story form. Take, for instance, David Starr Jordan’s “Story of a Stone.”
Where is there a fairy tale more fascinating than this narrative of “a
bit of petrified honeycomb,” plowed up by a Wisconsin husbandman as he
made ready to sow his winter wheat? The style and language have the charm
of Andersen, the plot is as well sustained as that of any Thuringian folk
tale collected by Grimm, and it begins as fairy tales have begun since
the beginning of time:
Once upon a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years
that one grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it
was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of
a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and quartz
and bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which
the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far
north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette
harbor opened out toward Baffin’s Bay, and the northern ocean
washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name on the
pictured rocks; when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by
no snow-capped Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate
between the Ozarks and the northern peninsula of Michigan,
swept over Plymouth Rock, and surged up against Bunker Hill;
in the days when it would have been fun to study geography,
because there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the
towns were seaports,—in fact, an immensely long time ago,
there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of Wisconsin a
little jellyfish.
Dr. Jordan has also woven into story form information concerning the
animal life of sea and stream, of a mother and baby seal, in the
delightful tale of “Matka and Kotik,” and there is not a boy or a girl
in the heroic period who does not listen eagerly to the adventures of
a salmon, “a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great,
staring eyes which made almost half his length, and with a body so
transparent that he could not cast a shadow.” The account of the battle
of the fish there under the ripples of the Cowlitz, the beginning of the
eventful journey down the river, the merry conflict with the herring and
the terrible one with the sea lions, swimming always and always, growing
larger and more daring, and having in his watery realm as many adventures
as bold Robin had in his greenwood, hold the children from the beginning
to the end of the story. They sympathize as he struggles up the stream
again, “growing poor and ragged and tired,” and through his life and
adventures they come to have an interest in the world of fishes that they
will not have without the tale. Such stories demonstrate the fact that
information concerning the sciences can be put into fascinating story
form, and every worker with young folk should endeavor to present some of
it through this delightful medium.
The child will find such tales far more appealing than the so-called
nature stories in which animals are over-personified and in which they
meet man in situations that every intelligent boy or girl knows are
impossible. A lad is not brought into harmony with nature by being given
yarns that caricature nature, and many of the modern nature stories
do this very thing. Children know that a wild bear does not walk into
a little girl’s flower garden, and then politely say “I am sorry” and
back out because the small mistress of the garden is kind and instead of
throwing stones at him explains in elegant English that it is rude to go
into another’s property unbidden. They know that animals and children do
not converse together in the same language, and that bears do not have
courses in ethics. The nature story that fascinates the child must be
true to nature’s laws. He may listen to some of the sugary, impossible
yarns written to point a moral, but they do not give him keen pleasure,
and because they are ridiculous in his eyes, he draws no lesson from
them. One of the aims of story-telling is to give ethical instruction,
but there is a wealth of tales that reflect nature and life correctly
that should be used for this purpose, and the facts of science should not
be distorted in an attempt to emphasize a lesson.
Tales pervaded by over-sentimentalism will not stir deep response in
children. This is why the nature story that is true to the facts of
science is the one that interests the boy or girl. It is like the racial
tale, full of conflict, of temporary defeat and final triumph. The young
salmon grown old, struggling up Snake River to the foot of the Bitter
Root Mountains, was sore of muscle and unsightly of skin, and his tail
was frayed and torn, but the desire of his nature was fulfilled at last.
He scooped out a nest and covered the eggs of his companion, and then,
because the work of his life was done, was free to drift downstream.
Such stories give insight into nature and engender a love of nature; and
besides quickening the imagination and enriching the emotional life, they
help to give stability to the child character, because through them he
learns the workings of certain inexorable laws.
