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HOW TO TELL STORIES
TO CHILDREN
AND SOME STORIES TO TELL
BY
SARA CONE BRYANT
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
2 & 3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.
1918
=Books for Story-Tellers=
_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_
=How to Tell Stories to Children=
And Some Stories to Tell. By SARA CONE BRYANT. Tenth Impression.
=Stories to Tell to Children=
With Fifty-Three Stories to Tell. By SARA CONE BRYANT. Seventh Impression.
=The Book of Stories for the Story-Teller=
By FANNY COE. Fourth Impression.
=Songs and Stories for the Little Ones=
By E. GORDON BROWNE, M.A. With Melodies chosen and arranged by EVA BROWNE.
New and Enlarged Edition.
=Character Training=
A Graded Series of Lessons in Ethics, largely through Story-telling.
By E.L. CABOT and E. EYLES. Third Impression. 384 pages.
=Stories for the Story Hour=
From January to December. By ADA M. MARZIALS. Second Impression.
=Stories for the History Hour=
From Augustus to Rolf. By NANNIE NIEMEYER. Second Impression.
=Stories for the Bible Hour=
By R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON, B.A.
=Nature Stories to Tell to Children=
By H. WADDINGHAM SEERS.
* * * * *
MISS MAUD LINDSAY'S POPULAR BOOKS
=Mother Stories=
With 16 Line Illustrations.
=More Mother Stories=
With 20 Line Illustrations.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
GREAT BRITAIN
_To My Mother_
THE FIRST, BEST STORY-TELLER
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS
DEDICATED
PREFACE
The stories which are given in the following pages are for the most part
those which I have found to be best liked by the children to whom I have
told these and others. I have tried to reproduce the form in which I
actually tell them,--although that inevitably varies with every
repetition,--feeling that it would be of greater value to another
story-teller than a more closely literary form.
For the same reason, I have confined my statements of theory as to method,
to those which reflect my own experience; my "rules" were drawn from
introspection and retrospection, at the urging of others, long after the
instinctive method they exemplify had become habitual.
These facts are the basis of my hope that the book may be of use to those
who have much to do with children.
It would be impossible, in the space of any pardonable preface, to name
the teachers, mothers, and librarians who have given me hints and helps
during the past few years of story-telling. But I cannot let these pages
go to press without recording my especial indebtedness to the few persons
without whose interested aid the little book would scarcely have come to
be. They are: Mrs Elizabeth Young Rutan, at whose generous instance I
first enlarged my own field of entertaining story-telling to include hers,
of educational narrative, and from whom I had many valuable suggestions at
that time; Miss Ella L. Sweeney, assistant superintendent of schools,
Providence, R.I., to whom I owe exceptional opportunities for
investigation and experiment; Mrs Root, children's librarian of Providence
Public Library, and Miss Alice M. Jordan, Boston Public Library,
children's room, to whom I am indebted for much gracious and efficient
aid.
My thanks are due also to Mr David Nutt for permission to make use of
three stories from _English Fairy Tales_, by Mr Joseph Jacobs, and
_Raggylug_, from _Wild Animals I have Known_, by Mr Ernest Thompson Seton;
to Messrs Frederick A. Stokes Company for _Five Little White Heads_, by
Walter Learned, and for _Bird Thoughts_; to Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner & Co. Ltd. for _The Burning of the Ricefields_, from _Gleanings in
Buddha-Fields_, by Mr Lafcadio Hearn; to Messrs H.R. Allenson Ltd. for
three stories from _The Golden Windows_, by Miss Laura E. Richards; and to
Mr Seumas McManus for _Billy Beg and his Bull_, from _In Chimney Corners_.
S.C.B.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
The Story-teller's Art
Recent Revival
The Difference between telling a Story and reading it aloud
Some Reasons why the Former is more effective 11
CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL
Its immediate Advantages to the Teacher
Its ultimate Gifts to the Child 19
CHAPTER II
SELECTION OF STORIES TO TELL
The Qualities Children like, and why
Qualities necessary for Oral Delivery
Examples: _The Three Bears_, _The Three Little Pigs_,
_The Old Woman and her Pig_
Suggestions as to the Type of Story
especially useful in the several primary Grades
Selected List of familiar Fairy Tales 43
CHAPTER III
ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING
How to make a long Story short
How to fill out a short Story
General Changes commonly desirable
Examples: _The Nürnberg Stove_, by Ouida;
_The King of the Golden River_, by Ruskin;
_The Red Thread of Courage_,
_The Elf and the Dormouse_
Analysis of Method 67
CHAPTER IV
HOW TO TELL THE STORY
Essential Nature of the Story
Kind of Appreciation necessary
Suggestions for gaining Mastery of Facts
Arrangement of Children
The Story-teller's Mood
A few Principles of Method, Manner and Voice,
from the psychological Point of View 93
CHAPTER V
SOME SPECIFIC SCHOOLROOM USES
Exercise in Retelling
Illustrations cut by the Children as Seat-work
Dramatic Games
Influence of Games on Reading Classes 117
STORIES SELECTED AND ADAPTED FOR TELLING
ESPECIALLY FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLASS I.
