or his efforts will result in failure, because children live under widely
different conditions. The boy of the city slums, whose horizon extends
only from his own row of tenements to the next row up the street, will
not be held by tales of cows and sheep, because he does not know cows
and sheep. His knowledge of four-footed creatures is confined to dogs
and cats and an occasional horse that goes by hitched to the wagon of a
fruit or vegetable vender, and the tales that mean something to him are
those of animals of his world, and of children. Many a settlement and
social worker has learned the truth of this through sad experience. A
most gifted story-teller in a New York settlement house gave to her group
“The Ugly Duckling,” and gave it exquisitely too, but it meant nothing
to the children because they never had been in the country. A barnyard
was as remote from their interest as a treatise on philology is from that
of a Finnish peasant. They did not know ducks and geese and chickens,
and consequently punched their neighbors and grew pestiferous during the
recital of a tale that would have entranced country children.
The same mistake was made by a professional story-teller who gave a
coyote tale to a group of Italian children. They never had met this
“outcast in gray,” never had shivered as he howled in the night, and the
story brought no pictures before their eyes. They were inattentive and
disorderly throughout its rendition, and the narrator declared them
an impossible group. Yet that same afternoon a college girl with no
special training in story-telling told them of a lost nanny goat, and
they sat fascinated. In the first instance the trouble was not with the
children but with the narrator. She knew much of technique but little of
psychology and could not hold the children’s attention, while the other
girl, possessed of far less native ability, entertained them because she
understood the story interests of childhood. The narrator must have,
not only an understanding of the psychological periods and interests of
childhood, but a knowledge of the environment of the children with whom
she works.
There is a wealth of sources from which to draw for this early period.
Often it is necessary to adapt material, because many a tale whose
framework is suited to little people is told in language beyond their
understanding. “David and Jonathan,” by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, is a
good example. Written for adults, yet it is so universal in its appeal
that the lad of six listens to it with as much sympathy as his father or
mother. The account of the affection of dog and master for each other,
the pathos of the separation and the joy of the reunion, touch him as
much as they touch his parents, and to receive it from the lips of one
who feels and loves the tale will make him kinder to dumb animals and
gentler to the aged.
This is true of many another story that is the creation of an artist. I
mention particularly Ouida’s “Dog of Flanders,” John Muir’s “Stickeen,”
and Ernest Thompson Seton’s “Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac,” each of
which I have used with children of all ages. The characters in them are
living, breathing creatures, the kind that if met in real life would
arouse affection and awaken both laughter and tears, and whether these
stories are told in monosyllabic language or colored by fine rhetorical
effects, they strike the tender places and appeal to the best. When the
child meets Nello before the altar of the cathedral in Antwerp, kneeling
in front of a painting by Rubens and fondling his dog, he instinctively
feels that this boy is not a stranger living in a far-away land and
speaking a foreign language, but that he represents all the orphaned
children in the world, and that his affection for his dog is the same tie
that binds every other child to the pet he loves. So too with Monarch,
the majestic captive of Golden Gate Park. He is not just a bear, a
creature larger and more ferocious than many other animals. He typifies
wild life caged, and the boy who has pitied him in listening to the
account of his tramp, tramp, tramp about the pit, never quite forgets
that proud but eternal unrest, the ever present longing for the white
peaks and the pines.
One need not fear that putting these stories into simple language may
be deemed a sacrilegious act, or that telling the plot of a masterpiece
will kill delight in that masterpiece itself. Goethe’s mother, sitting
in the firelight in their home, gave her boy tales from the old poets,
creating in him a desire to read that helped to make him a profound
student and master thinker. And the twentieth-century child will doubly
enjoy reading a beautiful piece of literature at some future day,
because in the magical long ago it touched his heart. Workers with little
children should be ever on the alert, seeking stories that deserve the
name of literature, with plot and characters that will appeal to their
small charges, because such stories mold a child’s taste and give a key
that will unlock doors into the great treasure house of art. Whenever the
mother or teacher or librarian reads a story that is a literary gem, let
her analyze it and determine whether or not, if told in simple language,
it would delight a child. The old-time narrators who molded national
taste and ideals did this constantly, and the great story-tellers are
doing it today.
