Young children, as we all know, are delighted with stories, and in the first grade they are still in this story-loving period. A good story is the best medium through which to convey ideas and also to approach the difficulties of learning to read. Such a story, Wilmann says, is a pedagogical treasure. By many thinkers and primary teachers the fairy stories have been adopted as best suited to the wants of the little folk just emerging from the home. A series of fairy tales was selected by Ziller, one of the leading Herbartians, as a centre for the school work of the first year. These stories have long held a large place in the home culture of children, especially of the more cultivated class. Now it is claimed that what is good for the few whose parents may be cultured and sympathetic, may be good enough for the children of the common people and of the poor. Moreover, stories that have made the fireside more joyous and blessed may perchance bring vivacity and happiness into schoolrooms. The home and the school are coming closer together. It is even said that well-trained,sympathetic primary teachers may better tell and impress these stories than overworked mothers and busy fathers. If these literary treasures are left for the homes to discover and use, the majority of children will know little or nothing of them. Many schools in this country have been using them in the first grade in recent years with a pleasing effect.
But what virtue lies concealed in these fairy myths for the children of our practical and sensible age? Why should we draw from fountains whose sources are back in the prehistoric and even barbarous past? To many people it appears as a curious anachronism to nourish little children in the first decade of this new century upon food that was prepared in the tents of wandering tribes in early European history. What are the merits of these stories for children just entering upon scholastic pursuits? They are known to be generally attractive to children of this age, but many sober-minded people distrust them. Are they really meat and drink for the little ones? And not only so, but the choicest meat and drink, the best food upon which to nourish their unfolding minds?
Fairy tales are charged with misleading children by falsifying the truth of things. And, indeed, they pay little heed to certain natural laws that practical people of good sense always respect. A child, however, is not so humdrum practical as these serious truth-lovers. A little girl talks to her doll as if it had real ears. She and her little brother make teacups and saucers out of acorns with no apparent compunctions of conscience. They follow Cinderella to the ball in a pumpkin chariot, transformed by magic wand, with even greater interest than we read of a presidential ball. A child may turn the common laws of physical nature inside out and not be a whit the worse for it. Its imagination can people a pea-pod with little heroes aching for a chance in the big world, or it can put tender personality into the trunk and branches of the little pine tree in the forest. There are no space limits that a child's fancy will not spring over in a twinkling. It can ride from star to star on a broomstick, or glide over peaceful waters in a fairy boat drawn by graceful swans. Without suggestion from mother or teacher, children put life and personality into their playthings. Their spontaneous delights are in this playful exercise of the fancy, in masquerading under the guise of a soldier, bear, horse, or bird. The fairy tale is the poetry of children's inner impulse and feeling; their sparkling eyes and absorbed interest show how fitting is the contact between these childlike creations of the poet and their own budding thoughts.
In discussing the qualities requisite in a fairy story to make it a pedagogical treasure, Wilmann says:[1]"When it is laid down as a first and indispensable requirement that a story be genuinely childlike, the demand sounds less rigorous than it really is. It iseasier to feel than to describe the qualities which lend to a story the true childlike spirit. It is not simplicity alone. A simple story that can be understood by a child is not on that account childlike. The simplicity must be the ingenuousness of the child. Close to this lies the abyss of silliness into which so many children's stories tumble. A simple story may be manufactured, but the quality of true simplicity will not be breathed into it unless one can draw from the deeper springs of poetic invention. It is not enough that the externals of the story, such as situation and action, have this character, but the sensibilities and motives of the actors must be ingenuous and childlike; they should reflect the child's own feeling, wish, and effort. But it is not necessary on this account that the persons of the story be children. Indeed the king, prince, and princess, if they only speak and act like children, are much nearer the child's comprehension than any of the children paraded in a manufactured story, designed for the 'industrious youth.' For just as real poetry so the real child's story lies beyond reality in the field of fancy. With all its plainness of thought and action, the genuine child's story knows how to take hold of the child's fancy and set its wings in motion. And what a meaning has fancy for the soul of the child as compared with that of the adult. For us the activity of fancy only sketches arabesques, as it were, around the sharply defined pictures of reality.The child thinks and lives in such arabesques, and it is only gradually that increasing experience writes among these arabesques the firmer outlines of things. The child's thoughts float about playfully and unsteadily, but the fairy tale is even lighter winged than they. It overtakes these fleeting summer birds and wafts them together without brushing the dust from their wings.
"But fostering the activity of fancy in children is a means, not an end. It is necessary to enter the field of fancy because the way to the child's heart leads through the fancy. The effect upon the heart of the child is the second mark and proof of the genuine child's story. We are not advocates of the so-called moral stories which are so short-winded as to stop frequently and rest upon some moral commonplace. Platitudes and moral maxims are not designed to develop a moral taste in the minds of young children, for they appeal to the understanding and will of the pupil and presuppose what must be first built up and established. True moral training is rather calculated to awaken in the child judgments of right and wrong, of good and evil (on simple illustrative examples). Not the impression left by a moralizing discourse is the germ of a love of the good and right, but rather the child's judgment springing from its own conviction. 'That was good.' 'What a mean thing!'
"Those narratives have a moral force which introduce persons and acts that are simple and transparent enough to let the moral light shine through, that possess sufficient life to lend warmth and vigor to moral judgments. No attempt to cover up or pass over what is bad, nor to paint it in extravagant colors. For the bad develops the judgment no less than the good. It remains only to have a care that a child's interest inclines toward the good, the just, and the right."
Wilmann summarizes the essentials of a good story, and then discusses the fairy tales as follows:—
"There are then five requirements to be made of a real child's story: Let it be truly childlike, that is, both simple and full of fancy; let it form morals in the sense that it introduces persons and matters which, while simple and lively, call out a moral judgment of approval or disapproval; let it be instructive and lead to thoughtful discussions of society and nature; let it be of permanent value, inviting perpetually to a reperusal; let it be a connected whole, so as to work a deeper influence and become the source of a many-sided interest.