Nursery Rhymes 133
Five Little White Heads 134
Bird Thoughts 134
How we came to have Pink Roses 135
Raggylug 135
The Golden Cobwebs 138
Why the Morning-Glory climbs 142
The Story of Little Tavwots 143
The Pig Brother 145
The Cake 148
The Pied Piper of Hamelin Town 149
Why the Evergreen Trees keep their Leaves in Winter 156
The Star Dollars 159
The Lion and the Gnat 161
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES II. AND III.
The Cat and the Parrot 168
The Rat Princess 172
The Frog and the Ox 175
The Fire-Bringer 176
The Burning of the Ricefields 179
The Story of Wylie 182
Little Daylight 186
The Sailor Man 199
The Story of Jairus's Daughter 201
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES IV. AND V.
Arthur and the Sword 204
Tarpeia 208
The Buckwheat 210
The Judgment of Midas 211
Why the Sea is salt 213
Billy Beg and his Bull 221
The Little Hero of Haarlem 233
The Last Lesson 238
The Story of Christmas 243
THE CHILD-MIND; AND HOW TO SATISFY IT
A short List of Books in which the Story-teller will find
Stories not too far from the Form in which they are
needed 247
INTRODUCTION
Not long ago, I chanced to open a magazine at a story of Italian life
which dealt with a curious popular custom. It told of the love of the
people for the performances of a strangely clad, periodically appearing
old man who was a professional story-teller. This old man repeated whole
cycles of myth and serials of popular history, holding his
audience-chamber in whatever corner of the open court or square he
happened upon, and always surrounded by an eager crowd of listeners. So
great was the respect in which the story-teller was held, that any
interruption was likely to be resented with violence.
As I read of the absorbed silence and the changing expressions of the
crowd about the old man, I was suddenly reminded of a company of people I
had recently seen. They were gathered in one of the parlours of a women's
college, and their serious young faces had, habitually, none of the
childlike responsiveness of the Italian populace; they were suggestive,
rather, of a daily experience which precluded over-much surprise or
curiosity about anything. In the midst of the group stood a frail-looking
woman with bright eyes. She was telling a story, a children's story, about
a good and a bad little mouse.
She had been asked to do that thing, for a purpose, and she did it,
therefore. But it was easy to see from the expressions of the listeners
how trivial a thing it seemed to them.
That was at first. But presently the room grew quieter; and yet quieter.
The faces relaxed into amused smiles, sobered in unconscious sympathy,
finally broke in ripples of mirth. The story-teller had come to her own.
The memory of the college girls listening to the mouse-story brought other
memories with it. Many a swift composite view of faces passed before my
mental vision, faces with the child's look on them, yet not the faces of
children. And of the occasions to which the faces belonged, those were
most vivid which were earliest in my experience. For it was those early
experiences which first made me realise the modern possibilities of the
old, old art of telling stories.
It had become a part of my work, some years ago, to give English lectures
on German literature. Many of the members of my class were unable to read
in the original the works with which I dealt, and as these were modern
works it was rarely possible to obtain translations. For this reason, I
gradually formed the habit of telling the story of the drama or novel in
question before passing to a detailed consideration of it. I enjoyed this
part of the lesson exceedingly, but it was some time before I realised how
much the larger part of the lesson it had become to the class. They
used--and they were mature women--to wait for the story as if it were a
sugarplum and they, children; and to grieve openly if it were omitted.
Substitution of reading from a translation was greeted with precisely the
same abatement of eagerness that a child shows when he has asked you to
tell a story, and you offer, instead, to "read one from the pretty book."
And so general and constant were the tokens of enjoyment that there could
ultimately be no doubt of the power which the mere story-telling exerted.
The attitude of the grown-up listeners did but illustrate the general
difference between the effect of telling a story and of reading one.
Everyone who knows children well has felt the difference. With few
exceptions, children listen twice as eagerly to a story told as to one
read, and even a "recitation" or a so-called "reading" has not the charm
for them that the person wields who can "tell a story." And there are
sound reasons for their preference.
The great difference, including lesser ones, between telling and reading
is that the teller is free; the reader is bound. The book in hand, or the
wording of it in mind, binds the reader. The story-teller is bound by
nothing; he stands or sits, free to watch his audience, free to follow or
lead every changing mood, free to use body, eyes, voice, as aids in
expression. Even his mind is unbound, because he lets the story come in
the words of the moment, being so full of what he has to say. For this
reason, a story told is more spontaneous than one read, however well read.
And, consequently, the connection with the audience is closer, more
electric, than is possible when the book or its wording intervenes.
