FOOTNOTES:

A man was sitting underneath a treeOutside the village, and he asked meWhat name was upon this place, and said heWas never here before. He told aLot of stories to me too. His nose was flat.I asked him how it happened, and he said,The first mate of the “Mary Ann” done that,With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have killed him.A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile, bedad,That's what he said: He taught me how to chew.He was a real nice man. He liked me too.

A man was sitting underneath a tree

Outside the village, and he asked me

What name was upon this place, and said he

Was never here before. He told a

Lot of stories to me too. His nose was flat.

I asked him how it happened, and he said,

The first mate of the “Mary Ann” done that,

With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,

And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have killed him.

A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile, bedad,

That's what he said: He taught me how to chew.

He was a real nice man. He liked me too.

The taste that is fed by the sensational contents of the newspapers and the dramatic excitement of street life, and some of the lurid representations of the Kinematograph, is so much stimulated that the interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell on the deleterious effects of over dramatic stimulation, which has been known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when the mischief is done. Kate Douglas Wiggin has said:

“Let us be realistic, by all means, but beware, O Story-teller, of being too realistic. Avoid the shuddering tale of ‘the wicked boy who stoned the birds,’ lest some hearer should be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill.”

I must emphasise the fact, however, that it is only the excess of this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement is necessary; but this question belongs to the positive side of the subject, and I shall deal with it later on.

V.—Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of the child(unless they are wrapped in mystery, which is of great educational value).

The element I wish to eliminate is the one which would make children world-wise and old before their time.

A small American child who had entertained a guest in her mother's absence, when questioned as to whethershe had shown all the hospitality the mother would have considered necessary, said: “Oh! yes. And I talked to her in the kind of ‘dressy’ toneyouuse on your ‘At Home’ days.”

On one occasion I was lecturing in the town of Cleveland, and was to stay in the house of a lady whom I had met only once, in New York, but with true American hospitality she had begged me to make her house my home during the whole of my stay in Cleveland. In writing to invite me, she mentioned the pleasure it would afford her little ten-year-old daughter to make my acquaintance, and added this somewhat enigmatic sentence: “Mignon has asked permission to dedicate herlastwork to you.” I was alarmed at the wordlast, given the age of the author, and felt sorry that the literary faculty had developed quite so early, lest the unfettered and irresponsible years of childhood should have been sacrificed. I was still more troubled when, upon my arrival, I learned that the title of the book which was to be dedicated to me was “The Two Army Girls,” and contained the elaborate history of a double courtship. But, as the story was read to me, I was soon disarmed. A more innocent recital I never heard—and it was all the quainter because of certain little grown-up sentences gathered from the conversation of elders in unguarded moments, which evidently conveyed but slight meaning to the youthful authoress. The final scene between two of the lovers is so characteristic that I cannot refrain from quoting the actual words. Said John: “I love you, and I wish you to be my wife.” “That I will,” said Mary, without any hesitation. “That's all right,” said John. “And now let usget back to the Golf Links.”

Oh, that modern writers of fiction would“get back to the Golf Links” sooner than they do, realising with this little unconscious philosopher that there are some reactions from love-making which show a healthy and balanced constitution.

Experience with children ought to teach us to avoid stories which contain too muchallusionto matters of which the hearers are entirely ignorant; but, judging from the written stories of to-day, supposed to be for children, it is still a matter of difficulty to realise that this form of allusion to “foreign” matters, or making a joke the appreciation of which depends solely on a special and “inside” knowledge, is always bewildering and fatal to sustained dramatic interest.

It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to understand the taste and point of view of thenormalchild. There is a passage in the “Brownies” (by Mrs. Ewing) which illustrates the confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment.

When the nursery toys have all gone astray, one little child exclaims joyfully:

“Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!”

“It couldn't” remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious to be funny than to sympathise with the joy of the child; “it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles.”

Now, for grown-up people this is an excellent joke, but for a child who has not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the whole remark is pointless and hampering.[20]

VI.—Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness.This is a class of story to be avoided which scarcely counts to-day and against which the teacher does not need a warning; but I wish to make a passing allusion to it, partly to round off my subject and partly to show that we have made some improvement in choice of subject.

When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that, though our progress in intelligent mental catering may be slow, it is real and sure. One has only to take some examples from the Chap Books of the beginning of last century to realise the difference of appeal. Everything offered then was either an appeal to fear or to priggishness, and one wonders how it is that our grandparents and their parents ever recovered from the effects of such stories as were offered to them. But there is the consoling thought that no lasting impression was made upon them, such as I believemaybe possible by the right kind of story.

I offer a few examples of the old type of story:

Here is an encouraging address offered by a certain Mr. Janeway to children about the year 1828:

“Dare you do anything which your parents forbid you, and neglect to do what they command? Dare you to run up and down on the Lord's Day, or do you keep in to read your book, and learn what your good parents command?”

Such an address would have almost tempted children to envy the lot of orphans, except that the guardians and less close relations might have been equally, if not more, severe.

From “The Curious Girl,” published about 1809:“Oh! papa, I hope you will have no reason to be dissatisfied with me, for I love my studies very much, and I am never so happy at my play as when I have been assiduous at my lessons all day.”