"The child's story which, on the basis of the aforenamed principles, can be made the starting-point for all others, is Grimm's fairy tale of folk lore. We are now called upon to show that the folk-lore fairy tale answers to the foregoing requirements, and in this we shall see many a ray of light cast back upon these requirements themselves.
"Is the German fairy tale childlike? full of simplicity as well as of fancy? A deeply poetic saying of Jacob Grimm may teach us the answer. 'There runs through these poetic fairy tales the same deep vein of purity by reason of which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed. They have, as it were, the same pale-blue, clear, and lustrous eyes which can grow no more although the other members are still delicate and weak and unserviceable to the uses of earth.' Klaiber quotes this passage in his 'Das Märchen und die Kindliche Phantasie,' and says with truth and beauty, 'Yes; when we look into the trusting eyes of a child, in which none of the world's deceit is to be read as yet, when we see how these eyes brighten and gleam at a beautiful fairy tale, as if they were looking out into a great, wide, beautiful wonder-world, then we feel something of the deep connection of the fairy story with the childish soul.' We will bring forward one more passage from a little treatise, showing depth and warmth of feeling, which stealthily takes away from the doubters their scruples about the justification of the fairy tale. 'It is strange how well the fairy tale and the child's soul mutually understand each other. It is as if they had been together from the very beginning and had grown up together. As a rule the child only deals with that part of real life which concerns itself and children of its age. Whatever lies beyond this is distant, strange, unintelligible. Under the leading of the fairy tale,however, it permits itself to be borne over hill and valley, over land and sea, through sun and moon and stars, even to the end of the world, and everything is so near, so familiar, so close to its reach, as if they had been everywhere before, just as if obscure pictures within had all at once become wonderfully distinct. And the fairies all, and the king's sons, and the other distinguished personages, whom it learns to know through the fairy tale,—they are as natural and intelligible as if the child had moved its life long in the highest circles, and had had princes and princesses for its daily playmates. In a word, the world of the fairy tale is the child's world, for it is the world of fancy.'
"For this reason children live and move in fairyland, whether the story be told by the mother or by the teacher in the primary school. What attention as the story proceeds! What anxiousness when any danger threatens the hero, be he king's son or a wheat-straw! What grief, even to tears, when a wrong is practised upon some innocent creature! And far from it that the joy in the fairy tale decrease when it is told or discussed over again. Then comes the pleasure of representation—bringing the story upon the stage. Though a child has but to represent a flower in the meadow, the little face is transfigured with the highest joy.
"But the childish joy of fairy tales passes away; not so the inner experiences which it has broughtwith it. I am not affirming too much when I say that he who, as a child, has never listened with joy to the murmuring and rustling of the fresh fountain of fairyland, will have no ear and no understanding for many a deep stream of German poetry. It is, after all, the modest fountain of fairy song which, flowing and uniting with the now noisy, now soft and gently flowing, current of folk song, and with the deep and earnest stream of tradition, which has poured such a refreshing current over German poetry, out of which our most excellent Uhland has drawn so many a heart-strengthening draught.
"The spirit of the people finds expression in fairy tale as in tradition and song, and if we were only working to lift and strengthen the national impulse, a moral-educative instruction would have to turn again and again to these creations of the people. What was asserted as a general truth in regard to classical products, that they are a bond between large and small, old and young, is true of national stories and songs more than of anything else. They are at once a bond between the different classes, a national treasure, which belongs alike to rich and poor, high and low. The common school then has the least right of all to put the fairy tale aside, now that few women versed in fairy lore, such as those to whom Grimm listened, are left.
"But does the fairy tale come of noble blood? Does it possess what we called in the case of classicsan old title of nobility? If we keep to this figure of speech, we shall find that the fairy tale is not only noble, but a very royal child among stories. It has ruled from olden times, far and wide, over many a land. Hundreds of years gone, Grimm's fairy stories lived in the people's heart, and not in Germany alone. If our little ones listen intently to Aschenputtel, French children delighted in Cindrillon, the Italian in Cenerentola, the Polish in Kopcinszic. The fact that mediæval story-books contain Grimm's tales is not remarkable, when we reflect that traits and characteristics of the fairy tale reach back beyond the Christian period; that Frau Holle is Hulda, or Frigg, the heathen goddess; that 'Wishing-cap,' 'Little Lame-leg,' and 'Table Cover Thyself,' etc., are made up out of the attributes of German gods. Finally, such things as 'The Sleeping Beauty,' which is the earth in winter sleep, that the prince of summer wakes with kisses in springtime, point back to the period of primitive Indo-German myth.
"But in addition to the requirement of classical nobility, has the fairy story also the moral tone which we required of the genuine child's story? Does the fairy story make for morals? To be sure it introduces to an ideal realm of simple moral relations. The good and bad are sharply separated. The wrong holds for a time its supremacy, but the final victory is with the good. And with what vigor the judgment of good and evil, of right and wrong, is produced.We meet touching pictures, especially of good-will, of faithfulness, characteristic and full of life. Think only of the typical interchange of words between Lenchen and Fundevogel. Said Lenchen, 'Leave me not and I will never leave thee.' Said Fundevogel, 'Now and nevermore.' We are reminded of the Bible words of the faithful Ruth, 'Whither thou goest I will go; where thou lodgest I will lodge; where thou diest I will die and there will I be buried.'
"Important for the life of children is the rigor with which the fairy tale punishes disobedience and falsehood. Think of the suggestive legendary story of the child which was visited again and again with misfortune because of its obstinacy, till its final confession of guilt brings full pardon. It is everywhere a Christian thread which runs through so many fairy stories. It is love for the rejected, oppressed, and abandoned. Whatever is loaded with burdens and troubles receives the palm, and the first becomes the last.
