The telling of stories refreshes the mind as a bath refreshes the body. It gives exercise to the intellect and its powers. It tests the judgments and feelings. The story-teller must wholly take into himself the life of which he speaks, must let it live and operate in himself freely. He must reproduce it whole and undiminished, yet stand superior to life is it is.
--FROEBEL.
The purpose of the story.--To look out with new eyes upon the many-featured, habitable world; to be thrilled by the pity and the beauty of this life of ours, itself brief as a tale that is told; to learn to know men and women better, and to love them more.--BLISS PERRY.
Expertness in teaching consists in a scholarly command of subject-matter, in a better organization of character, in a larger and more versatile command of conscious modes of transmitting facts and ideals, and in a more potent and winsome, forceful and sympathetic manner of personal contact with other human beings.--HENRY SUZZALLO.
Story-telling as an art. No matter how perfectly the tale, in a subjective sense, may contain the interests of the child, or how carefully it may avoid what repels him; though in an objective sense it may stand the test of a true classic in offering a permanent enrichment of the mind and the test of literature in, appealing to the emotions and the imagination, in giving a contribution of truth and an embodiment of good form; though it may stand the test of the short-story--furnishing interesting characters, definite plot, and effective setting; though its sequence be orderly and its climax pointed, its narration consistent and its description apt--the tale yet remains to be told. The telling of the tale is a distinct art governed by distinct principles because the life of the story must be transmitted and rendered into voice.
Story-telling is one of the most ancient and universal of arts. Concerning this art Thackeray has said:--
Stories exist everywhere: there is no calculating the distance through which stories have come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated almost in their present shape for thousands of years to the little copper-colored Sanskrit children, listening to their mothers under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the northern Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and the Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when their flocks were gathered in, and their mares were picketed by the tents.
In his Roundabout Papers, Thackeray gives a picture of a score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout, listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of Arabian Nights. "A Reading from Homer," by Alma Tadema, is a well-known picture which portrays the Greeks listening to the Tales of Homer. In the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, the chorus of old men begins with, "I will tell ye a story!" Plutarch, in his Theseus says, "All kinds of stories were told at the festival Oschophoria, as the mothers related such things to their children before their departure, to give them courage." In his Symposium he mentions a child's story containing the proverb, "No man can make a gown for the moon."--
The Moon begged her Mother to weave her a little frock which would fit her.
The Mother said, "How can I make it fit thee, when thou art sometimes a Full Moon, and then a Half Moon, and then a New Moon?"--
In the works of the German, Schuppius (1677), appeared this:--
Your old folks can remember how, in the olden times, it was customary at vespers on Easter day, to tell some Easter tidings from the pulpit. These were foolish fables and stories such as are told to children in the spinning-room. They were intended to make people merry.
In England, Chaucer's Tales reflect the common custom of the times for the pilgrim, the traveler, the lawyer, the doctor, the monk, and the nun, to relate a tale. The Wife of Bathes Tale is evidently a fairy tale. In Peele's Old Wives' Tale we learn how the smith's goodwife related some nursery tales of Old England to the two travelers her husband brought to the cottage for the night. In Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination we find:--
Hence, finally by night,
The village matres, round the blazing hearth
Suspend the infant audience with their tales,
Breathing astonishment.
The custom of Florentine mothers has been described by the poet, Dante, when he says:--
Another, drawing tresses from her distaff,
Told o'er among her family the tales
Of Trojans, and of Fesole and Rome.
The French troubadours and the Italian counts of Boccaccio's time told tales. It is recorded of the French Galland, the first translator of The Arabian Nights, how the young men of his day would gather under his windows at night and shout for him until he showed himself and told them stories. The German Luther paid a high tribute to stories; and Goethe's mother, in giving her experience in telling stories to her children, has shown how the German mother valued the story in the home. To-day, savage children, when the day of toil is ended with the setting sun, gather in groups to listen to the never-dying charm of the tale; and the most learned of men, meeting in the great centers of civilization to work out weighty problems, find relief and pleasure when wit and culture tell the tale.
In the home the tale is the mother's power to build in her little children ideals of life which will tower as a fortress when there come critical moments of decision for which no amount of reasoning will be a sufficient guide, but for which true feeling, a kind of unconscious higher reasoning, will be the safest guide. In the library the story is the greatest social asset of the librarian, it is her best means of reaching the obscure child who seeks there some food for his spirit, it is her best opportunity to lead and direct his tastes. In the school it is the teacher's strongest personal ally. It is her wishing-ring, with which she may play fairy to herself in accomplishing a great variety of aims, and incidentally be a fairy godmother to the child.
Story-telling is an art handling an art and therefore must be pursued in accordance with certain principles. These principles govern: (1) the teacher's preparation; (2) the presentation of the tale; and (3) the return from the child.
1. THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION
1. The teacher's preparation must be concerned with a variety of subjects. The first rule to be observed is: Select the tale for some purpose, to meet a situation. This purpose may be any one of the elements of value which have been presented here under "The Worth of Fairy Tales." The teacher must consider, not only the possibilities of her subject-matter and what she wishes to accomplish through the telling of the tale, but also what the child's purpose will be in listening. She may select her tale specifically, not just because it contains certain interests, but because through those interests she can direct the child's activity toward higher interests. She must consider what problems the tale can suggest to the child. She may select her tale to develop habits in the child, to clarify his thinking, to give a habit of memory or to develop emotion or imagination. She may select her tale "just for fun," to give pure joy, or to teach a definite moral lesson, to make a selfish child see the beauty of unselfishness or to impress an idea. The Story of Lazy Jack, like the realistic Epaminondas, will impress more deeply than any word of exhortation, the necessity for a little child to use "the sense he was born with."
In the selection of the tale the teacher is up against the problem of whether she shall choose her tale psychologically or logically. As this is the day of the psychologic point of view in education, the teacher realizing this feels that she must select a tale for a particular purpose, according to the child's interests, his needs, and the possibilities it offers for his self-activity and self-expression. Looking freely over the field she may choose any tale which satisfies her purposes. This is psychologic. But in a year's work this choice of a tale for a particular purpose is followed by successive choices until she has selected a wide variety of tales giving exercise to many forms of activity, establishing various habits of growth. This method of choice is the psychologic built up until, in the hands of the teacher who knows the subject, it becomes somewhat logical. It is the method which uses the ability or the individual teacher, alone and unaided. There is another method. The teacher may be furnished with a course of tales arranged by expert study of the full subject outlined in large units of a year's work, offering the literary heritage possible to the child of a given age. This is logical. From this logical course of tales she may select one which answers to the momentary need, she may use it according to its nature, to develop habits, to give opportunity for self-activity and self-expression, and to enter into the child's daily life. This method of choice is the logical, which through use and adaptation has become psychologized. It uses the ability of the individual teacher in adaptation, not unaided and alone, but assisted by the concentrated knowledge and practice of the expert. Such a logical course, seeking uniformity only by what it requires at the close of a year's work, would give to the individual teacher a large freedom of choice and would bring into kindergarten and elementary literature a basis of content demanding as much respect as high school or college literature. It is in no way opposed to maintaining the child as the center of interest. The teacher's problem is to see that she uses the logical course psychologically.
2. Having selected the tale then, from a logical course, and psychologically for a present particular purpose, the next step is: Know the tale. Know the tale historically, if possible. Know it first as folk-lore and then as literature. Read several versions of the tale, the original if possible, selecting that version which seems most perfectly fitted to express what there is in the tale. As folk-lore, study its variants and note its individual motifs. Note what glimpses it gives of the social life and customs of a primitive people. The best way to dwell on the life of the story, to realize it, is to compare these motifs with similar motifs in other tales. It has been said that we do not see anything clearly until we compare it with another; and associating individual motifs of the tales makes the incidents stand out most clearly. Henny Penny's walk appears more distinctly in association with that of Medio Pollito or that of Drakesbill or of the Foolish Timid Rabbit; the fairy words in Sleeping Beauty and the good things they bestowed upon Briar Rose in association with the fairy wand in Cinderella and the good things it brought her; the visit of the Wolf in The Wolf and Seven Kids with the visit of the Wolf in Three Pigs and of the Fox in The Little Rid Hin. It is interesting to note that a clog motif, similar to the motif of shoes in The Elves and the Shoemaker, occurs in the Hindu Panch-Rhul Ranee, told in Old Deccan Days.
All the common motifs which occur in the fairy tales have been classified by Andrew Lang under these heads:--
(1) Bride or bridegroom who transgresses a mystic command.
(2) Penelope formula; one leaves the other and returns
later.
(3) Attempt to avoid Fate.
(4) Slaughter of monster.
(5) Flight, by aid of animal.
(6) Flight from giant or wizard.
(7) Success of youngest.
(8) Marriage test, to perform tasks.
(9) Grateful beasts.
(10) Strong man and his comrades.
(11) Adventure with Ogre, and trick.
(12) Descent to Hades.
(13) False bride.