There is such a vast amount of material to use in teaching nature study,
that the suggestions and bibliography given in this chapter can by no
means be comprehensive. In the realm of geology there is the story of
limestone, of slate, of quartz and granite, of rock salt and sandstone,
and particularly interesting to the child is the story of coal. For him
it abounds in color, and beautiful indeed are the pictures that he sees
as he listens to this narrative of the carboniferous forests that grew
in the beginning of time, of the lush, dank swamps of the Permian or
Triassic or Miocene Period, and the strange animal life that peopled
them. From astronomy and botany one may glean as much as from geology,
while entomology, zoölogy, and ichthyology hold untold delights for the
child.
A wonderful science story is that of the coral polyp, building from
some submerged cliff or crag until a little island rises above the blue
water. In my own childhood it meant as much as ever a fairy tale meant,
and I can still feel the pleasure I experienced the first time I heard
it. It is full of mystery and wonder, and a story of rare beauty for the
child. I have used it often in story-telling, and it never fails to bring
enthusiastic response; and very popular with the children is this song of
the insect builders, of which I do not know the authorship, but which is
one of the fragrant memories of my childhood:
Far down in the depths of the deep blue sea,
An insect train works ceaselessly;
Moment by moment and day by day,
Never stopping to rest or play,
Rock upon rock they are rearing high,
Till the top looks out on the sunny sky:
The gentle winds and the balmy air
Little by little bring verdure there,
Till the summer sunbeams gayly smile
On the birds and flowers of the little isle.
Older children enjoy hearing about the different forms of coral, of the
characteristics of that of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean,
and of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. They enjoy, too, hearing about
the coral industry, of the fishing for it along the shores of Africa,
of the departure of the seekers from Sicily, of the Feast of the Coral
Fishers that is such a picturesque feature of the island life, of the
polishing and carving and preparing the product for trade; they like
the legend the southern Italians tell of how the first medallion in
Sicily was made as an offering of gratitude by a fisher lad to the young
Princess of Naples. From beginning to end the coral story is a narrative
that charms the child, and it is but one of the forms of sea life, which
holds rich opportunities for the narrator, while sea life is but one of
the fields of science from which he can glean with splendid results.
In fact, the possibilities for story work in the teaching of science
are almost beyond imagining until one begins to survey the field and
enumerate sources of material, and the story-teller will be restricted
in it only by her ability to organize material and present it to the
children in story form.
Sometimes writers, thinking they will make nature stories more enjoyable
to boys and girls, people them with supernatural folk who are supposed to
be responsible for the marvels that occur in them. It is a practice that
scientists decry, and it is condemned by all who believe that a story
fit to give to children must be worthy of the name of literature, and
consequently, whether fact or fiction, must be true in spirit. The tale
that portrays a fairy up in the sky keeping the planets in motion like
so many checkers on a board, or one in which enchanted creatures bury
their beads in the ground, causing them to send up roses and lilies and
other beautiful blossoms, is not a nature story. It may be a charming
fanciful tale, but it should not be given to teach the truths of science.
Science stories, like Bible stories, need no sugar coating to make them
attractive. When given as stories, and not as a string of facts, they
are full of suspense, and accounts of actual happenings in star land,
under the waves, or deep in the earth are as fascinating to the child as
the fancied ones of nature’s forces were to primitive man in the forest,
when he crept close to the tribal story-teller and in big-eyed, wondering
awe sought to know the meaning of the great globule that gleamed in the
sky by day and the numberless tiny ones that gleamed there by night. The
primitive animal tale, which gives early man’s belief as to how certain
creatures came by their characteristics, is very interesting to the
child, and while in a broader sense it belongs to the field of geography,
my own experience has been that if told in connection with animals or
flowers studied, it is received with enthusiasm by boys and girls. But
the child should understand that these narratives are primitive man’s
conception, and that the science stories are the real “why” and “how”
stories.
THE WONDERFUL BUILDERS
Out in the heart of the Pacific, far out where the blue waves roll their
shining masses between Samoa and the Australian mainland, where the
brown-skinned islanders and the white-winged sea birds seem always happy,
a little animal floated around one day, floated from among the shoals of
Tutuila toward the open sea. It was a tiny creature, and as curious as
it was tiny, for it looked more like a spot of clear jelly than anything
else, and its name was Polyp.