"The fairy story fulfils the first three requirements for a true child's story. It is childlike, of lasting value, and fosters moral ideas. As to unity it will suffice for children of six years (for this is, in our opinion, the age at which it exerts its moral force) that the stories be told in the same spirit, although they do not form one connected narrative. If a good selection of fairy tales according to their inner connection is made, so that frequent referencesand connections can be found, the requirement of unity will be satisfied.
"The fairy tale seems to satisfy least of all the demand that the true child's story must be instructive, and serve as a starting-point for interesting practical discussion. The fairy story seems too airy and dreamy for this, and it might appear pedantry to load it with instruction. But one will not be guilty of this mistake if one simply follows up the ideas which the story suggests. When the story of a chicken, a fox, or a swan is told it is fully in harmony with the childish thought to inquire into the habits of these animals. When the king is mentioned it is natural to say that we have a king, to ask where he lives, etc. Just because the fairy tale sinks deep and holds a firm and undivided attention, it is possible to direct the suggested thoughts hither or thither without losing the pleasure they create. If one keeps this aim in mind, instructive material is abundant. The fairy tale introduces various employments and callings, from the king to the farmer, tailor, and shoemaker. Many passages in life, such as betrothal, marriage, and burial, are presented. Labors in the house, yard, and field, and numerous animals, plants, and inanimate things are touched upon. For the observation of animals and for the relation between them and children, it is fortunate that the fairy tale presents them as talking and feeling. Thereby the interest in real animals is increased and heartlessness banished. How could a child put to the torture an animal which is an old friend in fairy story?
"I need only suggest in this place how the fairy story furnishes material for exercises in oral language, for the division of words into syllables and letters, and how the beginnings of writing, drawing, number, and manual exercises may be drawn from the same source.
"From the suggestions just made the following conclusions at least may be reasonably drawn. A sufficient counterpoise to the fantastical nature of the fairy tale can be given in a manner simple and childlike, if the objects and relations involved in the narratives are brought clearly before the senses and discussed so that instruction about common objects and home surroundings is begun."
In speaking of Shakespeare's early training in literature, Charles Kingsley says:—
"I said there was a literary art before Shakespeare—an art more simple, more childlike, more girlish, as it were, and therefore all the more adapted for young minds, but also an art most vigorous and pure in point of style: thoroughly fitted to give its readers the first elements of taste, which must lie at the root of even the most complex æsthetics.
"The old fairy superstition, the old legends and ballads, the old chronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities and mysteries and tragicomic attempts—these were the roots of his poetic tree—they must be the roots of any literary education which can teach us to appreciate him. These fed Shakespeare's youth; why should they not feed our children's? Why indeed? That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellous and fantastic—has that a merely evil root? No surely! It is a most pure part of their spiritual nature; a part of 'the heaven which lies about us in our infancy'; angel-wings with which the free child leaps the prison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life."
Felix Adler says:[2]"But how shall we handle theseMärchenand what method shall we employ in putting them to account for our special purpose? I have a few thoughts on this subject, which I shall venture to submit in the form of counsels.
"Myfirst counselis: Tell the story; do not give it to the child to read. There is an obvious practical reason for this. Children are able to benefit by hearing fairy tales before they can read. But that is not the only reason. It is the childhood of the race, as we have seen, that speaks in the fairy story of the child of to-day. It is the voice of an ancient far-off past that echoes from the lips of the storyteller. The words 'once upon a time' open up a vague retrospect into the past, and the child gets its first indistinct notions of history in this way. Thestories embody the tradition of the childhood of mankind. They have on this account an authority all their own, not, indeed, that of literal truth, but one derived from their being types of certain feelings and longings which belong to childhood as such. The child, as it listens to theMärchen, looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive as the touch of the earlier life of the race thus falls upon its own. Such an effect, of course, cannot be produced by cold type. Tradition is a living thing and should use the living voice for its vehicle.
"Mysecond counselis also of a practical nature, and I make bold to say quite essential to the successful use of the stories. Do not take the moral plum out of the fairy-tale pudding, but let the child enjoy it as a whole. Do not make the story taper toward a single point, the moral point. You will squeeze all the juice out of it if you try. Do not subordinate the purely fanciful and naturalistic elements of the story, such as the love of mystery, the passion for roving, the sense of fellowship with the animal world, in order to fix attention solely on the moral element. On the contrary, you will gain the best moral effect by proceeding in exactly the opposite way. Treat the moral element as an incident, emphasize it indeed, but incidentally. Pluck it as a wayside flower. How often does it happen that, having set out on a journey with a distinctobject in mind, something occurs on the way which we had not foreseen, but which in the end leaves the deepest impression on the mind....
"The value of the fairy tales is that they stimulate the imagination; that they reflect the unbroken communion of human life with the life universal, as in beasts, fishes, trees, flowers, and stars; and that incidentally, but all the more powerfully on that account, they quicken the moral sentiments.
"Let us avail ourselves freely of the treasures which are thus placed at our disposal. Let us welcomedas Märcheninto our primary course of moral training, that with its gentle bands, woven of 'morning mist and morning glory,' it may help to lead our children into bright realms of the ideal."
A selection of fairy stories suited to our first grade will differ from a similar selection for foreign schools. There has been a disposition among American teachers for several years to appropriate the best of these stories for use in the primary schools. In different parts of the country skilful primary teachers have been experimenting successfully with these materials. There are many schools in which both teachers and pupils have taken great delight in them. The effort has been made more particularly with first grade children, the aim of teachers being to lead captive the spontaneous interest of children from their first entrance upon school tasks. Some of the stories used at the first may seem light and farcical, but experiments with children are a better test than the preconceived notions of adults who may have forgotten their early childhood. The story of the "Four Musicians," for example, is a favorite with the children.