“Adolphus: How strange it is, papa, you should believe it possible for me to act so like a child, now that I am twelve years old!”

Here is a specimen taken from a Chap-book about 1825:

Edward refuses hot bread at breakfast. His hostess asks whether he likes it. “Yes, I am extremely fond of it.” “Why did you refuse it?” “Because I know that my papa does not approve of my eating it. Am I to disobey a Father and Mother I love so well, and forget my duty, because they are a long way off? I would not touch the cake, were I sure nobody could see me. I myself should know it, and that would be sufficient.”

“Nobly replied!” exclaimed Mrs. C. “Act always thus, and you must be happy, for although the whole world should refuse the praise that is due, you must enjoy the approbation of your conscience, which is beyond anything else.”

Here is a quotation of the same kind from Mrs. Sherwood:

“Tender-souled little creatures, desolated by a sense of sin, if they did but eat a spoonful of cupboard jam without Mamma's express permission.... Would a modern Lucy, jealous of her sister Emily's doll, break out thus easily into tearful apology for her guilt?—‘I know it is wicked in me to be sorry that Emily is happy, but I feel that I cannot help it.’ And would a modern mother retort with heartfelt joy?—'My dear child, I am glad you have confessed. Now I shall tell you why you feel this wicked sorrow'—proceeding to an account of the depravity of human nature so unredeemedby comfort for a childish mind of common intelligence that one can scarcely imagine the interview ending in anything less tragic than a fit of juvenile hysteria.”

Description of a Good Boy. “A good boy is dutiful to his Father and Mother, obedient to his master and loving to his playfellows. He is diligent in learning his book, and takes a pleasure in improving himself in everything that is worthy of praise. He rises early in the morning, makes himself clean and decent, and says his prayers. He loves to hear good advice, is thankful to those who give it and always follows it. He never swears[21]or calls names or uses ill words to companions. He is never peevish and fretful, always cheerful and good-tempered.”

VII.—Stories of exaggerated and coarse fun.In the chapter on the positive side of this subject I shall speak more in detail of the educational value of robust and virile representation of fun and of sheer nonsense, but as a representation to these statements, I should like to strike a note of warning about the element of exaggerated and coarse fun being encouraged in our school stories, partly because of the lack of humour in such presentations—a natural product of stifling imagination—and partly because the train of the abnormal has the same effect as the too frequent use of the melodramatic.

You have only to read the adventures of Buster Brown, which for years formed the Sunday reading of millions of children in the United States, to realise what would be the effect of coarse fun and entireabsence of humour upon the normal child in its everyday experience, an effect all the greater because of the real skill with which the illustrations are drawn. It is only fair to state that this series was not originally prepared or intended for the young, but it is a matter of regret (shared by most educationists in the States) that they should ever have been given to children at all.

In an article inMacmillan's Magazine, Dec. 1869, Miss Yonge writes: “A taste for buffoonery is much to be discouraged, an exclusive taste for extravagance most unwholesome and even perverting. It becomes destructive of reverence and soon degenerates into coarseness. It permits nothing poetical or imaginative, nothing sweet or pathetic to exist, and there is a certain self-satisfaction and superiority in making game of what others regard with enthusiasm and sentiment which absolutely bars the way against a higher or softer tone.”

Although these words were written nearly half a century ago, they are so specially applicable to-day that they seem quite “up-to-date”: indeed, I think they will hold equally good fifty years hence.

In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly and brutal, I am sure that we ought to eliminate this element as far as possible from the school stories—especially among poor children. Not because I think children should be protected from all knowledge of evil, but because so much of this knowledge comes into their life outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school hours. At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story illustration the difference between brute ugliness without anything to redeem it and surface ugliness, which may be only a veil over thebeauty that lies underneath. It might be possible, for instance, to show children the difference between the real ugliness of a brutal story of crime and an illustration of it in the sensational papers, and the apparent ugliness in the priest's face of the “Laocoon” group, because of the motive of courage and endurance behind the suffering. Many stories in everyday life could be found to illustrate this.

VIII.—Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes.The stories for children forty years ago contained much of this element, and the following examples will illustrate this point:

Notes from poems written by a child between six and eight years of age, by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter:

Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more,Thy joys and sorrows all are o'er.Through Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod,But now art sunk beneath the sod.Here lost and gone poor Robin lies,He trembles, lingers, falls and dies.He's gone, he's gone, forever lost,No more of him they now can boast.Poor Robin's dangers all are past,He struggled to the very last.Perhaps he spent a happy Life,Without much struggle and much strife.

Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more,

Thy joys and sorrows all are o'er.

Through Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod,

But now art sunk beneath the sod.

Here lost and gone poor Robin lies,

He trembles, lingers, falls and dies.

He's gone, he's gone, forever lost,

No more of him they now can boast.

Poor Robin's dangers all are past,

He struggled to the very last.

Perhaps he spent a happy Life,

Without much struggle and much strife.

Published by John Loder, bookseller, Woodbridge, in 1829.

The prolonged gloom of the main theme is somewhat lightened by the speculative optimism of the last verse.

