Richard T. Wyche, President
27 West 23d St., N. Y.
James H. Van Sickle, Vice President
Superintendent of Schools, Springfield, Mass.
R. M. Hodge, Secretary
552 West 113th St., N. Y.
W. H. Keister, Treasurer
Superintendent of Schools, Harrisonburg, Va.
_Origin of the Story Tellers’ League Movement in America_
One time some half a hundred people gathered on a lawn at twilight at
the close of a summer’s day, to tell stories, to sit on the grass, to
relax, rest and commune with those spiritual forces that lie dormant
in literature and in nature until touched by living and creative
personalities. We were a group of teachers attending the Summer School
of the South at the University of Tennessee. Twice a week these
meetings were held with an informal program of stories and the singing
of familiar national melodies. At the close of that session of the
school, numbering over two thousand teachers, a formal organization was
made which afterward became the National Story Tellers’ League. That
was July, 1903, and marked the beginning of the Story Tellers’ League
movement in America.
Since that time the movement has grown until many local leagues have
sprung up all over the United States. The purpose of the whole movement
in a word is the told story, oral literature, with the young people
always in view.