(14) Bride with animal children.
From a less scientific view some of the common motifs noticeable in the fairy tales, which however would generally fall under one of the heads given by Lang, might be listed:--
(1) Child wandering into a home; as in Three Bears and
Snow White.
(2) Transformation; simple, as in Puss-in-Boots; by love,
as in Beauty and the Beast, by sprinkling with water,
as in Beauty and the Beast or by bathing, as in
Catskin; by violence, as in Frog Prince and White Cat.
(3) Tasks as marriage tests; as in Cinderella.
(4) Riddle test; as in Peter, Paul, and Espen; questions
asked, as in Red Riding Hood.
(5) Magic sleep; as in Sleeping Beauty.
(6) Magic touch; as in Golden Goose.
(7) Stupid person causing royalty to laugh; as in Lazy
Jack.
(8) Exchange; as in Jack and the Beanstalk.
(9) Curiosity punished; as in Bluebeard and Three Bears.
(10) Kindness to persons rewarded; as in Cinderella,
Little Two-Eyes, and The House in the Wood.
(11) Kindness to animals repaid; as in Thumbelina,
Cinderella, and White Cat.
(12) Industry rewarded; as in Elves and the Shoemaker.
(13) Hospitality rewarded; as in Tom Thumb.
(14) Success of a venture; as in Dick Whittington.
After studying the tale as folk-lore, know it as literature. Master it as a classic, test it as literature, to see wherein lies its appeal to the emotions, its power of imagination, its basis of truth, and its quality of form; study it as a short-story and view it as a piece of narration. It is rather interesting to note that you can get all there is in a tale from any one point of view. If you follow the sequence as setting, through association you get the whole, as may be seen by referring to Chanticleer and Partlet under the heading, "Setting," in the chapter on the "Short-Story." Or, if you follow the successive doings of the characters you get the whole, as may be observed in the story of Medio Pollito, described later in the "Animal Tale" in the chapter, "Classes of Tales." Or if you follow the successive happenings to the characters, the plot, you get the whole, as may appear in the outline of Three Pigs given in the chapter which handles "Plot." Note the beauty of detail and the quality of atmosphere with which the setting surrounds the tale; note the individual traits of the characters and their contrasts; observe how what each one does causes what happens to him. Realize your story from the three points of view to enter into the author's fullness. Get a good general notion of the story first.
3. The next step is: Master the complete structure of the tale. This is the most important step in the particular study of the tale, for it is the unity about which any perfection in the art of telling must center. To discern that repose of centrality which the main theme of the tale gives, to follow it to its climax and to its conclusion, where poetic justice leaves the listener satisfied--this is the most fundamental work of the story-teller. The teacher must analyze the structure of her tale into its leading episodes, as has been illustrated in the handling of structure, under the subject, "Plot," in the chapter on the "Short-Story."
4. The next step is: Secure the message of the tale. The message is what we wish to transmit, it is the explicit reason for telling the tale. And one evidently must possess a message before one can give it. As the message is the chief worth of the tale, the message should dominate the telling and pervade its life. A complete realization of the message of the tale will affect the minutest details giving color and tone to the telling, and resulting so that what the child does with the story will deepen the impression of the message he receives.
5. The next step is: Master the tale as form. This means that if the tale is in classic form, not only the message and the structure must be transmitted, but the actual words. Words are the artist's medium, Stevenson includes them in his pattern of style, and how can we exclude them if we wish to express what they have expressed? A tale like Kipling's The Elephant's Child would be ruined without those clinging epithets, such as "the wait-a-bit thorn-bush," "mere-smear nose, " "slushy squshy mud-cap," "Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake," and "satiable curiosity." No one could substitute other words in this tale; for contrasts of feeling and humor are so tied up with the words that other words would fail to tell the real story. If an interjection has seemed an insignificant part of speech, note the vision of tropical setting opened up by the exclamation, "O Bananas! Where did you learn that trick?" This is indeed a tale where the form is the matter, the form and the message are one complete whole that cannot be separated. But it is a proof that where any form is of sufficient perfection to be a classic form, you may give a modified tale by changing it, but you do not give the real complete tale. You cannot tell Andersen's Tin Soldier in your own words; for its sentences, its phrases, its sounds, its suggestive language, its humor, its imagination, its emotion, and its message, are so intricately woven together that you could not duplicate them.
When the fairy tale does not possess a settled classic form, select, as was mentioned, that version in which the language best conveys the life of the story, improving it yourself, if you can, in harmony with the standards of literature, until the day in the future when the tale may be fortunate enough to receive a settled form at the hands of a literary artist. Sometimes a slight change may improve greatly an old tale. In Grimm's Briar Rose the episode of the Prince and the old Man contains irrelevant material. The two paragraphs following, "after the lapse of many years there came a king's son into the country," easily may be re-written to preserve the same unity and simplicity which mark the rest of the tale. This individual retelling of an old tale demands a careful distinction between what is essential and internal and what may have been added, what is accidental and external. The clock-case in The Wolf and Seven Kids evidently is not a part of the original story, which arose before clocks were in use, and is a feature added in some German telling of the tale. It may be retained but it is not essential to the tale that it should be. Exact conversations and bits of dialogue, repetitive phrases, rhymes, concrete words which visualize, brief expressions, and Anglo-Saxon words--these are all bits of detail which need to be mastered in a complete acquirement of the story's form, because these are characteristics of the form which time has settled upon the old tales. Any literary form bestowed upon the tales worthy of the name literature, will have to preserve these essentials.
II. THE PRESENTATION OF THE TALE
In the oral presentation of the tale new elements of the teacher's preparation enter, for here the voice is the medium and the teacher must use the voice as the organist his keys. The aim of the oral presentation is to give the spiritual effect. This requires certain conditions of effectiveness--to speak with distinctness, to give the sense, and to cause to understand; and certain intellectual requirements--to articulate with perfection, to present successive thoughts in clear outline, and to preserve relative values of importance. The production of the proper effect necessitates placing in the foreground, with full expression, what needs emphasis, and throwing back with monotony or acceleration parts that do not need emphasis. It requires slighting subordinate, unimportant parts, so that one point is made and one total impression given. This results in that flexibility and lightsomeness of the voice, which is one of the most important features in the telling of the tale. The study of technique, when controlled by these principles of vocal expression, is not opposed to the art of story-telling any more than the painter's knowledge of color is opposed to his art of painting. To obtain complete control of the voice as an instrument of the mind, there is necessary-. (1) training of the voice; (2) exercises in breathing; (3) a knowledge of gesture; and (4) a power of personality.
(1) Training of the voice. This training aims to secure freedom of tone, purity of tone, fullness of tone, variety of volume, and tone-color. It will include a study of phonetics to give correct pronunciation of sounds and a knowledge of their formation; freeing exercises to produce a jaw which is not set, an open throat, a mobile lip, and nimble tongue; and exercises to get rid of nasality or throatiness. The art of articulation adds to the richness of meaning, it is the connection between sound and sense. Open sounds are in harmony with joy, and very distinct emotional effects are produced by arrangements of consonants. The effect created by the use of the vowels and consonants in The Spider and the Flea has already been referred to under "Setting." The open vowels of "On little Drumikin! Tum-pa, tum-too!" help to convey the impression of lightsome gaiety in Lambikin. The effect of power displayed by "Then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in," is made largely by the sound of the consonants ff and the n in the concluding in, the force of the rough u of huff and puff, and the prolonged o in blow. The effect of walking is produced by the p of "Trip, trap," and of varied walking by the change of vowel from i to a. The action of "I have come to gobble you up," is emphasized and made realistic by the bb of gobble and the p of up. Attention to the power of phonics to contribute to the emotional force and to the strength of meaning in the tale, will reveal to the story-teller many new beauties.
(2) Exercises in breathing. Training in breathing includes exercises to secure the regulation of proper breathing during speech and to point out the relation between breathing and voice expression. The correct use of the voice includes also ability to place tone.--Find out your natural tone and tell the story in that tone.--Many of the effects of the voice need to be dealt with from the inside, not externally. The use of the pause in story-telling is one of the subtlest and most important elements that contribute to the final effect. The proper placing of the pause will follow unconsciously as a consequence when the structure of the story is realized in distinct episodes and the proper emphasis given mentally to the most important details of action, while less emphasis in thought is given to subordinate parts. Therefore, the study of the pause must be made, not artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the paiise. Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music--those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation--is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in association with the complete realization of the life of the story. Genuine feeling is worth more than mere isolated exercises to secure modulation, and complete realization eliminates the necessity of "pretending to be." The study of the fairy tale as literature, as has been indicated in the chapter on "Principles of Selection", will therefore be fundamental to the presentation of the tale. Entering into the motives of the story gives action, entering into the thought gives form, and entering into the feeling gives tone-color to the voice. The sincere desire to share the thought will be the best aid to bring expression.