Life, transient Life, is but a dream,Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seemTill dawn of day, when the bird's layDoth charm the soul's first peeping gleam.Then farewell to the parting year,Another's come to Nature dear.In every place, thy brightening faceDoes welcome winter's snowy drear.Alas! our time is much mis-spent.Then we must haste and now repent.We have a book in which to look,For we on Wisdom should be bent.Should God, the Almighty, King of all,Before His judgment-seat now callUs to that place of Joy and GracePrepared for us since Adam's fall.

Life, transient Life, is but a dream,Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seemTill dawn of day, when the bird's layDoth charm the soul's first peeping gleam.

Life, transient Life, is but a dream,

Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seem

Till dawn of day, when the bird's lay

Doth charm the soul's first peeping gleam.

Then farewell to the parting year,Another's come to Nature dear.In every place, thy brightening faceDoes welcome winter's snowy drear.

Then farewell to the parting year,

Another's come to Nature dear.

In every place, thy brightening face

Does welcome winter's snowy drear.

Alas! our time is much mis-spent.Then we must haste and now repent.We have a book in which to look,For we on Wisdom should be bent.

Alas! our time is much mis-spent.

Then we must haste and now repent.

We have a book in which to look,

For we on Wisdom should be bent.

Should God, the Almighty, King of all,Before His judgment-seat now callUs to that place of Joy and GracePrepared for us since Adam's fall.

Should God, the Almighty, King of all,

Before His judgment-seat now call

Us to that place of Joy and Grace

Prepared for us since Adam's fall.

I think there is no doubt that we have made considerable progress in this matter. Not only do we refrain from telling these highly moral (sic) stories but we have reached the point of parodying them, in sign of ridicule, as, for instance, in such writing as Belloc's “Cautionary Tales.” These would be a trifle too grim for a timid child, but excellent fun for adults.

It should be our study to-day to prove to children that the immediate importance to them is not to think of dying and going to Heaven, but of living and—shall we say?—going to College, which is a far better preparation for a life to come than the morbid dwelling upon the possibility of an early death.

In an article signed “Muriel Harris,” I think, from a copy of theTribune, appeared a delightful article on Sunday Books, from which I quote the following:

“All very good little children died young in the story-books, so that unusual goodness must have been the source of considerable anxiety to affectionate parents. I came across a little old book the other day called ‘Examples for Youth.’ On the yellow fly-leaf was written in childish, carefully sloping hand: ‘Presented to Mary Palmer Junior, by her sister, to be read on Sundays,’ and was dated 1828. The accounts are taken from a work onPiety Promoted, and all of them begin with unusual piety in early youth and end with the death-bed of the little paragon, and his or her dying words.”

IX.—Stories containing a mixture of Fairy Tale and Science.By this combination you lose what is essential to each, namely, the fantastic on the one side, and accuracy on the other. The true Fairy Tale should be unhampered by any compromise of probability even—the scientific representation should be sufficiently marvellous along its own lines to need no supernatural aid. Both appeal to the imagination in different ways.

As an exception to this kind of mixture, I should quote “The Honey Bee, and Other Stories,” translated from the Danish of Evald by C. G. Moore Smith. There is a certain robustness in these stories dealing with the inexorable laws of Nature, though some of them will appear hard to the child; but they will be of interest to all teachers.

Perhaps the worst element in choice of stories is that which insists upon the moral detaching itself and explaining the story. In “Alice in Wonderland” the Duchess says, “‘And the moral ofthatis: Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ‘How fond she is of finding morals in things,’ thought Alice to herself.” (This gives the point of view of the child.)

The following is a case in point, found in a rare old print in the British Museum:

“Jane S. came home with her clothes soiled and hands badly torn. ‘Where have you been?’ asked her mother. ‘I fell down the bank near the mill,’ said Jane, ‘and I should have been drowned if Mr. M. had not seen me and pulled me out.’ 'Why did you go so near the edge of the brink?‘ 'There was a pretty flower there that I wanted, and I only meant to take one step, but I slipped and fell down.’ Moral: Young people often take but one step in sinful indulgence (Poor Jane!), but they fall into soul-destroying sins. There is a sinful pleasure which they wish to enjoy. They can do it by a single act of sin (the heinous act of picking a flower!). They do it; but that act leads to another, and they fall into the Gulf of Perdition, unless God interposes.”

Now, apart from the folly of this story, we must condemn it on moral grounds. Could we imagine a lower standard of a Deity than that presented here to the child?

To-day the teacher would commend Jane for a laudable interest in botany, but might add a word of caution about choosing inclined planes as a hunting-ground for specimens and a popular, lucid explanation of the inexorable law of gravity.

Here we have an instance of applying a moral when we have finished our story, but there are many stories where nothing is left to chance in this matter, and where there is no means for the child to use ingenuity or imagination in making out the meaning for himself.

Henry Morley has condemned the use of this method as applied to Fairy Stories. He says: “Moralising in a Fairy Story is like the snoring of Bottom in Titania's lap.”

But I think this applies to all stories, and most especially to those by which we do wish to teach something.

