tale, they started off at once to see if it were true. They heard of a
great river to the westward, and Arellano, one of the brave officers, led
a party at once in search of it. Across the dry, hot desert of Arizona
they went, and never stopped until they came to the Grand Cañon of the
Colorado. Below them flowed the mighty river between walls hundreds of
feet deep and so steep they could not descend to the water, though they
were almost dying of thirst as they stood over it.
Scarcely had they got back before the army was again all excitement
because an Indian had told a tale of a great city to the northeastward.
Coronado himself led them in search of it. Up they went through New
Mexico, traveling for days among herds of buffaloes that reached farther
than they could see.
They went so far north as to enter that part of our country now called
Kansas. They found in reward for their long journey only a few Indian
villages.
At last, when more than two thirds of his men were dead, Coronado gave up
and marched back to Mexico. And this was the last search for the Seven
Cities that were not.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STORY-TELLING TO INTENSIFY INTEREST IN GEOGRAPHY
In the study of geography the story means as much as in history. The
child is keenly interested in what he is doing and in what those around
him are doing, and when he discovers that people in China, in South
America, in Australia, or in Russia are doing the very things he is
attempting to do or sees done, that they are engaged in industrial
occupation very much as his father or uncle or neighbor is engaged in
it, that distant occupation loses its remote quality, and the country
with which it is associated becomes real and near to him. In the larger
sense geography is something that must be felt and imagined. It is an
interpretation of foreign activities and the regions in which they take
place, and because the story can interpret these activities, because
it can make situations real and familiar instead of aloof, it is of
inestimable value in teaching the subject. Here the myth and fairy tale
can be used with excellent results, because through them the child sees
something of the struggle of man in his effort to interpret the world
and comes to have a broader sympathy for the ideals of people of other
regions. Moreover, in many instances it tends to fix definite information
concerning a certain locality and to invest distant regions with vivid
interest, for to the boy who associates the Rhine or Danube or Himalayas
with the tale of a hero or people who once lived and did brave deeds
there, those rivers and mountains will be more than black specks on a
map. If he hears of the two frogs in Japan who started out to see the
world, he will not say that Kioto is somewhere in South America, because
the spot has been fixed in his mind by a story. Because it is associated
with something he has enjoyed, it stays there, and while the highest aim
of the study of geography is not merely to stuff the mind with facts,
but to broaden the horizon and bring the world within the child’s own
dooryard, the acquisition of certain information tends to give him that
broad outlook which makes all people seem creatures of his world and all
activities a part of his own experience. Unfortunately, however, teachers
sometimes lose sight of this fact, and the larger aim is made subservient
to a memorizing of data.
Geography and history are so closely related that it is difficult to
separate them, and in making one vivid we must draw constantly from the
other. The field is limitless. In fact, there are so many stories to give
the geography class that teachers sometimes say, “When are we to have
time for formal recitations?”
Too much recitation and not enough story is responsible for the fact that
boys and girls sometimes give startling information about the location
of places. Shorten the recitation period, if necessary, but do not fail
to give the stories that bring far-away places as near as one’s own
dooryard, and let tests and examinations prove which method is better. We
must possess before we can give, and the pupil who is assigned a number
of pages and expected to recite about them often fails miserably, because
interest, which must underlie the acquisition of knowledge, has not been
aroused. We may tell him to study the course of the Rhine and locate
the cities that dot its banks, and one will mean no more to him than the
other. But if he hears the tale of the building of the king of German
cathedrals and the legend of the architect’s compact with the Evil One,
Cologne will have an individuality very different from that of Coblenz
with its bridge of boats. If he listens to the tale of Maui fishing up
New Zealand from the bottom of the ocean, of the demigod chieftain who
was the discoverer of Hawaii and the patriarch of his people, there will
pass before his eyes at the mention of places among the Pacific Islands
pictures of a dark-skinned, sea-loving race with a history fully as
fascinating as that of his own people.
If there is not time for him to recite it all, let him write about it.