(3) A knowledge of gesture. The teacher must understand the laws of gesture. The body is one means of the mind's expression. There is the eloquence of gesture and of pose. The simplest laws of gesture may be stated:--
(a) All gesture precedes speech in proportion to the intense realization of emotion.
(b) All expression begins in the face and passes to some other agent of the body in proportion to the quality of the emotion. The eye leads In pointing.
(c) Hands and arms remain close to the body in gesture when intensity of emotion is controlled.
In regard to gesture, a Children's Library pamphlet, dealing with the purpose of story-telling, has said, "The object of the story-teller is to present the story, not in the way advocated usually in the schools, but to present it with as little dramatic excitement and foreign gesture as possible, keeping one's personality in the background and giving all prominence to the story itself, relying for interest in the story alone." The schools have perhaps been misinterpreted. It is clear that only that personality is allowable which interprets truly the story's life. The listening child must be interested in the life of the story, not in the storyteller; and therefore gesture, tone, or sentiment that is individual variation and addition to the story itself, detracts from the story, is foreign to its thought, and occupies a wrong place of prominence. It is possible to tell a story, however, just as the author tells it, and yet give it naturally by realizing it imaginatively and by using the voice and the body artistically, as means of expression.
(4) A power of personality. What rules shall be given for the making of that personality which is to bring with it force in the telling of the tale and which must override phonetics, inflection, and gesture?
The very best help towards acquiring that personality which is the power of story-telling, is to have a power of life gained through the experience of having lived; to have a power of emotion acquired through the exercise of daily affairs; a power of imagination won from having dwelt upon the things of life with intentness, a power of sympathy obtained from seeing the things of others as you meet them day by day; and a first-hand knowledge of the sights and sounds and beauties of Nature, a knowledge of bird and flower, tree and rock, their names and some of their secrets a knowledge accumulated from actual contact with the real physical world. This power of life will enable the story-teller to enter, at the same time, into the life of the story she tells, and the life of those listening, to see the gift of the one and the need of the other.
The ideal position for the story-teller is to be seated opposite the center of the semicircle of listeners, facing them. The extreme nearness of the group, when the teller seeks the fingers of the listeners to add force to the telling, seems an infringement upon the child's personal rights. A strong personality will make the story go home without too great nearness and will want to give the children a little room so that their thoughts may meet hers out in the story.
Suggestions for telling. Now that the teacher is ready to speak, her first step in the art of story-telling, which is the first step in the art of any teaching, which lies at the very foundation of teaching, which is the most important step, and which is the step that often is neglected, is the establishing of the personal relation between herself and the listener. This is one of those subtleties which evades measuring, but its influence is most lasting. It is the setting to the whole story of teaching. It must play so important a part because, as teacher and listener are both human beings, there must be between them a common bond of humanity. How do you wish to appear to this group of listeners? As a friend to be trusted, a brother or sister to give help, or as a good comrade to be played with; as "master, expert, leader, or servant"? If you wish to be as real and forceful as the characters in your story, you must do something which will cause the personal relation you desire, to be established; and moreover, having established it, you must live up to it, and prove no friend without faith. You must do this before you presume to teach or to tell a story. You need not do it before each individual story you present to a group you meet often; you may do it so effectively, with a masterstroke, at the beginning when you first meet your class, that all you need do at successive meetings will be but to add point to your first establishment.
A student-teacher, in telling a story to a group of kindergarten children who were complete strangers, and telling it to them as they sat in a semicircle in front of her comrades, adult students, established this personal relation by beginning to tell the little children her experience with the first telling of Three Bears to a little girl of four:--Seated before a sand-box in the yard, after hearing the story of Three Bears, M--- had been asked, "Wouldn't this be a good time for you to tell me the story?" In reply, she paused, and while the story-teller was expecting her to begin, suddenly said, "Do you think M---'s big enough for all that?" and refused to tell a word. Then turning to the group before her, the student-teacher made the direct appeal. "But you are the biggest little people in the kindergarten, and you wouldn't treat a story like that, would you?" The children, through the personal picture of friendly story-telling with a little child, that paralleled their own situation somewhat, immediately felt at home with the teller; it was just as if they were the same intimate friends with her that the little girl portrayed to them was. The human bond of good comradeship and intimacy was established. In the direct appeal at the end, the children were held up to an ideal they dare not disappoint, they must live up to their size, be able to get the story, and be the biggest little people in the kindergarten by showing what they could do with it. Again there was an undefined problem thrown at them, as it were--an element of wonder. They did not know just what was coming and they were mentally alert, waiting, on the lookout. The way for the story was open.--This is what you want, for no matter how perfect a gem of folk-lore you tell, it will fall heedless if the children do not listen to it.
The second step in the art of story-telling is one which grows naturally out of this first step. This second step, to put the story in a concrete situation for the child, to make the connection between the child and the literature you present, is the one which displays your unique power as an artist. It is the step which often is omitted and is the one which exercises all your individual ability and cleverness. It is the step which should speak comfort to the eager teacher of to-day, who is compelled to stand by, Montessori fashion, while many changing conceptions say to her: "Hands off! It is not what you do that helps the child develop; it is what he himself does!" Here at least is one of the teacher's chances to act. This step is the opening of the gateway so that the story you are about to tell may enter into the thoughts of your listeners. It is your means to organize the tale in the child's life. If in the school program you permit nature study, representing the central interest, to occupy the place of main emphasis, and if the game, occupation, and song work is related to the child's life, this organization of the child's tale in his life will be accomplished naturally.
In the example cited above, both the establishment of the personal relation and the placing of the story in a concrete situation, were managed partly at the one stroke. Your best help to furnish a concrete situation will be to preserve at the one end a symrathy for the life of your story and at the other to perceive the experience of the children in the listening group. Seeing both at once will result in a knowledge of what the children need most to make the story go home. If your children are good enough, and you and they sufficiently good friends to bear the fun of pantomime and the gaiety of hilarity, asking several boys, as they walk across the room before the children, to imitate some animals they had seen at a circus, and getting the children to guess the animal represented until they hit upon the elephant, would put certain children in a spirit of fun that would be exactly the wide-awake brightness and good humor needed to receive the story of The Elephant's Child. You can get children best into the story-telling mood by calling up ideas in line with the story. In the case of the story cited above, under the establishment of the personal relation, the story, The Brenten Town Musicians, was related to the child's experience by a few questions concerning kinds of music he knew, and what musician and kind of music the kindergarten had. In telling Andersen's Tin Soldier you must call up experience concerning a soldier, not only because of the relation of the toy to the real soldier, but because the underlying meaning of the tale is courage, and the emotional theme is steadfastness. And to preserve the proper unity between the tale and the telling of it, the telling must center itself in harmony with the message of the tale, its one dominant impression and its one dominant mood.
Every story told results in some return from the child. The teacher, in her presentation, must conceive the child's aim in listening. This does not mean that she forces her aim upon him. But it does mean that she makes a mental list of the child's own possible problems that the tale is best suited to originate, one of which the child himself will suggest. For the return should originate, not in imitation of what the teller plans, but spontaneously, as the child's own plan, answering to some felt need of his. But that does not prevent the story-teller from using her own imagination, and through it, from realizing what opportunities for growth the story presents, and what possible activities ought to be stimulated. A good guide will keep ahead of the children, know the possibilities of the material, and by knowledge and suggestion lead them to realize and accomplish the plans they crudely conceive. A consideration of these plans will modify the telling of the tale, and should be definitely thought about before the telling of the tale. A story told definitely to stimulate in the children dramatization, will emphasize action and dialogue; while one told to stimulate the painting of a water-color sketch, will emphasize the setting of the tale.
The telling of the tale. With this preparation, directions seem futile. The tale should tell itself naturally. You must begin at the beginning, as your tale will if you have selected a good one. You must tell it simply, as your tale will have simplicity if it is a good one, and your telling must be in harmony with the tale you tell. You will tell it with joy; of course, if there is joy in it, or beauty, which is a "joy forever," or if you are giving joy to your listeners. Tell it, if possible, with a sense of bestowing a blessing, and a delicate perception of the reception it meets in the group before you, and the pleasure and interest it arouses in them, so that in the telling there is that human setting which is a quickening of the spirit and a union of ideas, which is something quite new and different from the story, yet born of the story.
The re-creative method of story-telling. This preparation for telling here described will result in a fundamental imitation of the author of the story. By participating in the life of the story; by realizing it as folklore; by realizing it as literature--its emotion, its imagination, its basis of truth, its message, its form; by paying conscious attention to the large units of the structure, the exact sequence of the Plot, the characters, and the setting, the particular details of description, and the unique word--the story-teller reproduces the author's mode of thinking. She does with her mind what she wishes the child to do with his. With the very little child in the kindergarten and early first grade, who analyzes but slightly, this results consciously in a clear notion of the story, which shows itself in the child's free re-telling of the story as a whole. He may want to tell the story or he may not. Usually he enjoys re-telling it after some lapse of time; perhaps he tells it to himself, meanwhile. With the older child, who analyzes more definitely, this results in a retelling which actually reproduces the teller's mode of thinking. If persisted in, it gives to one's mode of thinking, the story-mode, just as nature study gives to life the nature point of view. This mode of thinking is the mode of re-creation, of realization. It re-experiences the life, it reaches the processes of the mind, and develops free mind movement. It is a habit of thinking, and is at the basis of reading, which is thinking through symbols; at the basis of the memorization of poetry, which must first see the pictures the poet has portrayed; it is the best help toward the adult study of literature, and the narration of history and geography. It is the power to conceive a situation, which is most useful in science, mathematics, and the reasoning of logic. "For," says Professor John Dewey, "the mind which can make independent judgments, look at facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with simplicity, is the perennial power in the world."
