his back;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising,
There are forty feeding like one;
In the pool drowse the cattle up to their knees,
The crows fly over by twos and threes;
some apt or beautiful phrase--
Snowy summits old in story;
some bit of simple wisdom that deserves pondering; some flash of wit or
epigram, or enticing touch of nonsense.
These are really about all that we would pause over in teaching verses
to the younger children. Indeed, are not these elements about all of
what we call the smaller matters of literary art that elementary
children may be expected to concern themselves with--the music of the
spoken verse, appreciation of the beauty or adequacy of striking
pictures and images, recognition of some specially fit epithet,
interpretation of an aphorism or a paradox or a bit of nonsense? We will
discuss later some possible ways of getting these things done.
When we say that a poem gives us our best chance to study these finer
details, we should not by any means understand that in teaching a poem
we are to ignore the other matter of plan and structure. The very
condensation and beautiful organization of a poem are likely to result
in a charming plan, which both adds to the children's sense of its
beauty and helps to fix it in their memory. Every teacher will
notice--merely to mention examples--the perfect structure, what we have
called the "pattern," of Stevenson's "Dark brown is the river," of
Allingham's "I wish I were a primrose," of Wordsworth's, "I heard a
thousand blended notes;" and every teacher will realize the greater
class utility of a poem with such a structure.
The kinds of poetry suitable by virtue of their content for the children
throughout the whole elementary period are first, lyrics of the simpler
varieties, beginning with those which are practically only jingles, and
going on to those that are more complex in form and more mature in
thought, but which still record, as it were, the first reaction of the
mind, the primary mood, not the complex and remote moods of developed
lyric poetry; and second, poetry of the epic kind, beginning with the
Mother Goose ballads, and advancing to the objective heroic ballads in
which English literature is so rich, and perhaps (undoubtedly in certain
schools) including some of the longer narrative poems of the type of
idyls.
It is clear to most teachers that the less the earlier lyrics say, the
better. The simplicity of the content makes it possible to emphasize all
the more the music and the motion. As the lyrics increase in content,
and as we begin to expect the children to enter into the mood which
their poem reflects, it becomes important to select such as record a
mood or an experience which they can apprehend or might legitimately
apprehend. Luckily, in our day it is no longer necessary to remonstrate
against what one may almost call the crime of requiring children to
study and to return "The Barefoot Boy," "Still sits the schoolhouse by
the road," "I remember, I remember the house where I was born"--adult
reminiscence of childhood, which is undoubtedly the most alien of moods
and processes to the child. But we are likely to be caught by the
apparent simplicity of certain verses which, written after the pattern
of _A Child's Garden_--indeed, the class includes some of these very
poems--record feelings about children and childhood. These verses, like
some of the delightful stories and studies mentioned in a previous
chapter are studies and realizations of the child's consciousness
calculated to delight and illuminate the adult reader. If children read
and understood them, the result would be that ghastly spectacle--a child
conscious of his own childhood.
No poetry given to children should be too imaginative, too figurative,
or too emotional. Here, to be sure, one must judge afresh for each
class. It is obvious that children of the eighth grade can apprehend a
poem that would bewilder the sixth; that children in one community,
even in one neighborhood, will understand a poem which children of a
different community and upbringing could not fathom. But the standard
is, after all, not infinitely variable. A good average seventh grade
almost anywhere would appreciate without difficulty, including the
spiritual application, Tennyson's "Bugle Song;" they could not find
their way among the many figures and the alien imaginative mood, the
poignant unknown emotion, of "Tears, idle tears."
It is not easy to go wrong in choosing the ballads. And by "ballads" we
are to understand the short narrative poem, traditionary or artistic.
The folk-ballads need translation here and there, and are scarcely
available at all for the youngest children. But those who are old enough
to hear the Robin Hood tales will enjoy the folk-ballads, if the teacher
take pains to prepare them and read them aright. As in the case of some
of the heroic epics, some editing is necessary for most of the ballads.
They should be given in the "say and sing," manner, turning the duller
or the link portions into prose narrative, and reading the exciting and
beautiful passages in the original form. Even this accommodated form of
the folk-ballads may prove impossible in some classes. There are ballads
ideal for the grades in nearly all the modern poets--Cowper, Scott,
Wordsworth, Campbell, Browning, Longfellow, Whittier, Kipling.