This will help to solve the composition problem, because the reason for
much of the miserable written English work is due to the fact that the
child has nothing to give. He is told to elaborate upon a subject that
lies far from his interest, one of which he has little knowledge, with
results that every English teacher knows. But if he has been interested
in it by a story, he can give that story back in oral or written form,
even though the construction be far from perfect.
Another value of using stories with a geographical or historical
background is that they develop the child’s social instinct and give him
something of a realization of the brotherhood of man. Through hearing and
reading them he becomes broader and more tolerant. He sees that in every
part of the world men have their standards and ideals, which, although
they may be greatly at variance with his own, are entitled to respect
because they represent deep convictions and desires. Instead of viewing
the world through a keyhole, he sees it across unobstructed fields and
comes to have a bigger human understanding. In the study of geography
there is a finer opportunity than anywhere else in elementary education
to divert the child’s feet from a narrow, provincial trail into the broad
highway of cosmopolitanism.
As in the study of history, so in geography the story should radiate from
local environment to other sections of the world, and every worker with
girls and boys, whether mother, teacher, or librarian, should endeavor to
give them some idea of the story of their own locality. The child should
know something of the legends of the people who built their camp fires on
the spots that are his public parks and gardens, and teachers especially
should aid the earnest group of men and women that is patiently
collecting and preserving our American folklore, by giving some of it
to the children. It will not only heighten pride in their own locality,
but it will broaden their understanding of other lands and races and
their sympathy with the struggles of different peoples. This kind of work
belongs to the field of history, but it so greatly increases interest in
geography that the teacher should not miss the opportunity of using this
material.
There are legends clustering about every section of our country that the
people of that locality should know, and it is a matter of regret that
the average man or woman has seldom heard of them. Europeans are inclined
to say we are a people of no traditions. While the charge is untrue,
and our land is rich in legendary lore, it is true that only a small
percentage of Americans are familiar with it. One reason for this general
ignorance is that much of it has been buried in scientific treatises,
which are unavailable to the layman. But within the last few years a
large amount has been put within reach of the story-teller. The unceasing
work of the American Folklore Society has resulted in unearthing and
preserving much that would otherwise have been lost and that is important
enough to have a place in our schools. Nothing is more fascinating to the
child than stories of his own region, and our young people ought to be
privileged to share in that joy with boys and girls of the Old World.
There are peasant lads in France, Italy, and other European countries who
can entertain by the hour with tales of their rivers and mountains—not
those of some distant province, but the peaks that tower above their
native village, the streams along which they trudge on their way to
school. California, Washington, and Oregon children should be given
legends of the Yosemite, of Lake Tahoe, of Mount Shasta, of the Columbia
River, and of Mount Rainier. Boys and girls among Southern bayous should
be taught the traditions of their region, of the Indians and Creoles
who made history there when that section was a province of France;
while along Northern lake and inland river are tales of forest folk, of
pathfinder and black-robed message bringer, of knights of the Old World
come to seek fortune in the New, that are a part of the heritage of
every youth living there. Let us give them to our young people, that
they may love their home spots, not just because they are beautiful and
are theirs, but as the French child loves the Rhone or the Austrian the
Danube, because of the stories that tend to make them enchanted ground.
In using the story in geography the teacher’s work does not end with
telling the story. The places mentioned in it should be located on the
map, that their exact position may be fixed in the mind of the child.
Interest in the story will make this a pleasure rather than a task for
the boy, just as it becomes a delight rather than a hardship for him to
follow the route taken by his father or uncle when he goes on a journey,
or to work out the itinerary of a trip he hopes to take himself. One
small boy studied the geography of Virginia with keen interest after
reading _Lord Cornwallis’ Silver Buckles_, and more than one man and
woman attest to the fact that some book read and loved during their
school days did more to fix the location of river, city, and mountain in
their minds than hours of classroom recitation spent in bounding states
and countries and tracing the courses of rivers.