Sicilian peasants, for instance, have a knowledge of the classics that
amazes the average American. The stories are pictured on the market
carts, those gaudy conveyances that brighten the island highways from
Catania to Palermo, and the conversation of these simple folk is colored
with allusions that would do credit to a professor of literature. Most
of them cannot read, but they know the plots of _Jerusalem Delivered_,
“Sindbad the Sailor,” “The Merchant of Bagdad,” and many more of the
world’s great stories. They heard the tales in childhood, and their
fathers before them heard them from the lips of men who loved to tell
them, and so they have become a national heritage. Let us do as much for
the children of our land, that the men and women of the future may have a
noble culture and more splendid possessions than their parents have, and
let us do it in the world-old way, by story-telling.
SOURCES OF STORY MATERIAL FOR THE RHYTHMIC PERIOD
ADAMS, WILLIAM: _Fables and Rhymes—Æsop and Mother Goose_.
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN: _Firelight Stories_.
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN, and LEWIS, CLARA: _For the Children’s
Hour_.
BRYCE, CATHERINE T.: _That’s Why Stories_.
BURNHAM, MAUD: _Descriptive Stories for All the Year_.
COOKE, FLORA J.: _Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children_.
DAVIS, MARY H., and CHOW-LEUNG: _Chinese Fables and Folk
Stories_.
DILLINGHAM, ELIZABETH, and EMERSON, ADELLE: _“Tell It Again”
Stories_.
HARRISON, ELIZABETH: _In Story-land_.
HOLBROOK, FLORENCE: _’Round the Year in Myth and Song_.
HOXIE, JANE: _A Kindergarten Story Book_.
JORDAN, DAVID STARR: _The Book of Knight and Barbara_.
LINDSAY, MAUD: _Mother Stories_; _More Mother Stories_.
MILLER, OLIVE THORNE: _True Bird Stories_.
MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY: _Half a Hundred Stories_.
MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER: _Bed-time Stories_.
PIERSON, CLARA D.: _Among the Farmyard People_.
POULSSON, EMILIE: _Child Stories and Rhymes_.
RICHARDS, LAURA E.: _The Golden Windows_; _Five-Minute
Stories_; _The Pig Brother_.
SKINNER, ADA M.: _Stories of Wakeland and Dreamland_.
VERHOEFF, CAROLYN: _All about Johnnie Jones_.
WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS, and SMITH, NORA A.: _The Children’s Hour_.
CHAPTER THREE
THE STORY INTERESTS OF CHILDHOOD (_Continued_)
B. IMAGINATIVE PERIOD
When the child leaves the rhythmic, realistic period he enters a world
of make-believe and no longer desires tales and jingles that are nothing
more than a recounting of facts he already knows. He delights in playing
he is some one other than himself, in pretending he is doing things
beyond the range of his possibilities, and because he craves a larger
experience he craves also fanciful, imaginative tales in which he may
have those experiences. He knows that bees sting, that the dog has a
cold, wet nose, that the cat lands on its feet, and the squirrel holds
its tail up. He wonders about these things, but he is still too limited
in experience and in mental capacity to give them real theoretical
meaning. Consequently he enjoys the wonder tale, or, as some authorities
term it, the “primitive-why story.” Early racial tales are those of
forest and plain, varying according to the locality in which they
originated, from the lion and tiger stories of India and Central Africa
to the kangaroo fables of the Australian aborigine.
Primitive man through fear and fancy personified the forces of nature and
gave them human attributes, and because they were less tangible than the
creatures of jungle and plain that figured in his earliest fables, his
mind visioned them as fantastic beings, sometimes lovely and sometimes
grotesque, fairies and goblins, destructive monsters and demons, and
avenging giants who preserved him from that which he feared. Thus
originated the fairy story that was the expression of his religion. The
child enjoys these tales.