This re-creative method of fundamental imitation was illustrated in the telling of Andersen's Princess and the Pea, in a student-teacher's class:--
The story was told by the Professor. After the telling of the story it was decided to have the story told again, but this time in parts and by those who had listened, in such a way that it would seem as if one person were telling the whole story.
The, Professor named the first part of the story. A student was asked to tell the story from the beginning to the end of the Prince's coming home again, sad at heart. Another student told the second part, beginning with the storm and ending with what the old Queen thought. A third student told the third part, beginning with the next morning and ending with the close of the story, Now this is a true story.
The Professor next asked students to think over the entire story, to see if each student could find any weak places in the remembering of the story. Several students reported difficulty--one failed to remember the exact description of the storm. A number of details were thus filled in, in the exact words of the author. After this intimate handling of the separate parts of the story, a final re-telling by one student--omitted in this case because of lack of time--would bring together what had been contributed by individual students, and would represent the final re-creation of the entire story.
The simplicity of this selection, the simplicity of the plot, the few characters, the literary art of the story, the skillful use of the unique word, the art of presenting distinct pictures by means of vivid words, through suggestion rather than through illustration, together with the delicate humor that hovered about the tale, and the art of the Professor's telling--all combined in the final effect. The re-telling of the story in parts accomplished the analysis of the story into three big heads:--
(1) From The Prince who wanted a real Princess . . . to his return home.
(2) From The storm, one dark evening . . . to what the old Queen thought.
(3) From What the Queen did next morning . . . to the end of the story.
In the analysis of the story into parts, telling exactly what happened gave the framework of the story, gave its basis of meaning. Telling it in three steps gave a strong sense of sequence and a vivid conception of climax.--If the division into parts for re-telling corresponds with the natural divisions of the plot into its main episodes, this telling in steps impresses the structure of the tale and is in harmony with the real literary mastery of the story.--The re-telling of each part drew attention to the visualization of that part. Each hesitation on behalf of a student telling a part, led the class to fill in the details for themselves, and impressed the remembrance of the exact words of the author. This resulted in the mastery of each part through a visualization of it. Hand in hand with the visualization came the feeling aroused by the realization. This was more easily mastered because changes of feeling were noticeable in passing from one part of the story to another.
After a mastery of the structure of the story through analysis, after a mastery of the thought, imagination, and feeling of the story, after a mastery of the form, and the exact words of the author in the description of details embodied in that form, the story is possessed as the teller's own, ready to be given, not only to bestow pleasure, as in this case, but often to transmit a message of worth and to preserve a classic form.
The Foolish Timid Rabbit, a Jataka tale, might be prepared for telling by this same re-creative method of storytelling. It must be remembered--and because of its importance it will bear repetition,--that the separation of the story-structure into parts for separate telling should always be in harmony with the divisions of the plot so that there may be no departure from the author's original mode of thinking, and no break in the natural movement of sequence. A separation of the tale into parts for re-telling would result in the following analysis: --
(1) Rabbit asleep under a palm tree . . . to his meeting hundreds of Rabbits.
(2) Rabbits met a Deer . . . to when the Elephant joined them.
(3) Lion saw the animals running . . . to when he came to the Rabbit who first had said the earth was all breaking up.
(4) Lion asked the Foolish Rabbit, 'Is it true the earth is all breaking up,' to end of the story, 'And they all stopped running.'
After the re-telling of these parts, each part should be filled in with the exact details so that in the final re-telling practically the whole tale is reproduced. This is a very good tale to tell by this method because the theme is attractive, the plot is simple, the sequence a very evident movement, the characters distinctive, the setting pleasing and rather prominent, and the details sufficiently few and separate to be grasped completely. The final re-telling therefore may be accomplished readily as a perfected result of this method of telling a tale.
During the telling, the charm here is in preserving the typical bits of dialogue, giving to the Lion's words that force and strength and sagacity which rank him the King of the Beasts. One must feet clearly the message and make this message enter into every part of the telling: That the Lion showed his superior wisdom by making a stand and asking for facts, by accepting only what he tested; while the Rabbit showed his credulity by foolishly accepting what he heard without testing it.
Adaptation of the fairy tale. Sometimes, in telling a story one cannot tell it exactly as it is. This may be the case when the story is too long for a purpose, or if it contains matter which had better be omitted, or if it needs to be amplified. In any case one must follow these general rules:--
(1) Preserve the essential story from a single point of view.
(2) Preserve a clear sequence with a distinct climax.
(3) Preserve a simplicity of plot and simple language.
In shortening a long story one may--
(1) Eliminate secondary themes.
(2) Eliminate extra personages.
(3) Eliminate passages of description.
(4) Eliminate irrelevant events.
It has been the practice to adapt such stories as Andersen's Ugly Duckling and Ruskin's King of the Golden River. In the King of the Golden River the description of Treasure Valley could be condensed into a few sentences and the character of South West Wind omitted; and in The Ugly Duckling, passages of description and bits of philosophy might be left out. But there is no reason why literature in the elementary school should be treated with mutilation. These stories are not suited to the kindergarten or first grade and may be reserved for the third and fourth grades where they may be used and enjoyed by the children as they are.
Andersen's Thumbelina might be adapted for kindergarten children because it is suitable for them yet it is very long. It could easily be analyzed into its leading episodes, each episode making a complete tale, and one or more episodes be told at one time. This would have the added attraction for the child of having one day's story follow naturally the preceding story. Adapted thus, the episodes would be: --
(1) Thumbelina in her Cradle.
(2) Thumbelina and the Toad.
(3) Thumbelina and the Fishes.
(4) Thumbelina and the Cockchafer in the tree.
(5) Thumbelina and the Field-Mouse.
(6) Thumbelina and the Mole.
(7) Thumbelina and the Swallow.
(8) Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers.
Andersen's Snow Man as adapted for the kindergarten would require the episode of the lover omitted. It is irrelevant, not essential to the story, and is an illustrallon of the sentimental, which must be omitted when we use Andersen. To omit this episode one would cut out from "'That is wonderfully beautiful,' said a young girl," to the end of "‘Why, they belong to the Master,' retorted the Yard Dog."
III. THE RETURN FROM THE CHILD
The telling of the fairy tale is one phase of the teacher's art. And it is maintained that fairy tales are one portion of subject-matter suited to accomplish the highest greatness of the teaching art. For teaching is an art, an art of giving suggestions, of bearing influences, of securing adjustments, an art of knowing the best and of making it known. The material the artist works upon is the living child. The medium the artist uses is subject-matter. In the process the artist must ask, "What new connections or associations am I establishing in the child?" "To what power of curiosity and of problem-solving do these connections and associations lead?" The ideal which guides the teacher is the child's best self as she can interpret him. This ideal will be higher and larger than the child himself can know. In the manipulation of subject-matter, through the practical application of principles, the artist aims to have the child awake, inquire, plan, and act, so that under her influences he grows by what he thinks, by what he feels, by what he chooses, and by what he achieves.
Teaching will be good art when the child's growth is a perfect fit to the uses of his life, when subject-matter brings to him influences he needs and can use. Teaching will be good art when it breaks up old habits, starts new ones, strengthens good traits, and weakens bad ones; when it gives a new attitude of cheerfulness in life or of thoughtfulness for others or of reason in all things. It will be good art when under it the child wants to do something and learns how to do it. Teaching will be great art when under it the child continually attains self-activity, self-development, and self-consciousness, when he continually grows so that he may finally contribute his utmost portion to the highest evolution of the race. Teaching will be great art when it touches the emotions of the child,--when history calls forth a warm indignation against wrong, when mathematics strengthens a noble love of truth or literature creates a strong satisfaction in justice. This is the poetry of teaching, because mere subject-matter becomes a criticism of life. Teaching will be great art when you, the teacher, through the humble means of your presentation of subject-matter, furnish the child at the same time with ideas, perceptions, and opinions which are your personal criticism of life. Teaching will be great art when you, the teacher, have worked up into your own character a portion of life which is of value, so that the child coming in touch with you knows an influence more powerful than anything you can do or say. Teaching will then awaken in the child a social relation of abiding confidence, of secure trust, of faith unshakable. And this relation will then create for the teacher the obligation to keep this trust inviolable, to practice daily, noblesse oblige. Teaching will be great art when with the subject-matter the artist gives love, a great universal kindness that thinks not of itself but, being no respecter of persons, looks upon each child in the light of that child's own best realization. This penetrating sympathy, this great understanding, will call forth from the child an answering love, which grows daily into a larger humanity of soul until the child, in time too, comes to have a universal sympathy. This is the true greatness of teaching. This it is which brings the child into harmony with the Divine love which speaks in all God's handiwork and brings him into that unity with God which is the mystery of Froebel's teaching.