The following legend of Niagara Falls is illustrative of one type of tale
that will greatly add to the child’s interest in geography by investing
certain localities with story associations. Much other material is given
in the appended bibliography, and the wide-awake teacher will be able to
glean much more from libraries and adapt it to her work.
THE GOD OF THE THUNDERING WATER
RETOLD FROM AN IROQUOIS LEGEND
Before the white man sailed westward across the Atlantic, in fact, before
Columbus was born or anybody even dreamed about a short route to the
Indies, a little Indian girl lived on the shore of Niagara not so very
far above the cataract. She was a happy little thing, and as she grew to
maidenhood she became the fairest girl of her tribe, and her father, who
was a mighty chieftain, promised her in marriage to the most powerful of
his braves. This Indian was a swift runner, and around the council fire
not another tongue was so nimble or eloquent as his, and never did his
arrows fail to pierce the heart of the deer at which he aimed them. But
that mattered little to the girl. He was not her ideal of a husband, and
she could think of nothing more dreadful than becoming the mistress of
his wigwam. Yet her father had spoken and she must obey, and with a sad
heart she made ready for the wedding, weaving the handsomest of wampum
belts and ornamenting her moccasins with gay beads and bits of woodpecker
feather.
The wedding morning dawned, and the Indians began the games and
merrymaking that always marked a marriage. The bridegroom and the young
braves vied in races and wrestling matches, and the women too had a part
in the festivities, singing and chanting weird songs as they tended the
fire and roasted venison for the feast. Everybody was happy,—every one
but the bride, who did not want to marry, and who sat in her wigwam
looking sadly out upon the sport. Suddenly came the decision that she
would not be the squaw of the man she detested.
Quickly, softly, she crept from the wigwam and hurried to the river bank.
The others were so busy with their merrymaking that they did not see her
go, and soon she came to where her canoe was moored to some bushes.
She stepped into it, pushed it from shore, and began drifting down the
stream. It was good to be there on the water, for, like all Indian girls,
she loved to paddle, and in her joy of skimming along with the current
she began to sing.
Suddenly a whoop went up from the village of her people. It was not
the cry of those victorious in a game, it was a shout of anger, a cry
of alarm, for they had seen her and believed she was trying to escape
from the marriage every one knew was distasteful to her. The bridegroom
started in pursuit, then another Indian and another, until every man in
the village was rushing to the river and some had already begun the chase
in canoes.
“They shall not take me back,” the girl murmured. “I will not go back to
the village and become Kunawa’s squaw.”
With swift, powerful strokes she paddled down the stream. She forgot
that the cataract was roaring below her, forgot that her canoe was going
rapidly and surely toward the bright foam from which no boat could come
back. She thought only that she was fleeing from a wedding, and not until
she saw the rapids beneath her did she realize her fate. Then she began
her death song, and those in pursuit heard it for a moment, loud, clear,
and plaintive as the canoe cut into the cataract, then suddenly silenced
as it shot down to the rapids. Some of the women wailed and joined in
the funeral dirge, and some of the others cried out in fear to the Great
Spirit.
“It is the last of Kunawa’s bride!” they exclaimed. “She is now on her
way to the Spirit Land.”
But it was not the last of the girl. Far down in the mist of the
cataract, Heno, the Thunder God, had seen her. He held forth his arms,
and as the canoe dropped to the rapids, she went into them, and bearing
her through the watery depths, he placed her in a cavern behind the fall
where he had lived since the beginning of things, and where the girl
would live with him henceforth.
Many years passed. She was no longer a young maiden, but a tall, sturdy
woman, and Heno gave her to one of his sons to be his squaw. She lived
there in happiness with him in the cavern under Niagara, and often she
thought of her people and her native village above beside the river.
Because she remembered and loved them, Heno was kind to them, and when
pestilence came to the region he lifted her to the shore that she might
tell them where to go to escape the disease.