Beyond this advantage, is the added charm of the personal element in
story-telling. When you make a story your own and tell it, the listener
gets the story, _plus your appreciation of it_. It comes to him filtered
through your own enjoyment. That is what makes the funny story thrice
funnier on the lips of a jolly raconteur than in the pages of a memoir. It
is the filter of personality. Everybody has something of the curiosity of
the primitive man concerning his neighbour; what another has in his own
person felt and done has an especial hold on each one of us. The most
cultured of audiences will listen to the personal reminiscences of an
explorer with a different tingle of interest from that which it feels for
a scientific lecture on the results of the exploration. The longing for
the personal in experience is a very human longing. And this instinct or
longing is especially strong in children. It finds expression in their
delight in tales of what father or mother did when they were little, of
what happened to grandmother when she went on a journey, and so on, but it
also extends to stories which are not in themselves personal: which take
their personal savour merely from the fact that they flow from the lips in
spontaneous, homely phrases, with an appreciative gusto which suggests
participation.
The greater ease in holding the attention of children is, for teachers, a
sufficient practical reason for telling stories rather than reading them.
It is incomparably easier to make the necessary exertion of "magnetism,"
or whatever it may be called, when nothing else distracts the attention.
One's eyes meet the children's gaze naturally and constantly; one's
expression responds to and initiates theirs without effort; the connection
is immediate. For the ease of the teacher, then, no less than for the joy
of the children, may the art of story-telling be urged as pre-eminent over
the art of reading.
It is a very old, a very beautiful art. Merely to think of it carries
one's imaginary vision to scenes of glorious and touching antiquity. The
tellers of the stories of which Homer's _Iliad_ was compounded; the
transmitters of the legend and history which make up the _Gesta
Romanorum_; the travelling raconteurs whose brief heroic tales are woven
into our own national epic; the grannies of age-old tradition whose
stories are parts of Celtic folk-lore, of Germanic myth, of Asiatic
wonder-tales,--these are but younger brothers and sisters to the
generations of story-tellers whose inventions are but vaguely outlined in
resultant forms of ancient literatures, and the names of whose tribes are
no longer even guessed. There was a time when story-telling was the
chiefest of the arts of entertainment; kings and warriors could ask for
nothing better; serfs and children were satisfied with nothing less. In
all times there have been occasional revivals of this pastime, and in no
time has the art died out in the simple human realms of which mothers are
queens. But perhaps never, since the really old days, has story-telling so
nearly reached a recognised level of dignity as a legitimate and general
art of entertainment as now.
Its present popularity seems in a way to be an outgrowth of the
recognition of its educational value which was given impetus by the German
pedagogues of Froebel's school. That recognition has, at all events, been
a noticeable factor in educational conferences of late. The function of
the story is no longer considered solely in the light of its place in the
kindergarten; it is being sought in the first, the second, and indeed in
every standard where the children are still children. Sometimes the demand
for stories is made solely in the interests of literary culture, sometimes
in far ampler and vaguer relations, ranging from inculcation of scientific
fact to admonition of moral theory; but whatever the reason given, the
conclusion is the same: tell the children stories.
The average teacher has yielded to the pressure, at least in theory.
Cheerfully, as she has already accepted so many modifications of old
methods by "new thought," she accepts the idea of instilling mental and
moral desiderata into the receptive pupil, _viâ_ the charming tale. But,
confronted with the concrete problem of what desideratum by which tale,
and how, the average teacher sometimes finds her cheerfulness displaced by
a sense of inadequacy to the situation.
People who have always told stories to children, who do not know when they
began or how they do it; whose heads are stocked with the accretions of
years of fairyland-dwelling and nonsense-sharing,--these cannot understand
the perplexity of one to whom the gift and the opportunity have not "come
natural." But there are many who can understand it, personally and all
too well. To these, the teachers who have not a knack for story-telling,
who feel as shy as their own youngest scholar at the thought of it, who do
not know where the good stories are, or which ones are easy to tell, it is
my earnest hope that the following pages will bring something definite and
practical in the way of suggestion and reference.
HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN
CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL
Let us first consider together the primary matter of the _aim_ in
educational story-telling. On our conception of this must depend very
largely all decisions as to choice and method; and nothing in the whole
field of discussion is more vital than a just and sensible notion of this
first point. What shall we attempt to accomplish by stories in the
schoolroom? What can we reasonably expect to accomplish? And what, of
this, is best accomplished by this means and no other?
These are questions which become the more interesting and practical
because the recent access of enthusiasm for stories in education has led
many people to claim very wide and very vaguely outlined territory for
their possession, and often to lay heaviest stress on their least
essential functions. The most important instance of this is the fervour
with which many compilers of stories for school use have directed their
efforts solely toward illustration of natural phenomena. Geology, zoology,
botany, and even physics are taught by means of more or less happily
constructed narratives based on the simpler facts of these sciences.