At the risk of repetition, and to emphasize some points of special importance, we will review briefly the method of oral treatment and the use of the stories in early primary reading.
The children have no knowledge of reading or perhaps of letters. The story is told with spirit by the teacher, no book being used in the class. Question and interchange of thought between pupil and teacher will become more frequent and suggestive as the teacher becomes more skilled and sympathetic in her treatment of the story. In the early months of school life the aim is to gain the attention and coöperation of children by furnishing abundant food for thought. Children are required or at least encouraged to narrate the story or a part of it in the class. They tell it at school and probably at home, till they become more and more absorbed in it. Even the backward or timid child gradually acquires courage and enjoys narrating the adventures of the peas in the pod or those of the animals in the "Four Musicians."
The teacher should acquire a vivid and picturesque style of narrating, persistently weaving into the story, by query and suggestion, the previous home experiences of the children. They are only too ready to bring out these treasures at the call of the teacher.Often it is necessary to check their enthusiasm. There is a need not simply for narrative power, but for quick insight and judgment, so as to bring their thoughts into close relation to the incidents. Nowhere in all the schools is there such a call for close and motherly sympathy. The gentle compulsion of kindness is required to inspire the timid ones with confidence. For some of them are slow to open their delicate thought and sensibility, even to the sunny atmosphere of a pleasant school.
A certain amount of drill in reproduction is necessary, but fortunately the stories have something that bears repetition with a growing interest. Added to this is the desire for perfect mastery, and thus the stories become more dear with familiarity.
Incidentally, there should be emphasis of the instructive information gathered concerning animals and plants that are actors in the scenes. The commonest things of the house, field, and garden acquire a new and lasting interest. Sometimes the teacher makes provision in advance of the story for a deeper interest in the plants and animals that are to appear. In natural science lessons she may take occasion to examine the pea blossom, or the animals of the barnyard, or the squirrel or birds in their cages. When, a few days later, the story touches one of these animals, there is a quick response from the children. This relation between history and natural science strengthens both.
Many an opportunity should be given for the pupils to express a warm sympathy for gentle acts of kindness or unselfishness. The happiness that even a simple flower may bring to a home is a contagious example. Kindly treatment of the old and feeble, and sympathy for the innocent and helpless, spring into the child's own thought. The fancy, sympathy, and interest awakened by a good fairy tale make it a vehicle by which, consciously and unconsciously, many advantages are borne home to pupils.
Among other things, it opens the door to the reading lesson; that is, to the beginning efforts in mastering and using the symbols of written language. The same story which all have learned to tell, they are now about to learn to read from the board. One or two sentences are taken directly from the lips of the pupils as they recall the story, and the work of mastering symbols is begun at once with zest. First is the clear statement of some vivid thought by a child, then a quick association of this thought with its written symbols on the board. There is no readier way of bringing thought and form into firm connection, that is, of learning to read. Keep the child's fresh mental judgment and the written form clearly before his mind till the two are wedded. Let the thought run back and forth between them till they are one.
After fixing two or three sentences on the board, attention is directed more closely to the single words, and a rapid drill upon those in the sentence is followed by a discovery and naming of them in miscellaneous order. Afterward new sentences are formed by the teacher out of the same words, written on the board, and read by the children. They express different, and perhaps opposite forms of thought, and should exercise the child's sense and judgment as well as his memory of words. An energetic, lively, and successful drill of this kind upon sentences drawn from stories has been so often witnessed, that its excellence is no longer a matter of question. These exercises are a form of mental activity in which children delight if the teacher's manner is vigorous and pleasant.
When the mastery of new word-forms as wholes is fairly complete, the analysis may go a step farther. Some new word in the lesson may be taken and separated into its phonic elements, as the wordhill, and new words formed by dropping a letter and prefixing letters or syllables, asill,till,until,mill,rill, etc. The power to construct new words out of old materials should be cultivated all along the process of learning to read.
Still other school activities of children stand in close relation to the fairy tales. They are encouraged to draw the objects and incidents in which the story abounds. Though rude and uncouth, the drawings still often surprise us with their truth and suggestiveness. The sketches reveal the content of a child's mind as almost nothing else—his misconceptions, his vague or clearly defined notions. They also furnish his mental and physical activities an employment exactly suited to his needs and wishes.
The power to use good English and to express himself clearly and fittingly is cultivated from the very first. While this merit is purely incidental, it is none the less valuable. The persistence with which bad and uncouth words and phrases are employed by children in our common school, both in oral work and in composition, admonishes us to begin early to eradicate these faults. It seems often as if intermediate and grammar grades were more faulty and wretched in their use of English than primary grades. But there can be no doubt that early and persistent practice in the best forms of expression, especially in connection with interesting and appropriate thought matter, will greatly aid correctness, fluency, and confidence in speech. There is also a convincing pedagogical reason why children in the first primary should be held to the best models of spoken language. They enter the school better furnished with oral speech than with a knowledge of any school study. Their home experiences have wrought into close association and unity, word and thing. So intimate and living is the relation between word and thought or object, that a child really does not distinguish between them. This is the treasure with which he enters school, and it should not be wrapped up in a napkin. It should be unrolled atonce and put to service. Oral speech is the capital with which a child enters the business of education; let him employ it.
A retrospect upon the various forms of school activity which spring, in practical work, from the use of a good fairy story, reveals how many-sided and inspiriting are its influences. Starting out with a rich content of thought peculiarly germane to childish interests, it calls for a full employment of the language resources already possessed by the children. In the effort to picture out, with pencil or chalk, his conceptions of the story, a child exercises his fanciful and creative wit, as well as the muscles of arms and eyes. A good story always finds its setting in the midst of nature or society, and touches up with a simple, homely, but poetic charm the commonest verities of human experience. The appeal to the sensibility and moral judgment of pupils is direct and spontaneous, because of the interests and sympathies that are inherent in persons, and touch directly the childish fancy. And, lastly, the irrepressible traditional demand that children shall learn to read, is fairly and honestly met and satisfied.