Once a great monster, a snake all green and white, came trailing his
body through the forest like a river between hills, and made straight
for the village by Niagara to feed upon the people there. But through
the Indian girl Heno had told them of the coming danger, and they fled
before the monster so fast that when it reached the village it found only
a place of deserted camps. The great creature hissed with wrath, but
Heno saw it from the mists and struck it dead with a thunderbolt. The
great mass rolled to the river, floated down the stream, and lodged so
tight above the cataract that a fold in its body sent a great volume of
water out of its course, forming the Horseshoe Fall. The flood centered
there destroyed the home of Heno too, but the Thunder God arose with his
children and the Indian girl, and ascending to the heavens, has lived
there ever since, where he thunders in the cloud mists as he once did in
those of the fall. His voice is so mighty that the echo of it is always
sounding above Niagara, and although white men say it is nothing but the
noise of falling water, the Indians know better. They know it is the song
of the god of the Thundering Water.
SOURCES OF MATERIAL TO USE IN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
The history and geography references have been combined because each
of the books listed here is valuable in both lines of work. This plan
also carries out the Play School idea, which is that there is no line of
demarcation between the two subjects.
BALDWIN, JAMES: _The Discovery of the Old Northwest_.
BECQUER, GUSTAVO ADOLFO: _Romantic Legends of Spain_.
BRABOURNE, LORD (EDWARD KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN): _River Legends_
(London and England).
CONVERSE, HARRIET CLARKE: _Myths and Legends of New York State
Iroquois_.
GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT: _The Unmannerly Tiger and Other Tales_
(Korean).
GUERBER, HELÈNE A.: _The Story of the English_; _Legends of the
Rhine_; _Legends of Switzerland_.
HARDY, MARY E.: _Indian Legends from Geyser-land_ (Yellowstone).
HEARN, LAFCADIO: _Kwaidan_ (Japan).
JANVIER, THOMAS A.: _Legends of the City of Mexico_.
JOHONNOT, JAMES: _Ten Great Events in History_.
JUDSON, KATHARINE B.: _Myths of California and the Old
Southwest_; _Myths and Legends of the Great Plains_; _Myths
and Legends of Alaska_; _Myths and Legends of the Pacific
Northwest_.
LANG, ANDREW: _True Story Book_.
MCMURRY, CHARLES A.: _Pioneers of the Mississippi Valley_.
PERRY, F. M., and BEEBE, KATHERINE: _Four American Pioneers_.
PITMAN, LEILA WEBSTER: _Stories of Old France_.
SKINNER, CHARLES M.: _American Myths and Legends_; _Myths and
Legends beyond Our Borders_ (Mexico and Peru).
SMITH, BERTHA H.: _Yosemite Legends_.
WARREN, HENRY PITT (Ed.): _Stories from English History_.
WESTERVELT, H. D.: _Legends of Old Honolulu_.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
STORY-TELLING TO INTENSIFY INTEREST IN NATURE STUDY
Nature study, as a formal subject in the elementary schools, is often
uninteresting to the child, because many teachers think that there
the bare truth should prevail, and present information concerning
the sciences as a series of dry, emasculated facts. The result is
indifference toward what might be a keen pleasure, and sometimes even
distaste for it. But if the nature lesson is presented in a manner that
brings vivid pictures to the mind of the child, if he is given some
vision of what cannot be understood by mere description, it becomes a
living reality, and not only fixes information that is the foundation
for scientific study later, but enlarges the emotional life and quickens
the imagination. It gives him a feeling of close contact with nature and
makes him so responsive to its varied life, moods, and aspects, that he
comes to love it.
Those who understand nature love it more than those who do not. The man
who knows the elm, the beech, the hemlock, and various other forest
brethren, finds a pleasure in the woods that is impossible to him to whom
a tree is just a tree. The latter is like Peter Bell, of whom Wordsworth
wrote:
A primrose by a river’s brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
He goes on his way thinking that trees are good for lumber, to produce
shade and break the force of winds that might otherwise blight his
crops, but he has little conception of how they affect human happiness
and human life. When tired and nerve worn, he does not yearn for the
peace of the redwoods, but for some artificial stimulus in a city distant
from the one in which he has his cares. Why? Because he was not born with
a love of nature that is as rare as genius, and was not fortunate enough
to be led along the path on which it is acquired. That there are many men
and women of this type is proved by the ruthless way in which our forests
have been destroyed, by the abuse of privileges in public parks and
gardens, by the way in which trees are slaughtered in city streets. It
is certain that love of nature is not born with every one, and that what
is the fortunate heritage of the few must be instilled into the many.