Kindergarten teachers are familiar with such narratives: the little
stories of chrysalis-breaking, flower-growth, and the like. Now this is a
perfectly proper and practicable aim, but it is not a primary one. Others,
to which at best this is but secondary, should have first place and
receive greatest attention.
What is a story, essentially? Is it a text-book of science, an appendix to
the geography, an introduction to the primer of history? Of course it is
not. A story is essentially and primarily a work of art, and its chief
function must be sought in the line of the uses of art. Just as the drama
is capable of secondary uses, yet fails abjectly to realise its purpose
when those are substituted for its real significance as a work of art, so
does the story lend itself to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and
most strongly to be recognised in its real significance as a work of art.
Since the drama deals with life in all its parts, it can exemplify
sociological theory, it can illustrate economic principle, it can even
picture politics; but the drama which does these things only, has no
breath of its real life in its being, and dies when the wind of popular
tendency veers from its direction. So, you can teach a child interesting
facts about bees and butterflies by telling him certain stories, and you
can open his eyes to colours and processes in nature by telling certain
others; but unless you do something more than that and before that, you
are as one who should use the Venus of Milo for a demonstration in
anatomy.
The message of the story is the message of beauty, as effective as that
message in marble or paint. Its part in the economy of life is _to give
joy_. And the purpose and working of the joy is found in that quickening
of the spirit which answers every perception of the truly beautiful in the
arts of man. To give joy; in and through the joy to stir and feed the life
of the spirit: is not this the legitimate function of the story in
education?
Because I believe it to be such, not because I ignore the value of other
uses, I venture to push aside all aims which seem secondary to this for
later mention under specific heads. Here in the beginning of our
consideration I wish to emphasise this element alone. A story is a work of
art. Its greatest use to the child is in the everlasting appeal of beauty
by which the soul of man is constantly pricked to new hungers, quickened
to new perceptions, and so given desire to grow.
The obvious practical bearing of this is that story-telling is first of
all an art of entertainment; like the stage, its immediate purpose is the
pleasure of the hearer,--his pleasure, not his instruction, first.
Now the story-teller who has given the listening children such pleasure as
I mean may or may not have added a fact to the content of their minds; she
has inevitably added something to the vital powers of their souls. She has
given a wholesome exercise to the emotional muscles of the spirit, has
opened up new windows to the imagination, and added some line or colour to
the ideal of life and art which is always taking form in the heart of a
child. She has, in short, accomplished the one greatest aim of
story-telling,--to enlarge and enrich the child's spiritual experience,
and stimulate healthy reaction upon it.
Of course this result cannot be seen and proved as easily and early as can
the apprehension of a fact. The most one can hope to recognise is its
promise, and this is found in the tokens of that genuine pleasure which is
itself the means of accomplishment. It is, then, the signs of right
pleasure which the story-teller must look to for her guide, and which it
must be her immediate aim to evoke. As for the recognition of the
signs,--no one who has ever seen the delight of a real child over a real
story can fail to know the signals when given, or flatter himself into
belief in them when absent.
Intimately connected with the enjoyment given are two very practically
beneficial results which the story-teller may hope to obtain, and at least
one of which will be a kind of reward to herself. The first is a
relaxation of the tense schoolroom atmosphere, valuable for its refreshing
recreative power. The second result, or aim, is not so obvious, but is
even more desirable; it is this: story-telling is at once one of the
simplest and quickest ways of establishing a happy relation between
teacher and children, and one of the most effective methods of forming the
habit of fixed attention in the latter.
If you have never seen an indifferent child aroused or a hostile one
conquered to affection by a beguiling tale, you can hardly appreciate the
truth of the first statement; but nothing is more familiar in the
story-teller's experience. An amusing, but--to me--touching experience
recently reaffirmed in my mind this power of the story to establish
friendly relations.
My three-year-old niece, who had not seen me since her babyhood, being
told that Aunt Sara was coming to visit her, somehow confused the expected
guest with a more familiar aunt, my sister. At sight of me, her rush of
welcome relapsed into a puzzled and hurt withdrawal, which yielded to no
explanations or proffers of affection. All the first day she followed me
about at a wistful distance, watching me as if I might at any moment turn
into the well-known and beloved relative I ought to have been. Even by
undressing time I had not progressed far enough to be allowed intimate
approach to small sacred nightgowns and diminutive shirts. The next
morning, when I opened the door of the nursery where her maid was brushing
her hair, the same dignity radiated from the little round figure perched
on its high chair, the same almost hostile shyness gazed at me from the
great expressive eyes. Obviously, it was time for something to be done.