It is not claimed that fairy tales involve the sum total of primary instruction, but they are an illustration of how rich will be the fruitage of our educational effort if we consider first the highest needs and interests of children, and allow the formal arts to drop into their proper subordination. "The best isgood enough for children," and when we select the best, the wide-reaching connections which are established between studies carry us a long step toward the now much-bruited correlation and concentration of studies.
Classic Stories for the Little Ones. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Ill.Grimm's Fairy Tales (Wiltse). Ginn & Co.German Fairy Tales (Grimm). Maynard, Merrill, & Co.Grimm's German Household Tales. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Stories from Hans Andersen. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Andersen's Fairy Tales, two volumes. Part I and Part II. Ginn & Co.Fairy Stories and Fables. American Book Co.Fables and Folk Stories (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Rhymes and Jingles (Dodge). Scribner's Sons.Fairy Stories for Children (Baldwin). American Book Co.Songs and Stories. University Publishing Co.Fairy Life. University Publishing Co.Six Nursery Classics (O'Shea). D. C. Heath & Co.Grimm's Fairy Tales. Educational Publishing Co.A Book of Nursery Rhymes (Welch). D. C. Heath & Co.Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Heart of Oak, No. I. D. C. Heath & Co.Heart of Oak, No. II. D. C. Heath & Co.The Eugene Field Book. Scribner's Sons.Moral Education of Children (Adler). D. Appleton & Co. Chapter VI. on Fairy Tales.Literature in Schools (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Chapter on Nursery Classics.
Classic Stories for the Little Ones. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Ill.Grimm's Fairy Tales (Wiltse). Ginn & Co.German Fairy Tales (Grimm). Maynard, Merrill, & Co.Grimm's German Household Tales. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Stories from Hans Andersen. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Andersen's Fairy Tales, two volumes. Part I and Part II. Ginn & Co.Fairy Stories and Fables. American Book Co.Fables and Folk Stories (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Rhymes and Jingles (Dodge). Scribner's Sons.Fairy Stories for Children (Baldwin). American Book Co.Songs and Stories. University Publishing Co.Fairy Life. University Publishing Co.Six Nursery Classics (O'Shea). D. C. Heath & Co.Grimm's Fairy Tales. Educational Publishing Co.A Book of Nursery Rhymes (Welch). D. C. Heath & Co.Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Heart of Oak, No. I. D. C. Heath & Co.Heart of Oak, No. II. D. C. Heath & Co.The Eugene Field Book. Scribner's Sons.Moral Education of Children (Adler). D. Appleton & Co. Chapter VI. on Fairy Tales.Literature in Schools (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Chapter on Nursery Classics.
No group of stories has a more assured place in the literature for children than the Æsop's "Fables." Some of the commonest have been expanded into little stories which are presented orally to children in the first school year, as "The Lion and the Mouse," "The Ants and the Grasshoppers," "The Dog and his Shadow," and others. They are so simple and direct that they are used alongside the fairy tales for the earliest instruction of children.
As soon as children have acquired the rudiments of reading the Æsop's "Fables" are commonly used in the second and third school year as a reading book, and all the early reading books are partly made up from this material.
If we inquire into the qualities of these stories which have given them such a universal acceptance, we shall find that they contain in a simple, transparent form a good share of the world's wisdom. More recent researches indicate that they originated in India, and reached Europe through Persia and Arabia, being ascribed to Æsop. This indicates that like most early literature of lasting worth, they are products of the folk-mind rather than of a single writer, and it is the opinion of Adler that they express the ripened wisdom of the people under the forms of Oriental despotism. The sad and hopeless submission to a stronger power expressed by some of thefables, it is claimed, unfits them for use in our freer life to-day.
There are certain points in which their attractiveness to children is clearly manifest. The actors in the stories are usually animals, and the ready interest and sympathy of children for talking animals are at once appealed to. In all the early myths and fairy tales, human life seems to merge into that of the animals, as in "Hiawatha," and the fables likewise are a marked expression of this childlike tendency.
Adler says: "The question may be asked why fables are so popular with boys. I should say because schoolboy society reproduces in miniature, to a certain extent, the social conditions which are reflected in the fables. Among unregenerate schoolboys there often exists a kind of despotism, not the less degrading because petty. The strong are pitted against the weak—witness the fagging system in English schools—and their mutual antagonism produces in both the characteristic vices which we have noted above." A literature which clearly pictures these relations so that they can be seen objectively by the children may be of the greatest social service in education.
Adler says further: "The psychological study of schoolboy society has been only begun, but even what lies on the surface will, I think, bear out this remark. Now it has become one of the commonplaces ofeducational literature that the individual of to-day must pass through the same stages of evolution as the human race as a whole. But it should not be forgotten that the advance of civilization depends on two conditions: first, that the course of evolution be accelerated, that the time allowed to the successive stages be shortened; and, secondly, that the unworthy and degrading elements which entered into the process of evolution in the past, and at the time were inseparable from it, be now eliminated. Thus the fairy tales which correspond to the myth-making epoch in human history must be purged of the dross of superstition which still adheres to them, and the fables which correspond to the age of primitive despotisms must be cleansed of the immoral elements they still embody."[3]
The peculiar form of moral teaching in the "Fables" suits them especially to children. A single trait of conduct, like greediness or selfishness, is sharply outlined in the story and its results made plain. "We have seen nothing finer in teaching than the building up of these little stories in conversational lessons—first to illustrate some mental or moral trait; then to detach the idea from its story picture, and find illustrations for it in some other act or incident. And nothing can be more gratifying as a result, than, through the transparency of childish hearts, to watch the growth of right conduct from the impulses derivedfrom the teaching; and so laying the foundations of future rightness of character."[4]
The moral ideas inculcated by the fables are usually of a practical, worldly-wisdom sort, not high ideals of moral quality, not virtue for its own sake, but varied examples of the results of rashness and folly. This is, perhaps, one reason why they are so well suited to the immature moral judgments of children.