John Burroughs says in his article,[22]“Thou shalt not preach”:

“Didactic fiction can never rank high. Thou shalt not preach or teach; though shalt pourtray and create, and have ends as universal as nature.... What Art demands is that the Artist's personal convictions and notions, his likes and dislikes, do not obtrude themselves at all; that good and evil stand judged in his work by the logic of events, as they do in nature, and not by any special pleading on his part. He does not hold a brief for either side; he exemplifies the working of the creative energy.... The great artist worksinandthroughandfrommoral ideas; his works are indirectly a criticism of life. He is moral without having a moral. The moment a moral obtrudes itself, that moment he begins to fall from grace as an artist.... The great distinction of Art is that it aims to see life steadily and to see it whole.... It affords the one point of view whence the world appears harmonious and complete.”

It would seem, then, from this passage, that it is ofmoralimportance to put things dramatically.

In Froebel's “Mother Play” he demonstrates the educational value of stories, emphasising that their highest use consists in their ability to enable the child, throughsuggestion, to form a pure and noble idea of what a man may be or do. The sensitiveness of a child's mind is offended if the moral is forced upon him, but if he absorbs it unconsciously, he has received its influence for all time.

To me the idea of pointing out the moral of the story has always seemed as futile as tying a flower on to a stalk instead of letting the flowergrow outof the stalk, as Nature intended. In the first case, the flower, showy and bright for the moment, soon fades away. In the second instance, it develops slowly, coming to perfection in fulness of time because of the life within.

X.—Lastly, the element to avoid isthat which rouses emotions which cannot be translated into action.

Mr. Earl Barnes, to whom all teachers owe a debt of gratitude for the inspiration of his education views, insists strongly on this point. The sole effect of such stories is to produce a form of hysteria, fortunately short-lived, but a waste of force which might be directed into a better channel.[23]Such stories are so easy to recognise that it would be useless to make a formal list, but I shall make further allusion to this in dealing with stories from the lives of the saints.

These, then, are the main elements to avoid in the selection of material suitable for normal children. Much might be added in the way of detail, and the special tendency of the day may make it necessary to avoid one class of story more than another; but this care belongs to another generation of teachers and parents.

FOOTNOTES:[18]Such works as “Ministering Children,” “The Wide, Wide World,” “The Fairchild Family,” are instances of the kind of story I mean, as containing too much analysis of emotion.[19]One child's favourite book bore the exciting title of “Birth, Life and Death of Crazy Jane.”[20]This does not imply that the child would not appreciate in the right context the thrilling and romantic story in connection with the finding of the Elgin marbles.[21]One is almost inclined to prefer Marjorie Fleming's little innocent oaths. “But she was more than usual calm. She did not give a single dam.”[22]From “Literary Values.”[23]A story is told of Confucius, that having attended a funeral he presented his horse to the chief mourner. When asked why he bestowed this gift, he replied: “I wept with the man, so I feel I ought todosomething for him.”

[18]Such works as “Ministering Children,” “The Wide, Wide World,” “The Fairchild Family,” are instances of the kind of story I mean, as containing too much analysis of emotion.

[19]One child's favourite book bore the exciting title of “Birth, Life and Death of Crazy Jane.”

[20]This does not imply that the child would not appreciate in the right context the thrilling and romantic story in connection with the finding of the Elgin marbles.

[21]One is almost inclined to prefer Marjorie Fleming's little innocent oaths. “But she was more than usual calm. She did not give a single dam.”

[22]From “Literary Values.”

[23]A story is told of Confucius, that having attended a funeral he presented his horse to the chief mourner. When asked why he bestowed this gift, he replied: “I wept with the man, so I feel I ought todosomething for him.”

Elements to Seek in Choice of Material.

In“The Choice of Books” Frederic Harrison has said: “The most useful help to reading is to know what we shallnotread, ... what we shall keep from that small cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of information which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing knowledge.”[24]

Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied myself, during the last chapter, with “clearing my small spot” by cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am now going to suggest what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have “reclaimed from the Jungle.”

Again I repeat that I have no wish to be dogmatic, and that in offering suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am only catering for a group of normal school-children. My list of subjects does not pretend to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in choice of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any subject to the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation to him and know his powers of apprehension. In this matter,agehas very little to say: it is a question of the stage of development.

Experience has taught me that for the group ofnormal children, almost irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable will contain an appeal to conditions to which they are accustomed. The reason of this is obvious: the child, having limited experience, can only be reached by this experience, until his imagination is awakened and he is enabled to grasp through this faculty what he has not actually passed through. Before this awakening has taken place he enters the realm of fiction (represented in the story) by comparison with his personal experience. Every story and every point in the story mean more as that experience widens, and the interest varies, of course, with temperament, quickness of perception, power of visualising and of concentration.

In “The Marsh King's Daughter,” H. C. Andersen says:

“The Storks have a great many stories which they tell their little ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with Kribble, Krabble, or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want something with more meaning.”

One of the most interesting experiments to be made in connection with this subject is to tell the same story at intervals of a year or six months to some individual child.[25]The different incidents in the story which appeal to it (and you must watch it closely, to be sure the interest is real, and not artificially stimulated by any suggestion on your part) will mark its mental development and the gradual awakening of its imagination. This experiment is a very delicate one, and will not be infallible, because children are secretive and the appreciation is often (unconsciously) simulated,or concealed through shyness or want of articulation. But it is, in spite of this, a deeply interesting and helpful experiment.