Disregarding my lack of invitation, I drew up a stool, and seating myself
opposite the small unbending person, began in a conversational murmur:
"M--m, I guess those are tingly-tanglies up there in that curl Lottie's
combing; did you ever hear about the tingly-tanglies? They live in little
girls' hair, and they aren't any bigger than _that_, and when anybody
tries to comb the hair they curl both weeny legs round, _so_, and hold on
tight with both weeny hands, _so_, and won't let go!" As I paused, my
niece made a queer little sound indicative of query battling with reserve.
I pursued the subject: "They like best to live right over a little girl's
ear, or down in her neck, because it is easier to hang on, there;
tingly-tanglies are very smart, indeed."
"What's ti-ly-ta-lies?" asked a curious, guttural little voice.
I explained the nature and genesis of tingly-tanglies, as revealed to me
some decades before by my inventive mother, and proceeded to develop their
simple adventures. When next I paused the small guttural voice demanded,
"Say more," and I joyously obeyed.
When the curls were all curled and the last little button buttoned, my
baby niece climbed hastily down from her chair, and deliberately up into
my lap. With a caress rare to her habit she spoke my name, slowly and
tentatively, "An-ty Sai-ry?" Then, in an assured tone, "Anty Sairy, I love
you so much I don't know what to do!" And, presently, tucking a confiding
hand in mine to lead me to breakfast, she explained sweetly, "I didn' know
you when you comed las' night, but now I know you all th' time!"
"Oh, blessed tale," thought I, "so easy a passport to a confidence so
desired, so complete!" Never had the witchery of the story to the ear of a
child come more closely home to me. But the fact of the witchery was no
new experience. The surrender of the natural child to the story-teller is
as absolute and invariable as that of a devotee to the priest of his own
sect.
This power is especially valuable in the case of children whose natural
shyness has been augmented by rough environment or by the strangeness of
foreign habit. And with such children even more than with others it is
also true that the story is a simple and effective means of forming the
habit of concentration, of fixed attention; any teacher who deals with
this class of children knows the difficulty of doing this fundamental and
indispensable thing, and the value of any practical aid in doing it.
More than one instance of the power of story-telling to develop
attentiveness comes to my mind, but the most prominent in memory is a
rather recent incident, in which the actors were boys and girls far past
the child-stage of docility.
I had been asked to tell stories to about sixty boys and girls of a club;
the president warned me in her invitation that the children were
exceptionally undisciplined, but my previous experiences with similar
gatherings led me to interpret her words with a moderation which left me
totally unready for the reality. When I faced my audience, I saw a
squirming jumble of faces, backs of heads, and the various members of many
small bodies,--not a person in the room was paying the slightest attention
to me; the president's introduction could scarcely be said to succeed in
interrupting the interchange of social amenities which was in progress,
and which looked delusively like a free fight. I came as near stage
fright in the first minutes of that occasion as it is comfortable to be,
and if it had not been impossible to run away I think I should not have
remained. But I began, with as funny a tale as I knew, following the safe
plan of not speaking very loudly, and aiming my effort at the nearest
children. As I went on, a very few faces held intelligently to mine; the
majority answered only fitfully; and not a few of my hearers conversed
with their neighbours as if I were non-existent. The sense of bafflement,
the futile effort, forced the perspiration to my hands and face--yet
something in the faces before me told me that it was no ill-will that
fought against me; it was the apathy of minds without the power or habit
of concentration, unable to follow a sequence of ideas any distance, and
rendered more restless by bodies which were probably uncomfortable,
certainly undisciplined.
The first story took ten minutes. When I began a second, a very short one,
the initial work had to be done all over again, for the slight comparative
quiet I had won had been totally lost in the resulting manifestation of
approval.
At the end of the second story, the room was really orderly to the
superficial view, but where I stood I could see the small boy who
deliberately made a hideous face at me each time my eyes met his, the two
girls who talked with their backs turned, the squirms of a figure here
and there. It seemed so disheartening a record of failure that I hesitated
much to yield to the uproarious request for a third story, but finally I
did begin again, on a very long story which for its own sake I wanted them
to hear.
This time the little audience settled to attention almost at the opening
words. After about five minutes I was suddenly conscious of a sense of
ease and relief, a familiar restful feeling in the atmosphere; and then,
at last, I knew that my audience was "with me," that they and I were
interacting without obstruction. Absolutely quiet, entirely unconscious of
themselves, the boys and girls were responding to every turn of the
narrative as easily and readily as any group of story-bred kindergarten
children. From then on we had a good time together.
The process which took place in that small audience was a condensed
example of what one may expect in habitual story-telling to a group of
children. Once having had the attention chained by crude force of
interest, the children begin to expect something interesting from the
teacher, and to wait for it. And having been led step by step from one
grade of a logical sequence to another, their minds--at first beguiled by
the fascination of the steps--glide into the habit of following any
logical sequence. My club formed its habit, as far as I was concerned,
all in one session; the ordinary demands of school procedure lengthen the
process, but the result is equally sure. By the end of a week in which the
children have listened happily to a story every day, the habit of
listening and deducing has been formed, and the expectation of
pleasantness is connected with the opening of the teacher's lips.