During the story-telling one must ask, "In all this what is the part the child has to play?" In the telling the teacher has aimed to give what there is in the tale. The child's part is to receive what there is in the tale, the emotion, the imagination, the truth, and the form embodied in the tale. The content of feeling, of portrayal, of truth, and of language he receives, he will in some way transmit before the school day is ended, even if in forms obscure and hidden. Long years afterwards, he may exhibit this same emotion, imagination, truth and form, in deeds that proclaim loudly the return from his fairy tales. However, if the child is being surrounded by pragmatic influences through his teachers he will soon become aware that his feelings are useless unless he does something because of them; that what he sees is worthless unless he sees to some purpose; that it is somewhat fruitless to know the truth and not use it; and if words have in their form expressed the life of the tale, he is more dead than words not to express the life that teems within his own soul. The little child grows gradually into the responsibility for action, for expression, into a consciousness of purpose and a knowledge of his own problems. But each opportunity he is given to announce his own initiative breaks down the inhibition of inaction and aids him to become a free achieving spirit. As the child listens to the tale he is a thinking human creature; but in the return which he makes to his tale he becomes a quickened creator. The use which he makes of the ideas he has gained through his fairy tales, will be the work of his creative imagination.
Fairy tales, though perfectly ordinary subject-matter, may become the means of the greatest end in education, the development in the child of the power of consciousness. The special appeal to the various powers and capacities of the child mind, such as emotion, imagination, memory, and reason, here have been viewed separately. But in life action the mind is a unit. Thinking is therefore best developed through subject-matter which focuses the various powers of the child. The one element which makes the child manipulate his emotion, imagination, memory, and reason, is the presence of a problem. The problem is the best chance for the child to secure the adjustment of means to ends. This adjustment of means to ends in a problem situation, is real thinking and is the use of the highest power of which man is capable, that of functional consciousness. The real need of doing things is the best element essential to the problem. Through a problem which expresses such a genuine need, to learn to know himself, to realize his capacities and his limitations, and to secure for himself the evolution of his own character until it adapts, not itself to its environment, but its environment to its own uses and masters circumstances for its own purposes this is the high hill to which education must look, "from which cometh its strength." The little child, in listening to a fairy tale, in seeing in it a problem of real need, and in working it out, may win some of this strength. We have previously seen that fairy tales, because of their universal elements, are subject-matter rich in possible problems.
During the story-telling what is the part the child has to play? The part of the child in all this may be to listen to the story because he has some problem of his own to work out through the literature, because he has some purpose of his own in listening, because he enjoys the story and wishes to find out what there is in it, or because he expects it to show him what he may afterwards wish to do with it. In any case the child's part is to see the characters and what they do, to follow the sequence of the tale, and to realize the life of the story through the telling. He may have something to say about the story at the close of the telling, he may wish to compare its motifs with similar motifs in other tales, or he may wish to talk about the life exhibited by the story. The various studies of the curriculum every day are following more closely the Greek ideal and giving the child daily exercise to keep the channels of expression free and open. And when the well-selected fairy tale which is art is told, through imitation and invention it awakens in the child the art-impulse and tends to carry him from appreciation to expression. If before the telling the story-teller has asked herself, "What variety of creative reaction will this tale arouse in the child?" and if she has told the story in the way to bring forward the best possibility for creative reaction the nature of the tale affords, she will help to make clear to the child what he himself will want to do with the story. She will help him to see a way to use the story to enter into his everyday life. The return of creative reaction possible to the child will be that in harmony with his natural instincts or large general interests. These instincts, as indicated by Professor John Dewey, in The School and Society, are: (1) the instinct of conversation or communication; (2) the instinct of inquiry or finding out things; (3) the instinct of construction or making things; and (4) the instinct of artistic expression or [of imitating and combining things].
(1) The instinct of conversation. The little child likes to talk. If you have ever listened to a little girl of five artlessly proceeding to tell a story, such as Little Black Sambo, which she had gathered from looking at a neighbor's book, but which she had not yet mastered sufficiently to grasp its central theme, reiterating the particular incidents with the enthusiasm and joy and narrative tone of the story-teller, you realized how the child likes to talk. For there appeared the charm of the story-telling mode distinct from the story it told.
Because of this instinct of conversation one form of creative reaction may be language expression. The oral reproduction of the story re-experiences the story anew. The teacher may help here by creating a situation for the re-telling. A teacher might put a little foreign boy through rapid paces in learning English by selecting a story like The Sparrow and the Crow and by managing that in the re-telling the little foreigner would be the Crow who makes the repetitive speeches, who must go to the Pond and say:--
Your name, sir, is Pond
And my name is Crow,
Please give me some water,
For if you do so
I can wash and be neat,
And the nice soup can eat,
Though I really don't know
What the sparrow can mean,
I'm quite sure, as crows go,
I'm remarkably clean.
As the Crow must go to the Deer, the Cow, the Grass, and the Blacksmith, and each time varies the beginning of his speech, four other children could represent the Crow successively, thus bringing in a social element which would relieve any one child's timidity. By that time any group of children would realize the fun they could get by playing out the simple tale; and there would be petitions to be the Deer, the Cow, etc. If the teacher sees that the characters place themselves as they should, carry out the parts naturally, and that the Crow begs with the correct rhyme, she is performing her legitimate task of suggestion and criticism that works toward developing from the first attempts of children, a good form in harmony with the story. Here, while there is free play, the emphasis is on the speeches of rhyme, so that the reaction is largely a language expression. The language expression is intimately related to all varieties of expression of which the child is capable, and may be made to dominate and use any of them, or be subordinated to them.
A most delightful form of creative reaction possible to the child in language expression, is the formation of original little stories similar to the "Toy Stories" written by Carolyn Bailey for the Kindergarten Review during 1915. A story similar to "The Little Woolly Dog" might be originated by the little child about any one of his toys. This would be related to his work with fairy tales because in such a story the child would be imitating his accumulative tales; and the adventures given the toy would be patterned after the familiar adventures of his tales.
A form of creative reaction, which will be a part of the language return given by the first-grade child from the telling of the tale, will be his reading of the tale. When the child re-experiences the life of the story as has been described, his mental realization of it will be re-creative, and his reading the tale aloud afterwards will be just as much a form of re-creative activity as his re-telling of the tale. The only difference is, that in one case the re-creative activity is exercised by thinking through symbols, while in the other case it is employed without the use of a book. This concentration on the reality brings about the proper relation of reading to literature. It frees literature from the slavery to reading which it has been made to serve, yet it makes literature contribute more effectively toward good reading than it has done in the past.
(2) The instinct of inquiry. No more predominating trait proclaims itself in the child than the instinct of inquiry. Every grown-up realizes his habit of asking questions, which trait Kipling his idealized delightfully in The Elephant's Child. We know also that the folk-tale in its earliest beginnings was the result of primitive man's curiosity toward the actual physical world about him, its sun and sky, its mountain and its sea. The folk-tale therefore is the living embodiment of the child's instinct of inquiry permanently recorded in the adventures and surprises of the folk-tale characters. And because the folk-tale is so pervaded with this quest of the ages in search of truth, and because the child by nature is so deeply imitative, the folk-tale inherently possesses an educational value to stir and feed original impulses of investigation and experiment. This is a value which is above and beyond its more apparent uses.
In the creative reaction to be expected from the child's use of fairy tales the expression of this instinct of investigation unites with the instinct of conversation, the instinct of construction, and the instinct of artistic expression. In fact, it is the essence of creative reaction in any form, whether in the domain of the Industrial Shop, the Domestic Science Kitchen, the Household Arts' Sewing-Room, or the Fine Arts' Studio. To do things and then see what happens, is both the expression of this instinct and the basis of any creative return the child makes through his handling of the fairy tale. In the formation of a little play such as is given on page 149, the instinct of conversation is expressed in the talk of the Trees to the little Bird. But this talk of the Trees also expresses doing things to see what happens; each happening to the Bird, each reply of a Tree to the Bird, influences each successive doing of the Bird. After the Story of Medio Pollito all the child's efforts of making Little Half-Chick into a weathervane and of fixing the directions to his upright shaft, will be expressions of the search for the unknown, of the instinct of experiment. After the story of The Little Elves, the dance of the Elves to the accompaniment of music will represent an expression of the artistic instinct; but it also represents expression of the instinct for the new and the untried. After the dance is finished the child has seen himself do something he had not done before. This union of the instinct of inquiry with that of artistic expression shows itself most completely in the entire dramatization of a fairy tale.