Adler says: "Often when a child has committed some fault, it is useful to refer by name to the fable that fits it. As, when a boy has made room in his seat for another, and the other crowds him out, the mere mention of the fable of the porcupine is a telling rebuke; or the fable of the hawk and the pigeons may be called to mind when a boy has been guilty of mean excuses. On the same principle that angry children are sometimes taken before a mirror to show them how ugly they look, the fable is a kind of mirror for the vices of the young." Again: "The peculiar value of the fables is that they are instantaneous photographs which reproduce, as it were, in a single flash of light, some one aspect of human nature, and which, excluding everything else, permit the attention to be entirely fixed on that one."
But the value of the fable reaches far beyond childhood. The frequency with which it is cited in nearly all the forms of literature, and its aptnessto express the real meaning of many episodes in real life, in politics and social events, in peace and war, show the universality of the truth it embodies. A story which engraves a truth, as it were with a diamond point, upon a child's mind, a truth which will swiftly interpret many events in his later life, deserves to take a high place among educative influences.
Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Æsop's Fables (Stickney). Ginn & Co.Book of Legends (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Stories for Children (Lane). The American Book Co.A Child's Garden of Verses (Stevenson). Scribner's Sons.Æsop's Fables. Educational Publishing Co.The Book of Nature Myths (Holbrook). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.The Moral Instruction of Children (Adler), Chapters VII and VIII. D. Appleton & Co.
Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Æsop's Fables (Stickney). Ginn & Co.Book of Legends (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Stories for Children (Lane). The American Book Co.A Child's Garden of Verses (Stevenson). Scribner's Sons.Æsop's Fables. Educational Publishing Co.The Book of Nature Myths (Holbrook). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.The Moral Instruction of Children (Adler), Chapters VII and VIII. D. Appleton & Co.
In selecting suitable literature for children of the second grade, we follow in the steps of a number of distinguished writers and teachers and choose an English classic—"Robinson Crusoe." Rousseau gave this book his unqualified approval, and said that it would be the first, and, for a time, the only book that Émile should read. The Herbartians have been using it a number of years, while many American teachers have employed it for oral work in second grade, in a short school edition. In one sense, the book needs no introduction, as it has found its way into every nook and corner of the world. Originally a story for adults, it has reached all, and illustrated Christmas editions, designed even for children from three years and upward, are abundant. To the youth of all lands, it has been, to say the least, a source of delight, but it has been regarded as a book for the family and home. What would happen should the schoolmaster lay his hand on this treasure and desecrate it to school purposes! Wedesire to test this classic work on the side of its pedagogical value and its adaptation to the uses of regular instruction. If it is really unrivalled as a piece of children's literature, perhaps it has also no equal for school purposes.
In making the transition from the fairy tale to "Robinson Crusoe," an interesting difference or contrast may be noticed. Wilmann says:[5]"'Crusoe' is at once simple, and plain, and fanciful; to be sure, in the latter case, entirely different from the fairy tale. In the fairy story the fancy seldom pushes rudely against the boundaries of the real world. But otherwise in 'Crusoe.' Here it is the practical fancy that is aroused, if this expression appear not contradictory. What is Crusoe to do now? How can he help himself? What means can he invent? Many of the proposals of the children will have to be rejected. The inexorable 'not possible' shoves a bolt before the door. The imagination is compelled to limit itself to the task of combining and adjusting real things. The compulsion of things conditions the progress of the story. 'Thoughts dwell together easily, but things jostle each other roughly in space.'"
There are other striking differences between "Crusoe" and the folk-lore stories, but in this contrast we are now chiefly concerned. After reaching the island, he is checked and limited at every step by the physical laws imposed by nature. Struggle and fret ashe may against these limits, he becomes at last a philosopher, and quietly takes up the struggle for existence under those inexorable conditions. The child of seven or eight is vaguely acquainted with many of the simple employments of the household and of the neighborhood. Crusoe also had a vague memory of how people in society in different trades and occupations supply the necessaries and comforts of life. Even the fairy stories give many hints of this kind of knowledge, but Robinson Crusoe is face to face with the sour facts. He is cut off from help and left to his own resources. The interest in the story is in seeing how he will shift for himself and exercise his wits to insure plenty and comfort. With few tools and on a barbarous coast, he undertakes what men in society, by mutual exchange and by division of labor, have much difficulty in performing. Crusoe becomes a carpenter, a baker and cook, a hunter, a potter, a fisher, a farmer, a tailor, a boatman, a stock-raiser, a basket-maker, a shoemaker, a tanner, a fruit-grower, a mason, a physician. And not only so, but he grapples with the difficulties of each trade or occupation in a bungling manner because of inexperience and lack of skill and exact knowledge. He is an experimenter and tester along many lines. The entire absence of helpers centres the whole interest of this varied struggle in one person. It is to be remembered that Crusoe is no genius, but the ordinary boy or man. He hasabundant variety of needs such as a child reared under civilized conditions has learned to feel. The whole range of activities, usually distributed to various classes and persons in society, rests now upon his single shoulders. If he were an expert in all directions, the task would be easier, but he has only vague knowledge and scarcely any skill. The child, therefore, who reads this story, by reason of the slow, toilsome, and bungling processes of Crusoe in meeting his needs, becomes aware how difficult and laborious are the efforts by which the simple, common needs of all children are supplied.