It is not so easy to choose for elementary children among the longer
narrative poems. As a matter of fact, a great number of them are of the
idyllic kind, and there is in this class of poems something soft and
meditative, or over-emotional and, if one must say it--sentimental or
super-romantic, that fits them for the comprehension of older readers,
and spoils them for the children. Others, such as Scott's narrative
poems, are too long and a bit too difficult for children younger than
the high-school age. Here and there one finds a poem, like "Paul
Revere's Ride," really more ballad than tale; a tender simple tale like
"King Robert of Sicily," for a mature eighth grade. "The Vision of Sir
Launfal;" not forgetting Morris' _The Man Born to Be King_, "The
Fostering of Auslag," and perhaps other things from _The Earthly
Paradise_. The simple but lofty style and feeling of "Sohrab and Rustum"
makes it possible for the older children. Any teacher who knows both
literature and children will see at once what it is that constitutes the
fitness of these poems, and what the unfitness of "Enoch Arden," "The
Courtship of Miles Standish," or "Lancelot and Elaine."
Perhaps the only library of literature that is perfectly suited to its
purpose and its public, and the only collection of masterpieces to be
put into the hands of its readers without misgiving, is the nursery
rhymes that we call _Mother Goose's Melodies_. It needs no more general
praise, and there is no room for specifications. But it is always in
order to urge teachers in this case, as in that of the fairy-tales, to
increase their knowledge of those traditionary bits of art. When one
knows their origin and something of their social and literary history,
they take on new dignity and importance. One ceases to look upon them as
mere nonsense to be rattled off for the amusement of the baby, and
learns to see them as little treasures of primitive art, miraculously
preserved and passed down from baby to baby through these many
generations: bits of old song and ballad, games and charms, riddles and
incantations, tales of charming incidents and episodes--a gallery of
unmatchable portraits, sallies of wit just witty enough for the
four-year-old, mild but adequate nonsense; all freed by the lapse of
years and the innocence of its devotees from every taint of
utilitarianism and occasionalism, winnowed and tested by the generations
of mothers and babies that have criticized them, they yield a new charm
at every fresh reading to the most experienced reader. They should
constitute the first literary material of every English-speaking child.
Every well-nurtured child will come to school already in possession of
many of them. But he will be glad to go over them for the sake of those
less fortunate, as well as for the sake of enjoying them with the whole
community, and in consideration of the new pictures, games, and songs
that will be joined with them.
Stevenson's _A Child's Garden of Verses_ is in some sense a quite unique
poetic production; and this remains true in spite of the many things
produced in imitation of it and inspired by it. It is a wonderful
example of the recovery by a grown person of the thread of continuity
leading him back to actual childhood; the recovery, too, in many
instances of the child's consciousness. It is the gate for us all to the
lost garden of our own childhood, pathetic in every line with the
evanescence of childhood, "whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding
adieu."
Yet in spite of this most poignant appeal to the grown-up person, many
of the verses are ideally suited to children. They do not induce in them
our mood of pathos and regret, nor do they set their child-readers
imaginatively in another experience. They do very really constitute, as
Stevenson suggests, a window through which the child sees
Another child far, far away,
And in another garden, play;
a child with whom he tenderly sympathizes, at whom he lovingly smiles,
at whose games he looks on, whose toys and books he knows and loves.
The Child in the Garden is an only child, a lonely child, and a very
individualistic child; there is no comradeship in the verses; they
cannot be becomingly recited in concert; there is not a chorus or a
refrain in the whole book, in which all the children may join; there is
nothing communal about them. In spite of all the efforts, they cannot be
set to music, except as solos; and if the music matches the mood, it is
likely to be difficult for a child to sing. Several of them are too
imaginative--"Windy Nights," "Shadow March;" some are a bit
ironic--"Good and Bad Children," "System," "A Happy Thought;" some too
poignantly pathetic--"The Land of Nod;" some look at childhood too
obviously with the man's eyes--"Keepsake Mill;" but all these exceptions
leave many altogether suitable for children; and their perfect
structure, their musical verse-form, their childlike objectivity, and
the divine simplicity of their style render them an unceasing delight.
Though the Child of the Garden was a solitary child, he had a
constantly haunting sense of the world beyond--other children in other
lands, the foreign countries he might see by climbing higher, the
children who would bring his boats ashore far down the river, the
children singing in far Japan, the long-ago Egyptian boys, hints at the
wider experience and bigger world to which the six- and seven-year-old
children are so eagerly reaching out. At the same time nobody but
Stevenson--nobody at least, that has written a book--has ever taken
adequately the point of view of the human being three feet high--his
tiny horizon, the small exquisite objects to which he comes close, the
fairy-dells he sees, the rain-pool sea, the clover tree; nowhere else in
art is the little world of the little people adequately pictured--the
little world, and its obverse, the colossal grown-ups, with their
elephantine furniture amidst which the little men and women must
ordinarily move.
Many of these poems should be read with the single child at home. For
the class at school we may use "Foreign Lands," "Singing," "Where Go the
Boats," "My Shadow," "The Swing," "My Ship and I"--the more objective
and universal of them.