These two benefits are well worth the trouble they cost, and for these
two, at least, any teacher who tells a story well may confidently
look--the quick gaining of a confidential relation with the children, and
the gradual development of concentration and interested attention in them.
These are direct and somewhat clearly discernible results, comfortably
placed in a near future. There are other aims, reaching on into the far,
slow modes of psychological growth, which must equally determine the
choice of the story-teller's material and inform the spirit of her work.
These other, less immediately attainable ends, I wish now to consider in
relation to the different types of story by which they are severally best
served.
First, unbidden claimant of attention, comes
THE FAIRY STORY
No one can think of a child and a story, without thinking of the fairy
tale. Is this, as some would have us believe, a bad habit of an ignorant
old world? Or can the Fairy Tale justify her popularity with truly
edifying and educational results? Is she a proper person to introduce
here, and what are her titles to merit?
Oh dear, yes! Dame Fairy Tale comes bearing a magic wand in her wrinkled
old fingers, with one wave of which she summons up that very spirit of joy
which it is our chief effort to invoke. She raps smartly on the door, and
open sesames echo to every imagination. Her red-heeled shoes twinkle down
an endless lane of adventures, and every real child's footsteps quicken
after. She is the natural, own great-grandmother of every child in the
world, and her pocketfuls of treasures are his by right of inheritance.
Shut her out, and you truly rob the children of something which is theirs;
something marking their constant kinship with the race-children of the
past, and adapted to their needs as it was to those of the generation of
long ago! If there were no other criterion at all, it would be enough that
the children love the fairy tale; we give them fairy stories, first,
because they like them. But that by no means lessens the importance of the
fact that fairy tales are also good for them.
How good? In various ways. First, perhaps, in their supreme power of
presenting truth through the guise of images. This is the way the
race-child took toward wisdom, and it is the way each child's individual
instinct takes, after him. Elemental truths of moral law and general types
of human experience are presented in the fairy tale, in the poetry of
their images, and although the child is aware only of the image at the
time, the truth enters with it and becomes a part of his individual
experience, to be recognised in its relations at a later stage. Every
truth and type so given broadens and deepens the capacity of the child's
inner life, and adds an element to the store from which he draws his moral
inferences.
The most familiar instance of a moral truth conveyed under a fairy-story
image is probably the story of the pure-hearted and loving girl whose lips
were touched with the wonderful power of dropping jewels with every spoken
word, while her stepsister, whose heart was infested with malice and evil
desires, let ugly toads fall from her mouth whenever she spoke. I mention
the old tale because there is probably no one of my readers who has not
heard it in childhood, and because there are undoubtedly many to whose
mind it has often recurred in later life as a sadly perfect presentment of
the fact that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." That
story has entered into the forming consciousness of many of us, with its
implications of the inevitable result of visible evil from evil in the
heart, and its revelation of the loathsomeness of evil itself.
And no less truly than this story has served to many as an embodiment of
moral law has another household tale stood for a type of common
experience. How much the poorer should we be, mentally, without our early
prophecy of the "ugly ducklings" we are to meet later in life!--those
awkward offspring of our little human duckyard who are mostly well kicked
and buffeted about, for that very length of limb and breadth of back which
needs must be, to support swan's wings. The story of the ugly duckling is
much truer than many a bald statement of fact. The English-speaking world
bears witness to its verity in constant use of the title as an identifying
phrase: "It is the old story of the ugly duckling," we say, or "He has
turned out a real ugly duckling." And we know that our hearers understand
the whole situation.
The consideration of such familiar types and expressions as that of the
ugly duckling suggests immediately another good reason for giving the
child his due of fairy lore. The reason is that to omit it is to deprive
him of one important element in the full appreciation of mature
literature. If one thinks of it, one sees that nearly all adult literature
is made by people who, in their beginnings, were bred on the wonder tale.
Whether he will or no, the grown-up author must incorporate into his work
the tendencies, memories, kinds of feeling which were his in childhood.
The literature of maturity is, naturally, permeated by the influence of
the literature of childhood. Sometimes it is apparent merely in the use of
a name, as suggestive of certain kinds of experience; such are the
recurrences of reference to the Cinderella story. Sometimes it is an
allusion which has its strength in long association of certain qualities
with certain characters in fairydom--like the slyness of Brother Fox, and
the cruelty of Brother Wolf. Sometimes the association of ideas lies below
the surface, drawing from the hidden wells of poetic illusion which are
sunk in childhood. The man or woman whose infancy was nourished
exclusively on tales adapted from science-made-easy, or from biographies
of good men and great, must remain blind to these beauties of literature.