(3) The instinct of construction. In his industrial work the very youngest child is daily exercising his active tendency to make things. In the kindergarten he may make the toy with which he plays, the doll-house and its furnishings, small clay dishes, etc. In the first grade he may make small toy animals, baskets, paper hats, card-board doll-furniture, little houses, bookcovers, toys, ete. Self-expression, self-activity, and constructive activity would all be utilized, and the work would have more meaning to the child, if it expressed some idea, if after the story of Three Bears the child would make the Bears' kitchen, the table of wood, and the three porridge bowls of clay, or the Bears' hall with the three chairs. In the Grimm tale, Sweet Rice Porridge, after the story has been told and before the re-telling, children would like to make a clay porridge pot, which could be there before them in the re-telling. Perhaps they would make the rice porridge also, and put some in the pot, for little children are very fond of making things to eat, and domestic science has descended even into the kindergarten. After the story of Chanticleer and Partlet, children would enjoy making a little wagon and harnessing to it a Duck, and putting in it the Cock and the Hen, little animals they have made. In the first grade, after the story of Sleeping Beauty, children would naturally take great pleasure in making things needed to play the story: the paper silver and gold crowns of the maids and Princess and the Prince's sword. After the story of Medio Pollito, we have noted with what special interest children might make a weathervane, with Little Half-Chick upon it!
(4) The instinct of artistic expression. This is the instinct of drawing, painting, paper-cutting, and crayon-sketching, the instinct of song, rhythm, dance, and game, of free play and dramatization.
(a) One form of artistic creative reaction will be the cutting of free silhouette pictures. The child should attempt this with the simplest of the stories which are suited for drawing, painting, or crayon-sketching. He loves to represent the animals he sees every day; and the art work should direct this impulse and show him how to do it so that he may draw or cut out a dog, a cat, a sheep, or a goat; or simple objects, as a broom, a barrel, a box, a table, and a chair. The Bremen Town Musicians, while offering a fine opportunity for dramatization, also might stimulate the child to cut out the silhouettes of the Donkey, the Dog, the Cat, and the Cock, to draw the window of the cottage and to place the animals one on top of another, looking in the window. The beautiful picture-books illustrating his fairy tales, which the child may see, will give him many ideas of drawing and sketching, and help him to arrange his silhouettes. A recent primer, The Pantomime Primer, will give the child new ideas in silhouettes. Recent articles in the Kindergarten Review will give the teacher many helpful suggestions along the line of expression. In the May number, 1915, in Illustrated Stories, the story of "Ludwig and Marleen," by Jane Hoxie, is shown as a child might illustrate it with paper-cutting.--A class of children were seen very pleasantly intent on cutting out of paper a basket filled with lovely tinted flowers. But how attractive that same work would have become if the basket had been Red Riding Hood's basket and they were being helped by an art-teacher to show peeping out of her basket the cake and pot of butter, with the nosegay tucked in one end. A very practical problem in papercutting would arise in any room when children desire to make a frieze to decorate the front wall. The Old Woman and her Pig, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, The Little Red Hen, The Story of Three Pigs, The Story of Three Bears, and Little Top-Knot, would be admirably adapted for simple work.
(b) The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean is most likely to stir the child's impulse to draw. Leslie Brooke's illustration in The House in the Wood might aid a child who wanted to put some fun into his representation. Birdie and Lena or Fundevogel, is a story that naturally would seek illustration. Three crayon-sketches, one of a rosebush and a rose, a second of a church and a steeple, and a third of a pond and a duck, would be enough to suggest the tale.
(c) The Story of the Wolf and Seven Kids, if told with the proper emphasis on the climax of triumph and conclusion of joy, would lead the child to react with a water-color sketch of the dance of the Goat and her Kids about the well. For here you have all the elements needed for a simple picture--the sky, the full moon, the hill-top, the well, and the animals dancing in a ring. After finishing their sketches the children would enjoy comparing them with the illustration of Der Wolf und die Sieben Geislein in Das Deutsche Bilderbuch, and perhaps they might try making a second sketch. This same tale would afford the children a chance to compose a simple tune and a simple song, such as the well-taught kindergarten child to-day knows. Such are songs which express a single theme and a single mood; as, The Muffin Man and To the Great Brown House; or There was a Small Boy with a Toot and Dapple Gray in St. Nicholas Songs. In this tale of The Wolf and Seven Kids, the conclusion impresses a single mood of joy and the single theme of freedom because the Wolf is dead. The child could produce a very simple song of perhaps two lines, such as,--
Let's sing and dance! Hurrah, hurrah!
The Wolf is dead! Hurrah!
(d) It is a little difficult to get down to the simplicity of the little girl who will play her own tune upon the piano and sing to it just the number of the house in which she lives, repeating it again and again. But the child can compose little songs that will please him, and he can use, too, in connection with the tales, some of the songs that he knows. The first-grade child could work into Snow White and Rose Red, "Good morrow, little rosebush," and into Little Two-Eyes a lullaby such as "Sleep, baby, sleep." Later in Hansel and Grethel he may learn some of the simple songs that have been written for Hansel and Grethel to sing to the birds when they spend the night in the wood. In Snow White he may learn some of the songs written for the children's play, Snow White. In connection with music, the kindergarten child learns to imitate the sounds of animals, the sound of bells, whistles, the wind, etc. All this will cause him to react, so that when these occur in his stories he will want to make them.
(e) One of the forms of creative reaction possible to the child as a variety of expression, which has received attention most recently, has been handled by Miss Caroline Crawford in Rhythm Plays of Childhood; and by Miss Carol Oppenheimer in "Suggestions Concerning Rhythm Plays," in the Kindergarten Review, April and May, 1915. Here again the fairy tales cannot be excelled in abundant situations for rhythm plays. The sea, the wind, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars--all nature is rich in suggestion of rhythms. The social situations furnish the rhythm of simple housekeeping tasks. In Snow White and Rose Red there are the rhythms of fishing and of chasing animals. In The Elves we have the rhythm of shoemaking and in The Straw Ox, the rhythm of spinning. The story of Thumbelina, after its eight episodes have been re-told by the children, might very attractively be re-told in eight rhythms, each rhythm expressing a single episode. And for the oldest children, a union of the oral re-telling by individual children with the re-telling in rhythms by all the children, would give much pleasure and social exhilaration. Thumbelina in her Cradle, Thumbelina and the Toad, Thumbelina and the Swallow and Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers--these at once suggest a cradle rhythm, a toad rhythm, the flight of birds, and a butterfly dance. Because the rhythm is a lyric form it must be remembered that the part of a story suited to a rhythm play is always a part characterized by a distinct emotional element. In the performance of rhythm plays the point is to secure the adjustment of music, motion, and idea.
(f) Many of the fairy tales might arouse in the child a desire to originate a game, especially if he were accustomed to originate games in the regular game work. A modification of the game of tag might grow from Red Riding Hood and a pleasant ring game easily might develop from Sleeping Beauty. In fact there is a traditional English game called "Sleeping Beauty." An informal ring game which would be somewhat of a joke, and would have the virtue of developing attention, might grow from The Tin Soldier. The Tin Soldier stands in the center while the circle is formed of Jack-in-the-boxes, with lids closed. The Tin Soldier turns round and round slowly, and when he stops looks steadily at a certain Jack-in-the-box, whereupon the Jack must bob up and retort, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The Jack and Soldier then change places. Any Jack failing to open when looked at forfeits his place in the ring. Some games derived from folk-tales were given in the Delineator, November, 1914. These could not be used by the youngest without adaptation; they suggest a form of fun that so far as I know has been undeveloped.
(g) The artistic creative return of the child may sometimes take the form of objectification or representation. The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a model of the literary fairy tale which gives a stimulus to the child to represent his fairy tale objectively. As straightforward narrative it ranks high. Its very first clause is the child's point of view: "There were five and twenty tin soldiers"; for the child counts his soldiers. Certainly the theme is unique and the images clear-cut. It makes one total impression and it has one emotional tone to which everything is made to contribute. Its message of courage and its philosophy of life, which have been mentioned previously, are not so insignificant even if the story does savor of the sentimental. Its structure is one single line of sequence, from the time this marvelous soldier was stood up on the table, until he, like many another toy, was thrown into the fire. The vivid language used gives vitality to the story, the words suit the ideas, and often the words recall a picture or suggestion; as, "The Soldier fell headlong," "trod," "came down in torrents," "boat bobbed," "spun round," "clasped his gun ... .. boat shot along," "blinked his eyes," etc. The method of suggestion by which an object is described through its effect on some one else, produces a very pleasing result here. You see the steadfast look of the Tin Soldier's eyes when the Jack-in-the-box says, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The position of the Soldier in the street is given through the exclamation of the little boys who see him--"Look! there lies a Tin Soldier, let us give him a sail in the gutter!"