Quite lazily it floated about in the water, now under a stretch of
seaweed, all purple and opalescent like ropes of wonderful colors, now
through the clear, bright current past the gaping mouth of a shark. But
the shark, although always on the watch for something to devour, did not
get the little polyp, and soon it came to a submerged rock deep under the
waves. This seemed a very good resting place, and there the polyp stayed.
Days passed, weeks lengthened into months, and still the polyp kept to
its place on the under-sea rock. But it was not drowsing and sleeping
like a lazy creature. It was busily at work, for the very minute it
landed on the rock it decided to make a house.
Now you must not think that it could not work, because, although it did
look like a drop of jelly and was small and curious, it was alive. It had
arms, very, very tiny arms, finer than the finest silk thread in your
mother’s workbasket, and so thin and delicate looking that nobody could
see them. But those arms were stronger than they looked, and with them it
held on to the rock tight and fast.
Then, what a queer house-making! The little, jellylike body began to
swell. It raised itself up in the shape of a tube, and around the edge of
the tube came a little rim. This rim was the beginning of the house of
the polyp.
The waves rolled on. The sun beat down brightly and hotly as it always
beats down in the South Sea country, and then came another change. A knot
rose in the middle of the jelly, and out of that knot reached a mouth and
feelers.
Now the work began in earnest. The polyp began to eat, to eat as greedily
as a boy who has had not a bit for a whole day. It took in chalk and
phosphorus from the sea food that came its way, yet it seemed never to
get enough, and all the while the little feelers kept reaching out for
more food and pouring it into the open mouth. As it ate, the chalk it
took in piled around the little rim, which I told you was the beginning
of the house, and although the polyp wanted much to hold some of that
nice chalk food in its mouth long enough to get the full taste, it could
not. The white substance went right down and piled up on the rim; so it
is no wonder that the little creature was always hungry.
Well, it ate and it ate. The rim kept growing and growing, as of course
it must with so much chalk piling up on it, and as the house grew higher
and higher the polyp kept moving to the top. The part below was hard and
white like stone, and still the polyp kept eating, eating, and building,
building.
For a long time it kept on, until finally it died. Then one day another
drop of living jelly floated that way, and finding the chalk house of the
other polyp, stopped there and began building on top of it. The waves
rolled on. The sun shone, and all the while the house went steadily
higher. Other polyps too came and began building beside and above it, and
as they died they left their hard, white homes behind them as the first
polyp had done. Others and still others came, until, as many, many years
passed, the chalk houses reached the top of the water and men called
them an island.
The waves rolled by. Seaweed drifted that way and lodged itself on the
chalk reefs. It decayed and turned to soil. Sometimes the water and
sometimes the wind brought bits of plant and seed from some other older
islands, until at last there were flowers and trees and birds singing in
the branches.
Now the ships of the world sail by, going toward China or Australia or
to the American shores far, far away, and sometimes they stop at the
little island, and sometimes those on board rest there among the palms
and think it so delightful a land that they wish they never had to go
away, but might stay there always and always. Yet but for a wee, curious
sea creature that island would not be, for it had its beginning in a tiny
animal, more like a drop of jelly than anything else, that floated one
day between Samoa and the Australian mainland, and made its house upon a
bit of submerged rock.
SOURCES OF MATERIAL FOR SCIENCE STORIES
BEARD, JAMES CARTER: _Humor in Animals_.
BERGEN, FANNY DICKERSON: _Plant Work_.
BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers_.
COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK: _The Book of Stars_.
COMSTOCK, JOHN HENRY: _Insect Life_.
DU CHAILLU, PAUL B.: _The World of the Great Forest_.
FABRE, HENRI: _Insect Adventures_; _The Life of a Fly_; _The
Hunting Wasps_; _The Mason Bees_; _The Life of a Caterpillar_.
FRYE, ALEXIS EVERETT: _Brooks and Brook Basins_.