A reference to the different trades and callings that Crusoe assumes will show us that he is not dealing with rare and unusual events, but with the common, simple employments that lie at the basis of society in all parts of the world. The carpenter, the baker, the farmer, the shoemaker, etc., are at work in every village in every land. Doubtless this is one reason why the story acquires such a hold in the most diverse countries. The Arab or the Chinese boy, the German or American child, finds the story touching the ordinary facts of his own surroundings. Though the story finds its setting in a far-away, lonely island in tropical seas, Crusoe is daily trying to create the objects and conditions of his old home in England. But these are the same objects that surround every child; and therefore, in reading "Robinson Crusoe," the pupil is making an exhaustive andinteresting study of his own home. The presence of a tropical vegetation and of a strange climate does not seriously impair this fact. The skill of a great literary artist appears in his power to create a situation almost devoid of common comforts and blessings and then in setting his hero to work to create them by single-handed effort.
It will hardly be questioned that the study of the home and home neighborhood by children is one of the large and prominent problems in education. Out of their social, economic, and physical environment children get the most important lessons of life. Not only does the home furnish a varied fund of information that enables them to interpret books, and people, and institutions, as they sooner or later go out into the world, but all the facts gathered by experience and reading in distant fields must flow back again to give deeper meaning to the labors and duties which surround each citizen in his own home. But society with its commerce, education, and industries, is an exceedingly complex affair. The child knows not where to begin to unravel this endless machinery of forms and institutions. In a sense he must get away from or disentangle himself from his surroundings in order to understand them. There are no complex conditions surrounding Crusoe, and he takes up the labors of the common trades in a simple and primitive manner. Physical and mental effort are demanded at every step, from Crusoe and from thechildren. Many of his efforts involve repeated failure, as in making pottery, in building a boat, while some things that he undertakes with painful toil never attain success. The lesson of toil and hardship connected with the simple industries is one of great moment to children. Our whole social fabric is based on these toils, and it is one of the best results of a sound education to realize the place and importance of hard work.
It scarcely needs to be pointed out that Crusoe typifies a long period of man's early history, the age when men were learning the rudiments of civilization by taking up the toils of the blacksmith, the agriculturist, the builder, the domesticator of animals and plants. Men emerged from barbarism as they slowly and painfully gained the mastery over the resources of nature. Crusoe is a sort of universal man, embodying in his single effort that upward movement of men which has steadily carried them to the higher levels of progress. It has been said with some truth that Robinson Crusoe is a philosophy of history. But we scarcely need such a high-sounding name. To the child he is a very concrete, individual man, with very simple and interesting duties.
In a second point the author of "Robinson Crusoe" shows himself a literary master. There is an intense and naive realism in his story. Even if one were so disposed, it would require a strong effort to break loose from the feeling that we are in the presence ofreal experiences. There is a quiet but irresistible assumption of unvarnished and even disagreeable fact in the narrative. But it is useless to describe the style of a book so familiar. Its power over youthful fancy and feeling has been too often experienced to be doubted. The vivid interest which the book awakens is certain to carry home whatever lessons it may teach with added force. So great is this influence that boys sometimes imitate the efforts of Crusoe by making caves, building ovens, and assuming a style of dress and living that approximates Crusoe's state. This supplies to teachers a hint of some value. The story of Crusoe should lead to excursions into the home neighborhood for the purpose of a closer examination of the trades and occupations there represented. An imitation of his labors may also be encouraged. The effort to mould and bake vessels from potter's clay, the platting of baskets from willow withes, the use of tools in making boxes or tables may be attempted far enough to discover how lacking in practical ability the children are. This will certainly teach them greater respect for manual skill.
From the previous discussion it might appear that we regard the story of Crusoe as technological and industrial rather than moral. But it would be a mistake to suppose that a book is not moral because it is not perpetually dispensing moral platitudes. Most men's lives are mainly industrial. The display ofmoral qualities is only occasional and incidental. The development of moral character is coincident with the labors and experiences of life and springs out of them, being manifested by the spirit with which one acts toward his fellow-men. But Crusoe was alone on his island, and there might seem to be no opportunity to be moral in relation to others. Society, to be sure, was conspicuous by its absence. But the intense longing with which he thought of the home and companionships lost is perhaps the strongest sentiment in the book. His loneliness brings out most vividly his true relation to home and friends.
His early life, till the shipwreck, was that of a wayward and reckless youth, disobedient to parents and seemingly without moral scruples. Even during the first months upon the island there appears little moral change or betterment. But slowly the bitter experiences of his lonely life sober him. He finds a Bible, and a fit of sickness reveals the distresses that may lie before him. When once the change has set in, it is rapid and thorough. He becomes devout, he longs to return to his parents and atone for his faults. A complete reformation of his moral disposition is effected. If one will take the pains to read the original "Robinson Crusoe" he will find it surprisingly serious and moral in its tone. He devotes much time to soliloquizing on the distresses of his condition and upon the causes which have broughthim to misery. He diagnoses his case with an amount of detail that must be tedious to children. The fact that these parts of the book often leave little direct impression upon children is proof that they are chiefly engaged with the adventure and physical embarrassments of Crusoe. For the present it is sufficient to observe that the story is deeply and intensely moral both in its spirit and in the changes described in "Crusoe."