The setting in this story is a table in a sitting-room and the playthings on the table. The characters are two playthings. After the first telling of this story the child naturally would like to represent it. The story has made his playthings come alive and so he would like to make them appear also. This is a tale in which representation, after the first telling, will give to the child much pleasure and will give him a chance to do something with it cooperatively. He can reproduce the setting of this tale upon a table in a schoolroom. Each child could decide what is needed to represent the story and offer what he can. One child could make the yard outside the castle of green blotting-paper. Another child could furnish a mirror for the lake, another two toy green trees, one two wax swans, one a box of tin soldiers, another a jack-in-the-box, while the girls might dress a paper doll for a tinsel maid. The teacher, instructed by the class, might make a castle of heavy gray cardboard, fastening it together with heavy brass paper-fasteners and cutting out the door, windows, and tower. It is natural for children to handle playthings; and when a story like this is furnished the teacher should not be too work-a-day to enter into its play-spirit. After the representation objectively, the re-telling of the tale might be enjoyed. The child who likes to draw might tell this story also in a number of little sketches: The Jacle-in-the-box, The Window, The Boat, The Rat, The Fish, and The Fire. Or a very simple little dramatic dance and song might be invented, characterized by a single mood and a single form of motion, something like this, sung to the tune of " Here we go round the mulberry bush, etc": --
See the trees with roses gay,
Fairy roses, fairy roses, etc.
Elves and Goblins might surround the Beast when dying. The change of scene from the simple home of Beauty to the rich castle of the Beast, and the change of costume, would furnish ainple opportunity for original artistic work from older students. For the little child it is good to see the familiar dignified with art and beauty; and for the older student the imagination works more freely when dealing with rather simple and familiar elements such as the folk-tale offers. Cinderella, like Beauty and the Beast, offers abundant opportunity to the high school student for a play or pantomime which it would be good for the little people to see. The stately ininuet and folk-dances of different peoples may be worked into the ball-scene. And here, too, the beautiful picture-books will suggest features of costume and scenery.
(2) Dramatization may develop boldness in a child. The tendency is to use children with good dramatic ability continually for leading parts, even when the children choose the parts. This fault may be counteracted by distinguishing between work for growth and one or two rather carefully prepared plays to be given on special occasions. It is also counteracted by looking well to the social aspect of the play, by introducing features such as the song, dance, or game, where all have a part, or by adding attractive touches to less important parts, so that while a character may still be leading it will have no reason to feel over-important. This danger is not prominent until after the first grade.
(3) Dramatization may spoil some selections. Beautiful descriptions which make a tale poetic are not to be represented, and without them a tale is cheapened. Such is the case with The King of the Golden River and The Ugly Duckling. Care should be exercised to choose for dramatization only what is essentially dramatic and what is of a grade suited to the child. Tales suited to the little child are largely suited for dramatization.
(4) Dramatization has omitted to preserve a sequence in the selections used from year to year. A sequence in dramatization will follow naturally as the tales offered from year to year show a sequence in the variety of interests they present and the opportunities for growth and activity they offer. Plays most suited to the kindergarten are those which do not require a complete re-telling of the story in the acting, so that the child need not say so much. Such are stories like The Old Woman and Her Pig, Henny Penny, The Foolish Timid Rabbit, Little Tuppen, Three Billy-Goats, Johnny Cake, and Billy Bobtail. When the course of literature in the elementary school gets its content organized, the sequence of dramatization will take care of itself.
Dramatization has one rather unusual virtue:-- -
(1) Dramatization may be used to establish a good habit. An indolent child may be given the part of the industrious child in the play. At first the incongruity will amuse him, then it will support his self-respect or please his vanity, then it will prove to him the pleasure of being industrious, and finally stimulate the desire to be that which before he was not. It may build a habit and, if repeated, fortify one. This is the true "Direct Moral Method." The so-called "Direct Moral Method," advocated by Dr. Gould, an English educator, which in telling a story separates the moral from the tale to emphasize it and talk about it, leaves the child a passive listener with only a chance to say "Yes" or "No" or a single word in answer to the moral questions. It is unnatural because it directs the child's attention away from the situation, action, and people which interest him. It does not parallel life in which morals are tied up with conduct. One must ask, "According to this method what will the child recall if his mind reverts to the story--courage, or the variety of images from the number of short-stories told to impress the abstract moral idea of courage?" Dramatization like life represents character in the making and therefore helps to make character.
Illustrations of creative return. Let us look now at a few tales illustrating the creative return possible to the child. The Country Mouse and the City Mouse is an animal tale that offers to the kindergarten child a chance to prove how intensely he enters into the situation by the number of details he will improvise and put into his dramatization in representing life in the country and life in the city. The good feast atmosphere in this tale pleases little children and suits it to their powers. It is a fine tale to unite the language expression and dramatization. It is especially suited to call forth reaction from the child also in the form of drawing or crayon sketching. Here it is best for the child to attempt typical bits. Complete representation tires him and it is not the method of art, which is selective. The field of corn and two mice may be shown in the country scene; and a table with cheese, some plates filled with dainties, and two mice in the city scene. Here again this return relates itself to the presentation of the tale as literature. For if the story has been presented so as to make the characters, the plot, and the setting stand out, the child naturally will select these to portray in a sketch. In his expression the child will represent what he chooses, but the teacher by selecting from among the results the one which is of most value, leads him to a better result in a following attempt. It is the teacher's selection among the results of activity that brings about development. Freedom with guidance is no less free, but it is freedom under that stimulation which helps the child to make more of himself than he knew was possible.--The kindergarten would proclaim to the Montessori System the place of guidance of freedom in the child's growth.
The Elves and the Shoemaker offers to a first grade a pleasing opportunity for the fairy tale to unite with the dramatic game. One child may act as narrator, standing to tell the story from the beginning to the end of the evening's conversation, "I should like to sit up tonight and see who it is that makes the shoes." At this point, noiselessly a dozen or more Elves may troop in, and seating themselves sing and act the first part of the Dramatic Game of Little Elves, one form of which is given by Miss Crawford. After they have stitched, rapped, and tapped quickly, and the shoes are made, they depart hurriedly. The narrator now continues the story, telling how the Shoemaker and his wife made little clothes for the Elves, ending with what happened on Christmas Eve, when they put the gay jackets and caps on the table and hid in the corner to watch. At this point the Elves come in a second time, donning their new clothes; and sing and dance the second part of the dramatic game. As they dance out of sight the narrator concludes the story. If the primary children made these clothes or if the kindergarten children bought them at Christmas time to give to the poor, the play I would take on a real human value.
Sleeping Beauty, another tale suited to the first grade, is admirably adapted for dramatization.--In all this work the children do the planning but the teacher directs their impulses, criticizes their plans, and shows them what they have done. She leads them to see the tale in the correct acts and scenes, to put together what belongs together. Sleeping Beauty naturally outlines itself into the ten main incidents we have noted before. If the story has been presented according to the standards given here, the children will see the story in those main incidents. In the dramatization they might work together narration of the story and the dramatic game, Dornroschen. A wide circle of children might be the chorus while the players take their places in the center of the circle. The narrator, one of the circle, stands apart from it as he narrates. The version here used is the McLoughlin one, illustrated by Johann and Leinweber.
Sleeping Beauty
Place: Castle. King, Queen, and courtiers take their places within the circle. The circle moves to waltz step, singing stanza 1, of the dramatic game:--
The Princess was so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, etc.
At the conclusion of stanza 1, the circle stops, the narrator steps forth and tells the story to the end of the words, "one had to stay at home."
Scene i. The Feast. Twelve fairies enter, each presenting her gift and making a speech. The wicked thirteenth comes in and pronounces her curse, and the twelfth fairy softens it to sleep. The King proclaims his decree, that all spindles in the land be destroyed.
Scene ii. The Attic. Princess goes to the attic. Old lady sits spinning. Princess pricks herself and falls asleep. Narration begins with "The King and Queen who had just come in fell asleep," and ends with "not a leaf rustled on the trees around the castle." At the close of the narration, the circle moves, singing stanza 5 of the dramatic game:--
A great hedge grew up giant high, giant high, giant high, etc.
Scene iii. The Castle Grounds. The Prince talks to an old Man outside the castle. The Prince comes to the hedge, which parts, and he enters. The Prince wakens the Princess and the rest of the castle. The narrator then closes with "By and by the wedding of the Prince . . . to the end of their lives they lived happy and contented." The courtiers then form into couples, and the circle, in couples, follow the courtiers. The Prince and Princess lead in a slow waltz while all sing stanza 10 of the dramatic game:--
And all the people made merry then, merry then, merry then, etc.
Here we do not have complete dramatization, narration, or dramatic game. Only three short parts are narrated, only three leading scenes are represented, and only three high points of narrative are depicted in the dramatic game. The music, which the specialist in physical education can furnish, might be:--
Galloping . . . . Wild Horseman.
Fairy Run . . . . Chalef Book, p. 18.