He may look up the allusion, or identify the reference, but when that is
done he is but richer by a fact or two; there is no remembered thrill in
it for him, no savour in his memory, no suggestion to his imagination; and
these are precisely the things which really count. Leaving out the fairy
element is a loss to literary culture much as would be the omission of the
Bible or of Shakespeare. Just as all adult literature is permeated by the
influence of these, familiar in youth, so in less degree is it transfused
with the subtle reminiscences of childhood's commerce with the wonder
world.
To turn now from the inner to the outer aspects of the old-time tale is to
meet another cause of its value to children. This is the value of its
style. Simplicity, directness, and virility characterise the classic fairy
tales and the most memorable relics of folklore. And these are three of
the very qualities which are most seriously lacking in much of the new
writing for children, and which are always necessary elements in the
culture of taste. Fairy stories are not all well told, but the best fairy
stories are supremely well told. And most folk-tales have a movement, a
sweep, and an unaffectedness which make them splendid foundations for
taste in style.
For this, and for poetic presentation of truths in easily assimilated
form, and because it gives joyous stimulus to the imagination, and is
necessary to full appreciation of adult literature, we may freely use the
wonder tale.
Closely related to, sometimes identical with, the fairy tale is the old,
old source of children's love and laughter,
THE NONSENSE TALE
Under this head I wish to include all the merely funny tales of childhood,
embracing the cumulative stories like that of the old woman and the pig
which would not go over the stile. They all have a specific use and
benefit, and are worth the repetition children demand for them. Their
value lies, of course, in the tonic and relaxing properties of humour.
Nowhere is that property more welcome or needed than in the schoolroom. It
does us all good to laugh, if there is no sneer nor smirch in the laugh;
fun sets the blood flowing more freely in the veins, and loosens the
strained cords of feeling and thought; the delicious shock of surprise at
every "funny spot" is a kind of electric treatment for the nerves. But it
especially does us good to laugh when we are children. Every little body
is released from the conscious control school imposes on it, and huddles
into restful comfort or responds gaily to the joke.
More than this, humour teaches children, as it does their grown-up
brethren, some of the facts and proportions of life. What keener teacher
is there than the kindly satire? What more penetrating and suggestive than
the humour of exaggerated statement of familiar tendency? Is there one of
us who has not laughed himself out of some absurd complexity of
over-anxiety with a sudden recollection of "clever Alice" and her fate? In
our household clever Alice is an old _habituée_, and her timely arrival
has saved many a situation which was twining itself about more "ifs" than
it could comfortably support. The wisdom which lies behind true humour is
found in the nonsense tale of infancy as truly as in mature humour, but in
its own kind and degree. "Just for fun" is the first reason for the
humorous story; the wisdom in the fun is the second.
And now we come to
THE NATURE STORY
No other type of fiction is more familiar to the teacher, and probably no
other kind is the source of so much uncertainty of feeling. The nature
story is much used, as I have noticed above, to illustrate or to teach the
habits of animals and the laws of plant-growth; to stimulate scientific
interest as well as to increase culture in scientific fact. This is an
entirely legitimate object. In view of its present preponderance, it is
certainly a pity, however, that so few stories are available, the accuracy
of which, from this point of view, can be vouched for. The carefully
prepared book of to-day is refuted and scoffed at to-morrow. The teacher
who wishes to use story-telling chiefly as an element in nature study must
at least limit herself to a small amount of absolutely unquestioned
material, or else subject every new story to the judgment of an authority
in the line dealt with. This is not easy for the teacher at a distance
from the great libraries, and for those who have access to well-equipped
libraries it is a matter of time and thought.
It does not so greatly trouble the teacher who uses the nature story as a
story, rather than as a text-book, for she will not be so keenly attracted
toward the books prepared with a didactic purpose. She will find a good
gift for the child in nature stories which are stories, over and above any
stimulus to his curiosity about fact. That good gift is a certain
possession of all good fiction.
One of the best things good fiction does for any of us is to broaden our
comprehension of other lots than our own. The average man or woman has
little opportunity actually to live more than one kind of life. The
chances of birth, occupation, family ties, determine for most of us a line
of experience not very inclusive and but little varied; and this is a
natural barrier to our complete understanding of others, whose life-line
is set at a different angle. It is not possible wholly to sympathise with
emotions engendered by experience which one has never had. Yet we all long
to be broad in sympathy and inclusive in appreciation; we long, greatly,
to know the experience of others. This yearning is probably one of the
good but misconceived appetites so injudiciously fed by the gossip of the
daily press. There is a hope, in the reader, of getting for the moment
into the lives of people who move in wholly different sets of
circumstances. But the relation of dry facts in newspapers, however tinged
with journalistic colour, helps very little to enter such other life. The
entrance has to be by the door of the imagination, and the journalist is
rarely able to open it for us. But there is a genius who can open it. The
author who can write fiction of the right sort can do it; his is the gift
of seeing inner realities, and of showing them to those who cannot see
them for themselves. Sharing the imaginative vision of the story-writer,
we can truly follow out many other roads of life than our own. The girl on
a lone country farm is made to understand how a girl in a city
sweating-den feels and lives; the London exquisite realises the life of a
Californian ranchman; royalty and tenement dwellers become acquainted,
through the power of the imagination working on experience shown in the
light of a human basis common to both. Fiction supplies an element of
culture,--that of the sympathies, which is invaluable. And the beginnings
of this culture, this widening and clearing of the avenues of human
sympathy, are especially easily made with children in the nature story.