We are next led to inquire whether the industrial and moral lessons contained in this story are likely to be extracted from it by a boy or girl who reads it alone, without the aid of a teacher. Most young readers of "Crusoe" are carried along by the interesting adventure. It is a very surprising and entertaining story. But children even less than adults are inclined to go deeper than the surface and draw up hidden treasures. De Foe's work is a piece of classic literature. But few people are inclined to get at the deeper meaning and spirit of a classical masterpiece unless they go through it in companionship with a teacher who is gifted to disclose its better meaning. This is true of any classical product we might mention. It should be the peculiar function of the school to cultivate a taste, and an appreciative taste, for the best literature; not by leaving it to the haphazard home reading of pupils, but by selecting the best things adapted to the minds of children and then employing true teaching skill to bring these treasures close to the hearts and sympathies of children. Many young people do not read "Robinson Crusoe" at all; many others do not appreciate its better phases. The school will much improve its work by taking for its own this best of children's stories, and by extending and deepening the children's appreciation of a classic.
The story of Robinson Crusoe is made by the Herbartians the nucleus for the concentration of studies in the second year. This importance is given to it on account of its strong moral tone and because of its universal typical character in man's development. Without attempting a solution of the problem of concentration at this juncture, we should at least observe the relations of this story to the other studies. Wilmann says: "The everywhere and nowhere of the fairy tale gives place to the first geographical limitations. The continents, the chief countries of Europe, come up, besides a series of geographical concepts such as island, coast, bay, river, hill, mountain, sea, etc. The difference in climate is surprising. Crusoe fears the winter and prepares for it, but his fear is needless, for no winter reaches his island." We have already observed its instructive treatment of the common occupations which prepare for later geographical study, as well as for natural science.
Many plants and animals are brought to notice which would furnish a good beginning for naturalscience lessons. It is advisable, however, to study rather those home animals and plants which correspond best to the tropical products or animals in the lessons. Tropical fruits, the parrot, and the goat we often meet at home, but in addition, the sheep, the ox, the mocking-bird, the woodpecker, our native fruits and grains, and the fish, turtles, and minerals of the home, may well be suggested and studied in science lessons parallel with the life of Crusoe.
Following upon the oral treatment and discussion of "Robinson Crusoe" the children are easily led to like efforts at construction, as, for instance, the making of a raft, the building of the cave and stockade, the making of chairs and tables, the moulding of jars and kettles out of clay, the weaving of baskets, the preparation and cooking of foods, the planting of grains, the construction of an oven or house, boat building, and other labors of Crusoe in providing for his wants.
It is quite customary now in second grade to set the children to work in these efforts to solve Crusoe's problems, so that they, by working with actual materials, may realize more fully the difficulties and trials to which he was subjected. In close connection with these constructive efforts are the drawings of the scenes of the story, such as the shipwreck, the stockade, the boat, the map of the island, and some of the later events of the story. A still further means of giving reality to the events is to dramatizesome of the scenes between Friday and Crusoe, and to dress and equip these and other persons in the story in fitting manner. The children gladly enter into such dramatic action. These various forms of drawing, action, and constructive work are in close connection with the home studies of industries and occupations,—farming, gardening, carpenter and blacksmith shops, weaving, cooking, bakeries, and excursions to shops—which follow the Crusoe story in the study of home geography in the third grade.
Although the story should be given and discussed orally, the children should also read it later as a part of the regular reading exercise of the course. Instead of suffering from this repetition, their interest will only be increased. Classical products usually gain by repetition. The facts are brought out more clearly and the deeper meaning is perceived. To have the oral treatment of a story precede its reading by some weeks or months produces an excellent effect upon the style of the reading. The thought being familiar, and the interest strong, the expression will be vigorous and natural. Children take a pride in reading a story which they at first must receive orally for lack of reading power.
The same advantageous drill in the use of good English accrues to the Crusoe story that was observed in the fairy tales. There is abundant opportunity for oral narrative and description.
The use of the pencil and chalk in graphic representation should be encouraged both in teacher and in pupils. Thus the eye becomes more accurate in observation and the hand more free and facile in tracing the outlines of the interesting forms studied. The use of tools and materials in construction gives ideas an anchorage, not only in the brain, but even in the nerves and muscles.
In thus glancing over the field we discover the same many-sided and intimate relation with other school studies, as in the previous grade. In fact, "Crusoe" is the first extended classical masterpiece which is presented to the children as a whole. Such parts of the story as are of most pedagogical value should be simplified and woven together into a continuous narrative. That part of the story which precedes the shipwreck may be reduced to a few paragraphs which bring out clearly his early home surroundings, his disobedience and the desertion of his parents, and the voyage which led to his lonely life upon the island. The period embraced in his companionless labors and experiences constitutes the important part for school uses. A few of the more important episodes following the capture of Friday and his return home may be briefly told. We deem it a long step forward to get some of our great classical masterpieces firmly embedded in the early years of our school course. It will contribute almost as much to the culture and stimulation of teachers as of pupils.
The method of handling this narrative before theclass will be similar to that of the fairy tales. A simple and vivid recital of the facts, with frequent questions and discussions, so as to draw the story closer to the child's own thought and experience, should be made by the teacher. Much skill in illustrative device, in graphic description, in diagram or drawing, in the appeal to the sense experiences of the pupils, is in demand. The excursion to places of interest in the neighborhood suggested by the story begins to be an important factor of the school exercises. As children grow older they acquire skill and confidence in oral narrative, and should be held to greater independence in oral reproductions.
One of the best school editions of "Robinson Crusoe" is published by Ginn & Co.
A simple edition for second grade is published by the Public School Publishing Co.
The teacher should be supplied with one of the larger, fuller editions of "Robinson Crusoe," like that of Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., in the Riverside Literature Series. It furnishes a much fuller detail of knowledge for the teacher's use. It will also be of great advantage for classroom use to possess an illustrated edition like that of George Routledge & Sons.
The full treatment of this story, first in simple, oral narrative, later by its use as a reading book, and later still by the child reading the complete edition for himself in private, illustrates the intensive concentration of thought and constructive activityupon a great piece of literature as opposed to a loose and superficial treatment. Such a piece of work should remain for life a source of deeper thought, feeling, and experience.