The narrator can gather this material with comparative ease, because
the science of ethnology has brought to light many of these tales
from primitive literature, and not a few of them have been put into
collections available to child workers.
The fairy tale that grew out of the life of the race is also rich in
material for children of this period. By “fairy tale” is meant that
type of story usually associated with the names of Grimm, Perrault, and
Bechstein. Little people delight in it, and will listen to it again and
again. Yet because of lack of understanding on the part of parents and
teachers, the fairy story often proves to be the rock upon which the
child craft meets disaster. Because these tales have had a mighty place
in the history of the race and still have their work in the education
of the child, it does not follow that they should be fed to young
listeners as so much unassorted grain is fed to chickens. There are many
that should not be used at all. Those that are used should be carefully
graded, because a child will enjoy a narrative in which children are
heroes, long before he enjoys one in which adults hold the center of
the stage. The father and mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins,
and aunts mean much to him because they are part of his experience. But
he does not know officers of the state and nation. He does not know
lawmakers and magistrates and judges, and tales in which they have a part
are less interesting to him than those whose characters are familiar
personages. For instance, he is charmed by “Little Red Hen” or “The Three
Bears” at an age when “Beauty and the Beast” or “Sleeping Beauty” mean
little to him, and a good rule to guide the story-teller in the grading
of fairy tales is the well-known pedagogical one, “Proceed from the
known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex.” Give first those
stories whose heroes are familiar personages, then introduce those with
characters not so well known.
The mention of fairy tales in education often raises the question, “Is
there not danger of making liars of children by feeding them on these
stories?” It seems to me the best answer is given by Georg Ebers, the
Egyptologist and novelist, in his fascinating autobiography, _The
Story of My Life_. Out of his own experience, he handles the subject
of fairy tales sincerely and convincingly, and his words are worthy of
consideration by every child worker.
“When the time for rising came,” he says, “I climbed joyfully into my
mother’s warm bed, and never did I listen to more beautiful fairy tales
than at those hours. They became instinct with life to me and have always
remained so. How real became the distress of persecuted innocence, the
terrors and charm of the forest, the joys and splendors of the fairy
realm! If the flowers in the garden had raised their voices in song, if
the birds on the boughs had called and spoken to me, nay, if a tree had
changed into a beautiful fairy or the toad in the damp path of our shaded
avenue into a witch, it would have been only natural.
“It is a singular thing that actual events which happened in those early
days have largely vanished from my memory, but the fairy tales I heard
and secretly experienced became firmly impressed on my mind. Education
and life provided for my familiarity with reality in all its harshness
and angles, its strains and hurts, but who, in those later years, could
have flung wide the gates of the kingdom where everything is beautiful
and good, and where ugliness is as surely doomed to destruction as evil
to punishment? Therefore I plead with voice and pen in behalf of fairy
tales. Therefore I give them to my children and grandchildren and have
even written a volume of them myself.
“All sensible mothers will doubtless, like ours, take care that the
children do not believe the stories which they tell them to be true. I do
not remember any time when, if my mind had been called upon to decide,
I should have thought anything I invented myself really happened; but I
know that we were often unable to distinguish whether the plausible tale
invented by some one else belonged to the realm of fact or fiction. On
such occasions we appealed to my mother, and her answer instantly set all
doubts at rest, for we thought she could never be mistaken and knew that
she always told the truth.
“As to the stories I invented myself, I fared like other imaginative
children. I could imagine the most marvelous things about every member of
the household, and while telling them, but only during that time, I often
fancied they were true. Yet the moment I was asked whether these things
had actually occurred, it seemed that I woke from a dream. I at once
separated what I imagined from what I actually experienced, and it never
would have occurred to me to persist against my better knowledge. So the
vividly awakened power of imagination led neither me, my brothers and
sisters, nor my children and grandchildren into falsehood.”