To take a concrete example: let us suppose the story of Andersen's Tin Soldier told to a child of five or six years. At the first recital, the point which will interest the child most will be the setting up of the tin soldiers on the table, because he can understand this by means of his own experience, in his own nursery: it is an appeal to conditions to which he is accustomed and for which no exercise of the imagination is needed, unless we take the effect of memory to be, according to Queyrat, retrospective imagination.

The next incident that appeals is the unfamiliar behaviour of the toys, but still in familiar surroundings; that is to say, theunusualactivities are carried on in the safe precincts of the nursery—in theusualatmosphere of the child.

I quote from the text:

“Late in the evening the other soldiers were put in their box, and the people of the house went to bed. Now was the time for the toys to play; they amused themselves with paying visits, fighting battles and giving balls. The tin soldiers rustled about in their box, for they wanted to join the games, but they could not get the lid off. The nut-crackers turned somersaults, and the pencil scribbled nonsense on the slate.”

Now, from this point onwards in the story, the events will be quite outside the personal experience of the child, and there will have to be a real stretch of imagination to appreciate the thrilling and blood-curdling adventures of the little tin soldier, namely, the terrible sailing down the gutter under the bridge, the meeting with the fierce rat who demands the soldier's passport, the horrible sensation in the fish's body, etc.Last of all, perhaps, will come the appreciation of the best qualities of the hero: his modesty, his dignity, his reticence, his courage and his constancy: he seems to combine all the qualities of the best soldier with those of the best civilian, without the more obvious qualities which generally attract first. As for the love-story, we must notexpectany child to see its tenderness and beauty, though the individual child may intuitively appreciate these qualities, but it is not what we wish for or work for at this period of child-life.

This method could be applied to various stories. I have chosen theTin Soldierbecause of its dramatic qualities and because it is marked off (probably quite unconsciously on the part of Andersen) into periods which correspond to the child's development.

In Eugene Field's exquisite little poem of “The Dinkey Bird” we find the objects familiar to the child inunusualplaces, so that some imagination is needed to realise that “big red sugar-plums are clinging to the cliffs beside that sea”; but the introduction of the fantastic bird and the soothing sound of the Amfalula Tree are new and delightful sensations, quite out of the child's personal experience.

Another such instance is to be found in Mrs. W. K. Clifford's story of Master Willie. The abnormal behaviour of familiar objects, such as a doll, leads from the ordinary routine to the paths of adventure. This story is to be found in a little book called “Very Short Stories,” a most interesting collection for teachers and children.

We now come to the second element we should seek in material—namely, the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the story of the Tin Soldier.

This element is necessary in response to the demandof the child who expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: “I want to go to the place where the shadows are real.” This is the true definition of “Faerie” lands, and is the first sign of real mental development in the child when he is no longer content with the stories of his own little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to appreciate sounds different from the words in his own everyday language, and when he begins to separate his own personality from the action of the story.

George Goschen says[26]:

“What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply deal with our daily life. I like the fancy (even) of little children to have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and I confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not sometimes stimulated by beautiful Fairy Tales which carry them to worlds different from those in which their future will be passed.... I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is better than what reminds them of it at every step.”

It is because of the great value of leading children to something beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the artificially-prepared Public School stories for boys. Why not give them the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket match, or a football triumph, could present a finer appeal to boys and girls than the description of the Peacestead in the “Heroes of Asgaard”:

“This was the playground of the Æsir, where they practised trials of skill one with another and held tournaments and sham fights. These last were always conducted in the gentlest and most honourable manner; for the strongest law of the Peacestead was, that no angry blow should be struck, or spiteful word spoken upon the sacred field.”

For my part, I would unhesitatingly give to boys and girls an element of strong romance in the stories which are told them even before they are twelve. Miss Sewell says:

“The system that keeps girls in the schoolroom reading simple stories, without reading Scott and Shakespeare and Spenser, and then hands them over to the unexplored recesses of the Circulating Library, has been shown to be the most frivolizing that can be devised.” She sets forward the result of her experience that a good novel, especially a romantic one, read at twelve or fourteen, is really a beneficial thing.

At present many of the children from the elementary schools get their first idea of love (if one can give it such a name) from vulgar pictures displayed in the shop windows, or jokes on marriage culled from the lowest type of paper, or the proceedings of a divorce-court.

What an antidote to such representation might be found in the story of

One of the strongest elements we should introduce into our stories for children of all ages is that which calls forth love of beauty. And the beauty should stand out, not necessarily only in delineation of noble qualities in our heroes and heroines, but in beauty and strength of language and form.

In this latter respect the Bible stories are of suchinestimable value—all the greater because a child is familiar with the subject, and the stories gain fresh significance from the spoken or winged word as compared with the mere reading. Whether we should keep to the actual text is a matter of individual experience. Professor R. G. Moulton, whose interpretations of the Bible Stories are so well known both in England and the States, does not always confine himself to the actual text, but draws the dramatic elements together, rejecting what seems to him to break the narrative, but introducing the actual language where it is the most effective. Those who have heard him will realise the success of his method.