Climbing to Tower . . . . Chaly, p. 10.
Guy Walk Music.
Phyllis . . . . Seymour Smith.
Bleking . . . . Folk-Dance Book.
In connection with the dramatic game, there is only one tale in Grimm which contains a folk-game. This tale is somewhat incomplete as it stands in Grimm. It could become a tale suited for dramatization in the first grade, beginning the play with the folk-game. An original, amplified version of this tale, The Little Lamb and the Little Fish is given in the Appendix.
An original little play similar to one which the kindergarten children could work out is given below. This play is based on the pourquois tale, Why the Evergreen Trees Never Lose Their Leaves. It affords much play of originality because familiar trees may be used; and the talk of the Trees to the Bird may have some relation to the characteristics of the Trees. It could be used by children of six, seven, or eight years of age. It could serve as a Christmas play because of its spirit of kindness. North Wind might wear a wig and the Frost King wear a crown and carry a wand. Little Bird could have wings, one of which is broken, or simply carry one arm sleeveless.
The play might open with a rhythmic flight of the birds to the music of "The Swallow's Flight," in Kin- dergarten Review, May, 1915. The rhythm play of the birds would be especially pleasing because different birds would be represented by different children. The play would furnish a fine opportunity also for a rhythmic dance of the wind, which could form a distinct interlude later on in the play. In connection with the wind the beautiful picture-book, Windschen, by Elsa Beskow, might be referred to. Here the wind is personified as the playmate of Hans Georg. Its refined art, lovely color, and imaginative illustration, would stimulate the child's artistic representation of the wind.
The Bird and the Trees: A Play
Time . . . . Daytime, in late autumn.
Place . . . . The Forest.
Characters: Poplar, Oak, Maple, Willow, Spruce, Pine, Juniper,
the Bird, North Wind, and the Frost King.
Trees of the forest. "See that great crowd of birds flying away! They must be going South where the air is warm, and where they can find berries to eat. There is one left behind. Why, he is coming this way. What can he want? "
The Bird. "Oh, I can fly no farther! My wing hurts and I cannot hold it up. I am tired and cold and hungry. I must rest in this forest. Maybe some good kind tree will help me. Dear friend Poplar, my wing is broken and my friends have all gone South. Will you let me live in your branches until they come back again? "
Poplar. "I am sorry but do you not see how my leaves are all a-tremble at the thought of taking in a strange bird? Ask some other tree!"
The Bird. "It might not be very warm there at any rate. And the wind might blow me off the branches. I will try the Oak, he is so big and mighty. Dear old Oak-tree, you are so big and strong, will you let me rest in your branches tonight among your thick warm leaves? I am a poor little Bird with a broken wing and I cannot fly!"
Oak. "Oh, you must not ask me, little Bird, for all day long my little friends, the squirrels, have been jumping across my branches, gathering nuts and seeking holes to store their acorns in. I have no room for a stranger."
The Bird. "Ah! I did not think the Oak could be so cruel. Perhaps Maple will help me, she always seemed kind like a Mother. Dear, beautiful Maple, I am tired. May I rest among your lovely red leaves until my broken wing is mended and my friends come back to me?"
Maple. "Oh, no, I could not think of it! I have just dressed my leaves all in red and you might spoil their lovely clothes. Do go away. There are other trees in the forest not so gay as I."
The Bird. "What should I do? No one wants to help me. Can I not find one kind tree? Dear kind Willow, your branches bend almost to the ground. Could I live in them until the spring-time?"
Willow. "Really, little Bird with the broken wing, you are a stranger. You should have gone with the other birds. Maybe some other tree can help you but we willows are particular."
The Bird. "I do not know where to go and I'm so cold! I wonder if the other birds have reached the beautiful warm South."
Spruce. "Little Bird, little Bird, where are you going?
The Bird. "I do not know. I am very cold."
Spruce. "Come, make a big hop and rest in this snug corner of my branches. You can stay with me all winter if you like."
The Bird. "You are so good, dear Spruce-tree. Will you really let me?"
Spruce. "If your friends the birds have left you, your other friends, the trees, will surely help you. Ho, Pine-tree, you would help a little Bird with a broken wing, wouldn't you?"
Pine. "Oh, yes, dear Bird! My branches are not wide but I am tall and thick, and I will keep the cold North Wind from you."
Juniper. "And maybe I can help. Are you hungry, little Bird? You can eat my nice little berries whenever you like."
The Bird. "Thank you, kind friends! I will go to sleep now on this nice branch of the Spruce-tree. Good-night, dear Trees."
Spruce, Pine, and Juniper. "Good-night, little Bird."
North Wind. "Oo,--Oo!--Now I must run in and out among all the trees of the forest.--But who comes here?"
Frost King. "Stop, North Wind! I have just gone before you, as King Winter said, and touched the trees of the forest. But the trees that have been kind to the Bird with the broken wing, those I did not touch. They shall keep their leaves. Do not you harm them!"
North Wind. "Very well, King Frost. Good-bye! Oo! Oo!--(The Wind frolics among the Trees, bending branches, careering wildly, shaking leaves.) "Little Spruce-tree, you have been kind to the Bird, I will not blow on you! Dear Pine-tree, you are tall and keep the Bird warm, I will not blow on you! Little Juniper, you gave the Bird your berries, I will not blow on you!"
(The following morning.)
The Bird. "Good-morning, dear Spruce-tree, your branch was warm and safe.--Why, what has happened to the other Trees? Look at the big Oak and the lovely Maple and all the rest. See how bare their branches are; and on the ground their shining leaves lie in red and yellow and brown heaps! O, how glad I am that your leaves have not fallen; they are bright and green! And so are Pine-tree's and Juniper's. I will call you my Evergreen Trees, and I will stay with you until the Spring!"
The English fairy tale, The Magpie's Nest, told by Joseph Jacobs, might be dramatized by first-grade children. This tale might offer the problem of observing how different birds make their nests and how they vary their calls. It also might offer the language problem of making suitable rhymes. An original dramatization of the pourquois tale is given in the Appendix.
Andersen's Fir Tree would offer a fine opportunity for a first grade at Christmas time. The fir tree has become vitally interesting through nature study at this time of the year. The children love to make things to decorate a tree. They have a short list of stories they can tell by this time. All this can be utilized in a Christmas tree play.--For the play use the original story, not a weakened version.--A pleasant Christmas play could end most happily with the story-telling under the tree. For the play an actual small fir tree may be in the room placed so that it may be moved easily. A child standing closely behind it may represent it and speak for it through its branches. The air and the sun, ordinarily not to be represented, in this case may be, as they come up to the Tree and talk to it. Much freedom of originality may be displayed through the children's entering into the character of the Fir Tree and improvising speeches.
The Fir Tree
Time . . . . Spring.
Place . . . . Forest.
Characters: Suit, Air, Hare, Woodmen, Swallow, Stork,
Sparrows, Children, Servants, and Fir Tree.
Act I, Scene i. A Fir Tree in the forest.
Sun and Air talk to it.
Children sit under its branches.
A Hare comes and jumps over it.
Woodcutters come.
A Swallow comes and talks to it.
A Stork comes and talks to it.
Sparrows talk to it.
(Have the Tree removed. Apparently from a cart outside the door, a larger Christmas Tree may be brought in and planted in a sand-box by two servants, students from grammar grades. The same child now grown older, represents the Tree.)
Act II, Scene i. The Fir Tree brought into the room.
The decorating of the Tree by the Children and Teacher.
Talk of the Children about the Tree when decorating it.
Singing of Christmas carols; dancing of folk-dances; or recitation of Christmas poems, after the decoration of the Tree.
The distribution of gifts by the Children. An audience to whom the Children wanted to give presents, could be invited.
The Story-telling under the Tree.
The presence of visiting children would create an audience for the story-telling. The selection of the story-teller and the story or stories might be the result of a previous story contest. The contest and the storytelling under the Tree would be ideal drill situations. The entire play would serve as a fine unification of the child's work in nature, in construction, in physical education, in music, in composition, and in literature. Everything he does in the play will be full of vital interest to him; and his daily tasks will seem of more worth to him when he sees how he can use them with so much pleasure to himself and to others. This play is an example of the organizing of ideas which a good tale may exercise in the mind of the child and the part the tale as an organized experience may play in his development.
The creative return desired by the teacher, as well as the choice of tales for particular purposes, will depend largely on the controlling ideas in the program. It must be remembered that the child of to-day is not bookish nor especially literary; and he has increasing life interests. In the ordinary school year, work naturally divides itself into the main season festivals. While story work is here presented in its separate elements, any teacher realizes the possibility of making the story work lead up to and culminate in the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or May Festival. Because the good story bears a close relation to nature and to human life, any good course of stories will ofter to the teacher ample freedom of choice for any natural school purpose. The good tale always gains by being placed in a situation where it assists in carrying out a larger idea. When the tale is one unit of a festival program it appeals to the child as a unit in his everyday life, it becomes socially organized for him.