GRINNELL, JOSEPH and ELIZABETH: _Birds of Song and Story_.
GRINNELL, MORTON: _Neighbors of Field, Wood, and Stream_.
GROOS, KARL: _The Play of Animals_.
HAWKES, CLARENCE: _Shovelhorns: The Biography of a Moose_.
HOLDER, CHARLES F.: _Stories of Animal Life_.
INGERSOLL, ERNEST: _Wild Life of Orchard and Field_.
JORDAN, DAVID STARR: _Science Sketches_.
LEA, JOHN: _The Romance of Bird Life_.
MILES, ALFRED H.: _Animal Anecdotes_.
MILLER, ELLEN R.: _Butterfly and Moth Book_.
MORLEY, MARGARET W.: _Butterflies and Bees_.
PORTER, GENE STRATTON: _Moths of the Limberlost_.
PORTER, JERMAIN G.: _Stars in Song and Legend_.
ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D.: _Earth’s Enigmas_; _Haunters of the
Silences_; _Kindred of the Wild_; _Kings in Exile_.
THOMPSON, JEANETTE MAY: _Water Wonders Every Child Should Know_.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
STORY-TELLING IN DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND MANUAL TRAINING
People are likely to smile when a story-telling enthusiast suggests that
his art will intensify the interest in manual training and domestic
science, but a little investigation usually convinces them that this
contention is not merely a wild theory. Cooking and sewing and wood,
metal, and leather working each has an interesting story, and through
understanding how these crafts originated and how they have developed
with the progress of the race, he comes to have an appreciation of their
true dignity and value. In a broad sense these tales belong to the field
of history and geography, for domestic science and manual training have
a background in history and present-day geography. But since the school
gives them as separate subjects, a consideration of story materials
touching them will be valuable to teachers of these subjects.
It is a far cry from the first roast meat of primitive man, discovered
by accident to be more delectable than that untouched by heat, to the
banquet of the twentieth-century gourmet, but they are chapters of the
same tale, each intervening portion of which is interesting. There seems
to be no relation between the grass skirt of the prehistoric belle and
the creations of Worth or Paquin, but they are links in the same chain,
beads strung upon the same thread, as are the rush mats of the cave woman
and the rugs of Teheran. There are dozens of stories to give to girls
that will increase their interest and delight in household crafts. Tales
of the lace makers of Italy and Spain, of medieval tapestry weavers, of
dower chests of European peasant maids, the contents of which pass from
generation to generation, of royal costumers and court tailors, their
problems, patience, and artistry, all tend to give a touch of romance to
something many girls are inclined to hold in contempt. They enjoy hearing
about cookery in foreign lands, of ways of serving meals that are very
different from our own, and no one is more amused by Lamb’s “Dissertation
on Roast Pig” than she who deals with problems of roasting and baking.
Domestic-science girls who are told something of the legends clustering
around various foodstuffs enjoy the cooking class more than those who
hear nothing but lectures on chemistry, dietetics, and comparative
nutritive values, and they take more pleasure in preparing a meal because
they know stories about the various dishes that comprise that meal.
This is no unproved theory, but one that has been tried successfully with
a group of fourteen-year-old girls, who took keener delight in bread
making after being told of the bakers of Nuremberg and who brewed coffee
with more interest when they knew the tale of how Arabians discovered the
use of coffee.