There is one Bible story which can be told with scarcely any deviation, and that is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. Thus, I think it wise, if the children are to succeed in partially visualizing the story, that they should have some idea of the dimensions of the Golden Image as it would stand out in a vast plain. It might be well to compare those dimensions with some building with which the child is familiar. In London the matter is easy, as the height will compare, roughly speaking, with that of Westminster Abbey. The only change in the text I should adopt is to avoid the constant enumeration of the list of rulers and the musical instruments. In doing this, I am aware that I am sacrificing something of beauty in the rhythm,—on the other hand, for narrative purpose, the interest is not broken. The first time the announcement is made, that is, by the Herald, it should be in a perfectly loud, clear and toneless voice, such as you would naturally use when shouting through a trumpet to a vast concourse of people scattered over a wide plain; reserving all the dramatic tone of voice for the passage where Nebuchadnezzar ismaking the announcement to the three men by themselves. I can remember Professor Moulton saying that all the dramatic interest of the story is summed up in the words “But if Not....” This suggestion is a very helpful one, for it enables us to work up gradually to this point, and then, as it were,unwind, until we reach the words of Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic recantation.

In this connection, it is a good plan occasionally during the story hour to introduce really good poetry which, delivered in a dramatic manner (far removed, of course, from the melodramatic), might give children their first love of beautiful form in verse. And I do not think it necessary to wait for this. Even the normal child of seven (though there is nothing arbitrary in the suggestion of this age) will appreciate the effect—if only on the ear—of beautiful lines well spoken. Mahomet has said, in his teaching advice: “Teach your children poetry: it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes heroic virtues hereditary.”

To begin with the youngest children of all, here is a poem which contains a thread of story, just enough to give a human interest:

MILKING-TIME.

When the cows come home, the milk is coming,Honey's made when the bees are humming.Duck, Drake on the rushy lake,And the deer live safe in the breezy brake,And timid, funny, pert little bunnyWinks his nose, and sits all sunny.

When the cows come home, the milk is coming,

Honey's made when the bees are humming.

Duck, Drake on the rushy lake,

And the deer live safe in the breezy brake,

And timid, funny, pert little bunny

Winks his nose, and sits all sunny.

Christina Rossetti.

Now, in comparing this poem with some of thedoggerel verse offered to small children, one is struck with the literary superiority in the choice of words. Here, in spite of the simplicity of the poem, there is not the ordinary limited vocabulary, nor the forced rhyme, nor the application of a moral, by which the artist falls from grace.

Again, in Eugene Field's “Hushaby Lady,” the language of which is most simple, the child is carried away by the beauty of the sound.

I remember hearing some poetry repeated by the children in one of the elementary schools in Sheffield which made me feel that they had realised romantic possibilities which would prevent their lives from ever becoming quite prosaic again, and I wish that this practice were more usual. There is little difficulty with the children. I can remember, in my own experience as a teacher in London, making the experiment of reading or repeating passages from Milton and Shakespeare to children from nine to eleven years of age, and the enthusiastic way they responded by learning those passages by heart. I have taken, with several sets of children, such passages from Milton as “Echo Song,” “Sabrina,” “By the rushy fringed Bank,” “Back, shepherds, back,” fromComus, “May Morning,” “Ode to Shakespeare,” “Samson on his blindness,” etc. I even ventured on several passages fromParadise Lost, and found “Now came still evening on” a particular favourite with the children.

It seemed even easier to interest them in Shakespeare, and they learned quite readily and easily many passages from “As You Like It,” “Merchant of Venice,” “Julius Cæsar”; from “Richard II,” “Henry IV,” and “Henry V.”

The method I should recommend in the introductionof both poets occasionally into the Story-hour would be threefold.

First, to choose passages which appeal for beauty of sound or beauty of mental vision called up by those sounds: such as, “Tell me where is Fancy bred,” Titania's Lullaby, “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.”

Secondly, passages for sheer interest of content, such as the Trial Scene from “The Merchant of Venice,” or the Forest Scene in “As You Like It.”

Thirdly, for dramatic and historical interest, such as, “Men at some time are masters of their fates,” the whole of Mark Antony's speech, and the scene with Imogen and her foster-brothers in the Forest.

It may not be wholly out of place to add here that the children learned and repeated these passages themselves, and that I offered them the same advice as I do to all Story-tellers. I discussed quite openly with them the method I considered best, trying to make them see that simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most effective means to use; and, by the end of a few months, when they had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began to see that mere ranting was not force, and that a sense of reserve power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere external presentation.

I encouraged them to criticise each other for the common good, and sometimes I read a few lines with over-emphasis and too much gesture, which they were at liberty to point out, so that they might avoid the same error.

A very good collection of poems for this purpose of narrative is to be found in:

Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series ofSong and Story,Published by A. and C. Black.

Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series ofSong and Story,

Published by A. and C. Black.

And for older children:

The Call of the Homeland, Anthology.Edited by Dr. Scott and Miss Katharine Wallas, Published by Blackie and Son.

The Call of the Homeland, Anthology.

Edited by Dr. Scott and Miss Katharine Wallas, Published by Blackie and Son.