Dr. Ebers’ words are based on sound psychology. The child’s imaginative
nature should be developed, but there should never be any doubt in his
mind as to what is make-believe and what is real. Let him wander at will
through every realm of fancy, along its sun-kissed highways, among its
shadowy glens and wild cascades, but let him realize it is a world of
make-believe, not of fact, which he inhabits during that period. His
imagination will be as much aroused, his emotional nature will be stirred
as deeply, and there will be no discovery later that his mother or
teacher deceived him, no temptation to present as fact what he knows to
be purely fancy, which is a certain step toward the field of falsehood.
If he questions whether a fairy story is true or not, tell him, “No, but
once upon a time people thought it was true,” and picture how the early
tribesmen sat around the fire at night listening to tales told by some
of their wise men, just as Indians and Eskimos do to this day. It will
make him sympathetic toward the struggles of his remote forefathers, and
he will not think the narrator tried to dupe him, nor will he regard the
narrative itself as a silly yarn. It will be a dignified tale to him
because it was believed in the long ago.
Since we can give only according to the measure in which we possess,
whoever tells fairy stories to children ought to know something of their
history and meaning. He should have some understanding of how they have
come from the depths of the past to their present form, some idea of
the work of notable collectors, and some insight into the fundamental
principles of the science of folklore.
There are several theories about the origin of these tales, the first and
oldest being that they are sun myths and can be traced back to the Vedas,
and the exponents of this belief offer many arguments to prove the truth
of their contention. The similarity of tales found among people of widely
separated regions, they claim, is evidence that they must have come from
a common source. “Little Half-Chick,” a Spanish folk tale, is found in
slightly different dress among the Kabyles of Africa; “Cinderella,” in
some form or other, is common to every country of Europe and to several
oriental lands; while the Teutonic tale of “Brier Rose” and the French
of “Sleeping Beauty” are modifications of the same _conte_. Therefore,
the orientalists contend, they must have come from a common source and
have been modified to suit conditions of life in lands to which they were
carried.
Another theory is that all European fairy tales are remnants of the old
mythology of the north, the nucleus of the stories having been carried
abroad by the Vikings, while still another theory, the most notable
advocate of which was the late Andrew Lang, traces fairy tales to the
practices and customs of early man and a totemistic belief in man’s
descent from animals.
Then there are those also who contend that fairy tales are primitive
man’s philosophy of nature, his explanation of the working of forces he
did not understand. The adherents of this theory admit the similarity of
tales found among different tribes, but claim that the incidents, which
are few, and the characters, who are types, might occur anywhere. In the
French story of “Blue Beard” and the Greek tale of “Psyche” curiosity
leads to destruction—in the one case of life, in the other of happiness.
In the French “Diamonds and Toads,” the Teutonic “Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs,” and the Bohemian “The Twelve Months,” selfishness brings
punishment and kindness reward, while the cruel stepmother, the good
prince, and the fairy godmother are common to tales of every nation.
But however authorities disagree as to the origin of these stories, they
unite in declaring them to be one of the oldest forms of literature.
The first collection of fairy tales of which we have any record was
published in Venice in 1550 by Straparola, and was a translation of
stories from oriental sources. From Italian the book was done into French
and, for those early days when books were rare and costly, had a wide
circulation. For almost a century this was the only collection of fairy
tales in existence. Then, in 1637, a book was published in Naples, _Il
Pentamerone_, which Keightley declares is the best collection of fairy
tales ever written. The stories were told in the Neapolitan dialect and
were drawn from Sicily, Candia, and Italy proper, where Giambattista
Basile had gathered them from the people during years of wandering.
About sixty years later, in a magazine published at The Hague, appeared
a story, “La Belle au Bois Dormant,” by Charles Perrault, which was none
other than the tale we know as “Sleeping Beauty.” It did not originate
with Perrault, but had been told him in childhood by his nurse, who was
a peasant from Picardy. A year later seven other stories appeared, “Red
Riding Hood,” “Blue Beard,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Fairy,” “Cinderella,”
“Riquet o’ the Tuft,” and “Hop o’ My Thumb.” They were published under
the title, _Contes du Temps Passé avec Moralités_, and signed, “P.