There are stories of wood, metal, and leather workers that should be
given to every boy, not only because they throw new light upon what he is
doing and add interest to it, but because they lead him to respect those
who toil with their hands. Stories of medieval carving, of house building
in different lands and ages, now of the brush hut of the Australian
aborigine, now of the workmanship in the palace of a sultan or czar; of
the poet craftsmen of Nuremberg, of the pottery making of the Aztecs, of
the building of Venice upon piles hewn from Tyrolean forests, these and
dozens of kindred subjects are rich in materials that will give children
pleasure and knowledge. To the boy or girl who loves the work in manual
training and domestic science they bring additional pleasure, while in
the indifferent they awaken interest; and, moreover, the snobbish child
who is inclined to think handcraft beneath his respect, will be led
to see that the carpenter who strives to make each effort more worthy
than the preceding one, or the housewife who puts the best of herself
into the preparation of a meal, is in the same class with Phidias or
Shakespeare in earnestness of purpose, even though not in results, and is
as deserving of honor. The first step toward success with these branches
is to dignify them in the eyes of children, and nothing accomplishes this
as effectually and rapidly as the story. To know that the crafts were
worthy of the best efforts of those of other times and lands is to make
them feel they are worthy also of their best effort.
There is another reason why these stories should be told. In the midst
of the agitation in favor of vocational training, the force of which is
sweeping away and modifying some of the old educational standards, there
is danger that in catering to the demand for the practical in schools we
neglect that which conduces to dreams and ideals.
A man may advance beyond the ranks of a journeyman joiner and make a good
living if he has no thought beyond the work of each day as it dawns, but
without vision he cannot become the master builder, and romance is the
corner stone upon which the temple of vision stands. The palaces of old
Hellas were built to strains of music, for the beauty-loving Greeks knew
that melody gave men lofty thoughts, and believed work performed to its
accompaniment would be of higher order than that performed without it.
Bands were hired to play as the toilers worked, and boys who were to
become builders were inspired to emulate the efforts of great craftsmen
by being told stories of their achievement. In our day we cannot expect
the state to provide bands and symphony orchestras to inspire toilers,
but during the days of their apprenticeship we can give them tales that
will have a tendency to glorify their chosen craft. We can cause them
to feel that only the best efforts of hand and brain are fit to go into
this craft, because it is a monument to the memory of those who lived and
died in its ranks, and that every worthy effort of each succeeding toiler
helps to make that monument nobler and more enduring.
THE DERVISH OF MOCHA
RETOLD FROM AN ARABIAN FOLK TALE
The dervish Hadji Omar was a fortunate man. No one of his day was so well
versed in lore of the ancients and in the knowledge of his own time, no
one was so highly esteemed by his people or so loved and trusted by the
caliph. At every royal banquet he sat in a seat of honor, and whenever he
went through the streets of Mocha the populace shouted, “Hail, Omar!”
But there came a time when the fortunes of the dervish changed. One
afternoon as he sat in the court garden he heard a conversation that
dismayed him. Beyond the palm trees that screened him from their sight,
the caliph and his council were planning how to defraud the common people
and enrich themselves. Hadji Omar listened, grieved, and that night went
to his friend, told what he had heard, and tried to dissuade him from a
course of dishonor.
Then the caliph forgot all the happy hours he had spent with the dervish,
forgot that he had loved him even as a brother, and remembered only that
the dervish was trying to interfere in his plan. He flew into a rage and
declared that Omar should be exiled from Mocha, and that a price would
be upon his head should he ever return. Never again should he sit at the
royal banquet table. Never again should he pass through the streets amid
cries and calls of endearment. He should live in the wilds like a hunted
creature and get his food as the birds of the field get theirs.
So out from the city that he loved went the wise and righteous dervish.
He took the camel trail into the desert, and after a time came to an
oasis where he stayed. A miserable existence he had there, because few
food plants grew in the spot. Sometimes a caravan came by, and a merchant
or camel driver pitied him and gave him dates or milk. But sometimes he
had nothing to eat, and always his meals were so scanty that he grew thin
and weak and haggard.
One day—he had been a long time without food and was faint from hunger—he
found some berries growing on a tree beside a spring. They were so bitter
that he could not eat them; so he tried the experiment of roasting them
over the coals. This made them more palatable, but still they were
viciously hard. Hadji Omar was so hungry that he was willing to do any
amount of work to get food; so he boiled the berries, hoping they would
soften. Still they were hard, but he managed to eat a few of them and
drank of the water. His hunger and fatigue seemed gone, and he realized
he had made a great discovery.