When you begin, "There was once a little furry rabbit,"[1] the child's
curiosity is awakened by the very fact that the rabbit is not a child,
but something of a different species altogether. "Now for something new
and adventuresome," says his expectation, "we are starting off into a
foreign world." He listens wide-eyed, while you say, "and he lived in a
warm, cosy nest, down under the long grass with his mother"--how
delightful, to live in a place like that; so different from little boys'
homes!--"his name was Raggylug, and his mother's name was Molly
Cottontail. And every morning, when Molly Cottontail went out to get their
food, she said to Raggylug, 'Now, Raggylug, remember you are only a baby
rabbit, and don't move from the nest. No matter what you hear, no matter
what you see, don't you move!'"--all this is different still, yet it is
familiar, too; it appears that rabbits are rather like folks. So the tale
proceeds, and the little furry rabbit passes through experiences strange
to little boys, yet very like little boys' adventures in some respects; he
is frightened by a snake, comforted by his mammy, and taken to a new
house, under the long grass a long way off. These are all situations to
which the child has a key. There is just enough of strangeness to entice,
just enough of the familiar to relieve any strain. When the child has
lived through the day's happenings with Raggylug, the latter has begun to
seem veritably a little brother of the grass to him. And because he has
entered imaginatively into the feelings and fate of a creature different
from himself, he has taken his first step out into the wide world of the
lives of others.
[Footnote 1: See _Raggylug_, page 135.]
It may be a recognition of this factor and its value which has led so many
writers of nature stories into the error of over-humanising their
four-footed or feathered heroes and heroines. The exaggeration is
unnecessary, for there is enough community of lot suggested in the
sternest scientific record to constitute a natural basis for sympathy on
the part of the human animal. Without any falsity of presentation
whatever, the nature story may be counted on as a help in the beginnings
of culture of the sympathies. It is not, of course, a help confined to the
powers of the nature story; all types of story share in some degree the
powers of each. But each has some especial virtue in dominant degree, and
the nature story is, on this ground, identified with the thought given.
The nature story shares its influence especially with
THE HISTORICAL STORY
As the one widens the circle of connection with other kinds of life, the
other deepens the sense of relation to past lives; it gives the sense of
background, of the close and endless connection of generation with
generation. A good historical story vitalises the conception of past
events and brings their characters into relation with the present. This is
especially true of stories of things and persons in the history of our own
race. They foster race-consciousness, the feeling of kinship and community
of blood. It is this property which makes the historical story so good an
agent for furthering a proper national pride in children. Genuine
patriotism, neither arrogant nor melodramatic, is so generally recognised
as having its roots in early training that I need not dwell on this
possibility, further than to note its connection with the instinct of
hero-worship which is quick in the healthy child. Let us feed that hunger
for the heroic which gnaws at the imagination of every boy and of more
girls than is generally admitted. There have been heroes in plenty in the
world's records,--heroes of action, of endurance, of decision, of faith.
Biographical history is full of them. And the deeds of these heroes are
every one a story. We tell these stories, both to bring the great past
into its due relation with the living present, and to arouse that generous
admiration and desire for emulation which is the source of so much
inspiration in childhood. When these stories are tales of the doings and
happenings of our own heroes, the strong men and women whose lives are a
part of our own country's history, they serve the double demands of
hero-worship and patriotism. Stories of wise and honest statesmanship, of
struggle with primitive conditions, of generous love and sacrifice,
and--in some measure--of physical courage, form a subtle and powerful
influence for pride in one's people, the intimate sense of kinship with
one's own nation, and the desire to serve it in one's own time.
It is not particularly useful to tell batches of unrelated anecdote. It is
much more profitable to take up the story of a period and connect it with
a group of interesting persons whose lives affected it or were affected by
it, telling the stories of their lives, or of the events in which they
were concerned, as "true stories." These biographical stories must,
usually, be adapted for use. But besides these there is a certain number
of pure stories--works of art--which already exist for us, and which
illuminate facts and epochs almost without need of sidelights. Such may
stand by themselves, or be used with only enough explanation to give
background. Probably the best story of this kind known to lovers of modern
literature is Daudet's famous _La Dernière Classe_.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _The Last Lesson_, page 238.]
The historical story, to recapitulate, gives a sense of the reality and
humanness of past events, is a valuable aid in patriotic training, and
stirs the desire of emulating goodness and wisdom.