Darmancour.” Darmancour was a stepson of Perrault, and wrote them at the
older man’s request from the nurse’s tales; so they live in literature as
Perrault’s work. After this French collector came the German scholars,
the Grimms, who gathered and preserved the folklore of the Thuringian
peasants; Goethe, the Sage of Weimar; Madame Villeneuve; Ruskin; Andrew
Lang; and several others. Each of these added to the work begun by
Straparola and Basile, until now we have tales from almost every nation,
tales proving that a belief in the supernatural is common to primitive
people in every clime.
Another aspect wonderfully interesting in the study of fairy tales is the
distinctive features of those of different regions, which are so marked
that they can be classified according to the locality and topography
of the region in which they originated. The largest number of these
supernatural beliefs is found among nations whose scenery is wild and
rugged, where there are mountains, morasses, dangerous cataracts, and
tempestuous oceans, while in flat, cultivated countries away from the sea
the fairy superstition is not so strong and the tales are less fantastic.
This fact argues powerfully in favor of the Aryan theory that they are
primitive man’s philosophy of nature, the expression of his religion, and
some educators claim that as they were religious stories to the race,
they still are religious to the child.
Whether this theory is accepted or refuted, there can be no doubt in the
mind of a thinking person that if fairy tales are given to children
they should be given intelligently and with discrimination. The narrator
should exercise care in their selection, and have some fixed principles
to govern that selection, because of the quantity and doubtful literary
and ethical quality of much juvenile material.
Many modern fairy stories are not fit to give to children. In selecting
fanciful tales for this period of childhood, choose first of all the old
ones, those that originated in the childhood of the race, the stories of
Grimm, Perrault, and Bechstein. They have stood the test of the ages.
They are expressed in beautiful language, they create ideals and arouse
inspiration, they feed and satisfy.
There are some fairy tales of later origin that are the works of great
writers and deserve the name of literature. First on this list come
those of Hans Christian Andersen. “The Three Bears” of Robert Southey is
another good example, and sometimes we find floating through magazines
and in books of recent issue, fairy tales that are excellent ones to give
to children, because they have all the elements of the racial tales.
Notable among these is “The Wonder Box” by Will Bradley. But, if there be
any doubt in the mind of the narrator about the merit of modern stories,
he had better eliminate them from his list and use only those that have
stood the test of the ages.
However, even among racial tales the narrator will come upon pitfalls
unless judgment mark his selection. The conditions governing his struggle
for existence gave primitive man a harsh standard, and consequently
his literature is often tinged with a vindictive spirit wholly out of
keeping with the ideals of today. Stories in which cruelty, revenge, and
bloodshed have a large part should never be told to the young child, no
matter what their age or origin. “Blue Beard” is a good example. Although
itself a classic, and a recital of the deeds of a French ruler whose name
is a synonym of infamy, this tale and all similar tales should be tabooed
from the world of little people.
Charles Dickens was the first man in England whose voice carried weight
to plead for fairy tales as a part of the school curriculum, and within
a few years Dickens found it necessary to oppose the usage of stories
that were corrupting the children of the British Isles. Because they
were urged to tell fairy tales, unthinking teachers told any that they
found, even those in which all the savagery of early man was portrayed.
Accounts of beheadings and man-eatings became part of the daily program,
and many acts of cruelty among children were traceable to these stories.
Instead of teaching forbearance, courtesy, consideration of the poor
and aged, and abhorrence of brute force, which the wisely chosen fairy
tale will do, story-telling was turning the children into young savages.
If the dominant element in a story is cruelty, strike that tale from
the list; for even though the deed be punished in the end, the fact
that the attention of an unkind child is focused upon cruel acts often
leads him to experiment and see what will happen. And I plead also for
the elimination from the story-teller’s list of every tale in which an
unkind or drunken parent plays a part, even though the tale itself be a
literary gem. The father or mother is the child’s ideal, and it is not
the mission of the narrator to shatter that ideal. Even if little folk
have discovered that there are delinquent parents in the world, it is a
mental shock to have that fact emphasized, and the story that shocks in
any way had better be left untold.