Also in a collection published (I believe) in Boston by Miss Agnes Repplier.

Golden Numbers.(K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith).

Golden Numbers.

(K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith).

It will be realised from the scanty number of examples offered in this section that it is only a side issue, a mere suggestion of an occasional alternative for the Story-hour, as likely to develop the imagination.

I think it is well to have a good number of stories illustrating the importance of common sense and resourcefulness. For this reason I consider that stories treating of the ultimate success of the youngest son are very admirable for the purpose, because the youngest child, who begins by being considered inferior to the elder ones, triumphs in the end, either from resourcefulness, or from common sense, or from some high quality, such as kindness to animals, courage in overcoming difficulties, etc.[27]

Thus we have the story of Cinderella. The cynic might imagine that it was the diminutive size of her foot that ensured her success: the child does not realise any advantage in this, but, though the matter need not be pressed, the story leaves us with the impression that Cinderella had been patient and industrious, forbearing with her sisters. We know that she was strictly obedient to her godmother, and in order to be this shemakes her dramatic exit from the ball which is the beginning of her triumph. There are many who might say that these qualities do not meet with reward in life and that they end in establishing a habit of drudgery, but, after all, we must have poetic justice in a Fairy Story, occasionally, at any rate.

Another such story is “Jesper and the Hares.” Here, however, it is not at first resourcefulness that helps the hero, but sheer kindness of heart, which prompts him first to help the ants, and then to show civility to the old woman, without for a moment expecting any material benefit from such actions. At the end, he does win by his own ingenuity and resourcefulness, and if we regret that histrickeryhas such wonderful results, we must remember that the aim was to win the princess for herself, and that there was little choice left him. I consider the end of this story to be one of the most remarkable I have found in my long years of browsing among Fairy Tales. I should suggest stopping at the words: “The Tub is full,” as any addition seems to destroy the subtlety of the story.[28]

Another story of this kind, admirable for children from six years and upwards, is “What the Old Man does isalwaysRight.” Here, perhaps, the entire lack of common sense on the part of the hero would serve rather as a warning than a stimulating example, but the conduct of the wife in excusing the errors of her foolish husband is a model of resourcefulness.

In the story of “Hereafter—this”[29]we have just the converse: a perfectly foolish wife shielded by a most patient and forbearing husband, whose tolerance and common sense save the situation.

One of the most important elements to seek in our choice of stories is that which tends to develop, eventually, a fine sense of humour in a child. I purposely use the word “eventually,” because I realise first that humour has various stages, and that seldom, if ever, can you expect an appreciation of fine humour from a normal child, that is, from an elemental mind. It seems as if the rough-and-tumble element were almost a necessary stage through which children must pass—a stage, moreover, which is normal and healthy; but up to now we have quite unnecessarily extended the period of elephantine fun, and though we cannot control the manner in which children are catered for along this line in their homes, we can restrict the folly of appealing too strongly or too long to this elemental faculty in our schools. Of course, the temptation is strong, because the appeal is so easy. But there is a tacit recognition that horse-play and practical jokes are no longer considered an essential part of a child's education. We note this in the changed attitude in the schools, taken by more advanced educationists, towards bullying, fagging, hazing, etc. As a reaction, then, from more obvious fun, there should be a certain number of stories which make appeal to a more subtle element, and in the chapter on the questions put to me by teachers on various occasions, I speak more in detail about the educational value of a finer humour in our stories.

At some period there ought to be presented in our stories the superstitions connected with the primitive history of the race, dealing with the Fairy (proper), giants, dwarfs, gnomes, nixies, brownies and other elemental beings. Andrew Lang says:“Without our savage ancestors we should have had no poetry. Conceive the human race born into the world in its present advanced condition, weighing, analysing, examining everything. Such a race would have been destitute of poetry and flattened by common sense. Barbarians did thedreamingof the world.”

But it is a question of much debate among educationists what should be the period of the child's life in which these stories are to be presented. I myself was formerly of opinion that they belonged to the very primitive age of the individual, just as they belong to the primitive age of the race, but experience in telling stories has taught me to compromise.

Some people maintain that little children, who take things with brutal logic, ought not to be allowed the Fairy Tale in its more limited form of the Supernatural; whereas, if presented to older children, this material can be criticised, catalogued and (alas!) rejected as worthless, or retained with flippant toleration.

Now, whilst recognising a certain value in this point of view, I am bound to admit that if we regulate our stories entirely on this basis, we lose the real value of the Fairy Tale element—it is the one element which causes little children towonder, simply because no scientific analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that Jack and the Bean-Stalk and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why Jack was not playing football in the school team instead of climbing trees in search of imaginary adventures.

A wonderful plea for the telling of early superstitions to children is to be found in an old Indian Allegory called “The Blazing Mansion.”