There are many pretty bits for the youngest children in Christina
Rossetti's _Sing-Song_--a book of nursery rhymes not sufficiently
known. Certain of Blake's _Songs of Innocence_ the children should know,
though they are always found too delicate and contemplative for the
whole class. Every teacher of children should know for his own
enlightenment the poems of Jane and Ann Taylor, and Dr. Watts's _Poems
for Infant Minds_. Psychologically speaking, they are in a world
completely alien to the modern student of children and of education; but
there is a stray verse or two like "The Violet" or "How doth the little
busy bee," that may some day fit the needs of the class. Every friend of
children, teacher or parent, should know Keble's _Lyra Innocentium_; he
cannot afford to miss the tone and atmosphere of Wordsworth's poems
about children and childhood. As a matter of fact, it is only a few of
Wordsworth's poems that will go well for class study, though a really
enthusiastic teacher may carry even a large class through "The Idle
Shepherd Boys" or "The Blind Highland Boy;" the older children should
know "Heartleap Well" and "Peter Bell." The true Wordsworthian is born,
only occasionally made; if he declares himself in a class in elementary
school, the teacher should guide him.
But we should soon learn, and aways remember, that the contemplative and
idyllic lyric, however it may delight the chosen child and the adult,
will, as a rule, neither please nor train the class, and that poems
written for children and about children are not at all likely to be the
things children love best and most profit by; the poetry should not
linger long in the nursery stage. The class should be pushed on as early
as possible into simple but heroic ballads, into lyrics, musical and
noble, but simple and easy as to content--all chosen from the great
poets.
Even if one desired it, it would probably be impossible to dislodge
_Hiawatha_ from its shrine in American elementary schools; and no one
ought to covet the task, for the iconoclast is likely to be set down as
a vulgar and egotistic person. _Hiawatha_ has become entrenched in the
schools by some such reasoning as this: Here is a poem written by an
American on aspects of life among the American aborigines; American
children should study it as literature. Children ought to be instructed
in primitive life and in myth; therefore they should study _Hiawatha_ as
literature. Children should learn much about nature and should learn
nature-poetry; therefore they should study _Hiawatha_ as literature.
Of course, there are pretty things in _Hiawatha._ Some of the passages
about the forest and the waters, the making of the canoe, the conquest
of Mondanim, the picture-writing, may most profitably be interwoven
with other things. It is instructive both as to literature and as to
fact to put the making of Robinson Crusoe's boat beside the building of
Hiawatha's canoe. But there are objections to a long and exclusive
course in this poem. The mythical side of it is baffling and
discouraging. Once more let me say that a _class_ is an extremely acute
and inquiring personality; after a few days it "wants to know." And it
is puzzled and dismayed, and finally frightened off, by the fact that
everything means something else. Furthermore, the details both of Indian
life and of Indian belief are so chosen and sifted and beautified as to
be most misleading, if we are emphasizing that side of the poem. Lastly,
it is not good for the young children to have a long-continued and
constantly renewed experience in the alien and wearing meter, and the
unmusical rhythm of _Hiawatha;_ and the verse-form dictates certain
trying peculiarities of style, in especial the slightly varied iteration
of detail:
Ah, my brother from the North land,
From the kingdom of Wabasso,
From the land of the White Rabbit,
You have stolen the maiden from me,
You have laid your hand upon her,
You have wooed and won my maiden.
This redundancy and repetition do not constitute the direct,
forward-moving style we should like to impress on the children. All
these considerations are offered to justify the judgment, held in great
modesty, that _Hiawatha_ should not be given in its entirety nor should
the children be kept at it for any long drill, but, if at all, in chosen
episodes and from time to time.
Of course, any teacher may see fit to draw out from Hiawatha the story
of any episode and treat it as a story, for dramatization, or as
illuminating some phase of the children's interest and activity. And
students old enough to interpret the mythical meaning of the poem may
profitably read it.
Occasionally, and as something apart from their regular lessons, the
children should hear beautifully read passages of the incomparable music
of some of the great masters, regardless of their understanding of the
content--the first sixteen lines of _Paradise Lost_; some especially
musical sonnet of Shakespeare's, or some passage of lofty eloquence from
the plays; some vague and haunting bit of music from Shelly, or Poe, or
Keats; some fanfare of trumpets from Byron, or Macaulay, or Kipling.
Every teacher will realize that all the titles and authors and kinds
mentioned in this study cannot be put into the children's lessons. It
is to be hoped that he will realize that they are mentioned as concrete
examples, or suggestive instances of things that are good, and to
support the principles under discussion.
The distinctive service of poetry will be the cultivation of the
children's sense of the musical side of literature; the opportunity for
appreciating some of the minor beauties of the literary art; and among
the older children, acquaintance with the more highly imaginative
method, and the more intensely emotional moods.