This can be done, and it can be done through story-telling. The careless
child, the unobservant child, to whom a flower is just a flower or a bird
a bunch of feathers, can be led to open his eyes and see what he did not
see before, while the one who has already found joy in the life of field
and stream will respond with intense pleasure because a new and roseate
light is flashed upon what is already familiar.
Children learn to love nature just as they learn to love a picture,
a dog, or a swimming hole, through experience with it that gives
joyous results. The country lad, whose Saturdays and vacation days
are associated with cowslips, dragon flies, and quiet hours beside a
trout stream casting a line for the elusive catch, is not likely to
find schoolroom nature study a dull subject, because, through hours of
enjoyment, he is equipped with an emotional and imaginative background
that gives color to every fact presented. But he who has not had this
opportunity, who knows as little of wild life as a cormorant knows of the
Colorado crags, will not respond eagerly to a series of facts, because
experience has not previously aroused his imagination concerning them,
and he cannot comprehend their mystery and wonder. If these facts are
presented through the medium of the story, if they depict the life of
the open as vividly as some painting that meets the eye, they will give
pleasure and furnish incentive for further investigation. They will
not only awaken the uninformed child to a realization of the wonders
and delights nature holds for him, but they will give the other, more
fortunate child additional pleasure, just as a favorite fairy tale does
when told again and again by one who loves it and can make its moods his
own.
This does not mean that all information should be presented through
the medium of the story. The story should be used only to give such
information as is natural to the story form. But nature study can be
wonderfully illuminated by the story, because many of the truths of
science do lend themselves to plot, and where they have been put in
parallel literary form, they are as replete with beauty and imagery as
the fairy tale, and afford the fancy as free play as do the adventures of
sprites and goblins. The marvel of the brown bulb or seed metamorphosing
into the brilliant-hued blossom, of the homely caterpillar evolving
into a bit of flying color, of the majestic movements of stars and
planets through worlds remote but as exquisitely constructed as our
own, fascinates the child and furnishes wide, untrammeled avenues along
which his imagination may roam. There is almost no branch of science
that is not rich in material for the story-teller. Dr. Carrel, the great
French specialist, once said that some day an artist will arise who will
weave the facts concerning the circulation of the blood into a tale as
fascinating as any _conte_ from the _Arabian Nights_.
It is not likely that physiology will ever be the nucleus of stories to
give to children in the early years of school life, but Dr. Carrel’s
words hold a valuable hint for the narrator, who should not fail to
draw from truth as freely as he draws from myth and fable. An overdose
of one kind of food, no matter how wholesome, disarranges the digestive
apparatus, and an overdose of one kind of literature makes a one-sided
man. There are some facts to show that a too free feeding on fairy tales
has led to crooked thinking and susceptibility to superstition, and the
story-teller should balance his work in improbable tales with those of
fact that fire the imagination because of the marvels related in them.
This is not so difficult as it may seem, for many of the truths of
science have been put into simple language by men who were poet enough
to bring to children something of their mystery and beauty, and there is
no dearth of books that can be used with gratifying results by workers
among children as young as those of six to nine years. Part of the story
of evolution is enjoyed in this period. The boy in the age of fancy
is fascinated by listening to an account of early man’s struggle with
nature, and tales of the tree dwellers, of cave and cliff dwellers, of
the discovery of fire and the adventures of the first wanderers, mean as
much to him as any fairy tale, because they have the very characteristic
that makes the fairy tale delightful—an element of mystery that permits
the fancy to roam unchecked.