“An old man owned a large, rambling mansion—the pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The distracted father said: ‘I will run in and save my children. I will seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the falling rafters and the blazing beams.’ Then the sad thought came to him that the children were romping and ignorant. ‘If I say the house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize them, they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a moment to be lost!’ Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's mind. ‘My children are ignorant,’ he said; ‘they love toys and glittering playthings. I will promise them playthings of unheard-of beauty. Then they will listen.’So the old man shouted: ‘Children, come out of the house and see these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such goats as these? Children, children, come quickly, or they will all be gone!’Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The word ‘plaything’ was almost the only word they could understand.Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring was freed from peril, procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen: the chariot had a canopy like a pagoda: it had tiny rails and balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew thechariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.”(From the “Thabagata.”)

So the old man shouted: ‘Children, come out of the house and see these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such goats as these? Children, children, come quickly, or they will all be gone!’

Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The word ‘plaything’ was almost the only word they could understand.

Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring was freed from peril, procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen: the chariot had a canopy like a pagoda: it had tiny rails and balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew thechariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.”

(From the “Thabagata.”)

Perhaps, as a compromise, one might give the gentler superstitions to very small children, and leave such a blood-curdling story as Bluebeard to a more robust age.

There is one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this we are tampering with folk-lore and confusing stages of development.

Now, I know that there are individual children that, at a tender age, might be alarmed at such a story, for instance, as Little Red Riding-Hood; in which case, it is better to sacrifice the “wonder stage” and present the story later on.

I live in dread of finding one day a bowdlerized form of “Bluebeard” (prepared for a junior standard), in which, to produce a satisfactory finale, all the wives come to life again, and “live happily for ever after” with Bluebeard and each other!

And from this point it seems an easy transition to the subject of legends of different kinds. Some of the old country legends in connection with flowers are very charming for children, and as long as we do not tread on the sacred ground of the Nature Students, we may indulge in a moderate use of such stories, of which a few will be found in the Story Lists.

With regard to the introduction of legends connected with saints into the school curriculum, my chief plea is the element of the unusual which they contain, and an appeal to a sense of mysticism and wonder whichis a wise antidote to the prosaic and commercial tendencies of to-day. Though many of the actions of the saints may be the result of a morbid strain of self-sacrifice, at least none of them were engaged in the sole occupation of becoming rich: their ideals were often lofty and unselfish; their courage high, and their deeds noble. We must be careful, in the choice of our legends, to show up the virile qualities rather than to dwell on the elements of horror in details of martyrdom, or on the too-constantly recurring miracles, lest we should defeat our own ends. For the children might think lightly of the dangers to which the saints were exposed if they find them too often preserved at the last moment from the punishment they were brave enough to undergo. For one or other of these reasons, I should avoid the detailed history of St. Juliana, St. Vincent, St. Quintin, St. Eustace, St. Winifred, St. Theodore, St. James the More, St. Katharine, St. Cuthbert, St. Alphage, St. Peter of Milan, St. Quirine and Juliet, St. Alban and others.

The danger of telling children stories connected with sudden conversions is that they are apt to place too much emphasis on the process, rather than the goal to be reached. We should always insist on the splendid deeds performed after a real conversion—not the details of the conversion itself; as, for instance, the beautiful and poetical work done by St. Christopher when he realised what work he could do most effectively.

On the other hand, there are many stories of the saints dealing with actions and motives which would appeal to the imagination and are not only worthy of imitation, but are not wholly outside the life and experience even of the child.[30]

Having protested against the elephantine joke and the too-frequent use of exaggerated fun, I now endeavour to restore the balance by suggesting the introduction into the school curriculum of a few purely grotesque stories which serve as an antidote to sentimentality or utilitarianism. But they must be presented as nonsense, so that the children may use them for what they are intended, as pure relaxation. Such a story is that of “The Wolf and the Kids.” I have had serious objections offered to this story by several educational people, because of the revenge taken by the goat on the wolf, but I am inclined to think that if the story is to be taken as anything but sheer nonsense, it is surely sentimental to extend our sympathy towards a caller who has devoured six of his hostess' children. With regard to the wolf being cut open, there is not the slightest need to accentuate the physical side. Children accept the deed as they accept the cutting off of a giant's head, because they do not associate it with pain, especially if the deed is presented half-humorously. The moment in the story where their sympathy is aroused is the swallowing of the kids, because the children do realise the possibility of being disposed of in the mother's absence. (Needless to say, I never point out the moral of the kids' disobedience to the mother in opening the door.) I have always noticed a moment of breathlessness even in a grown-up audience when the wolf swallows the kids, and that the recovery of them “all safe and sound, all huddled together” is quite as much appreciated by the adult audience as by the children, and is worth the tremor caused by the wolf's summary action.

I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers that this storymustbe taken lightly. A very earnest young student came to me once after I hadtold it, and said in an awestruck voice: “Do you Correlate?” Having recovered from the effect of this word, which she carefully explained, I said that as a rule I preferred to keep the story apart from the other lessons, just an undivided whole, because it had effects of its own which were best brought about by not being connected with other lessons.[31]She frowned her disapproval and said: “I am sorry, because I thought I would take The Goat for my Nature Study lesson, and then tell your story at the end.” I thought of the terrible struggle in the child's mind between his conscientious wish to be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of the abnormal habits of a goat who went out with scissors, needle and thread; but I have been most careful since to repudiate any connection with Nature Study in this and a few other stories in my répertoire.

One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's “Book of Nonsense.” For instance:

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