FOOTNOTES:

There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,Who wished he had never been born;So he sat in a chair till he died of despair,That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.

There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,

Who wished he had never been born;

So he sat in a chair till he died of despair,

That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.

Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly be taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would recognise the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents a man from at least an attempt to rise from his chair.

The following I have chosen as repeated withintense appreciation and much dramatic vigour by a little boy just five years old:

There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!I perceive a young bird in this bush!”When they said, “Is it small?” he replied, “Not at all!It is four times as big as the bush!”[32]

There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!

I perceive a young bird in this bush!”

When they said, “Is it small?” he replied, “Not at all!

It is four times as big as the bush!”[32]

One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our stories is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very young children this is easy, because in those early years when the mind is not clogged with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination enables them to enter into the feelings of animals. Andersen has an illustration of this point in his “Ice Maiden”:

“Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small, and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail. With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit of saying strange things.”

Felix Adler says: “Perhaps the chief attraction of Fairy Tales is due to their representing the child as living in brotherly friendship with nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals, wild and tame, even the stars are represented as comrades of children. That animals are only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the Fairy Tales. Animals are humanised, that is,the kinship between animal and human life is still keenly felt; and this reminds us of those early animistic interpretations of nature which subsequently led to doctrines of metempsychosis.”[33]

I think that beyond question the finest animal stories are to be found in the Indian Collections, of which I furnish a list in the Appendix.

With regard to the development of the love of nature through the telling of the stories, we are confronted with a great difficult in the elementary schools, because so many of the children have never been out of the towns, have never seen a daisy, a blade of grass and scarcely a tree, so that in giving, in form of a story, a beautiful description of scenery, you can make no appeal to the retrospective imagination, and only the rarely gifted child will be able to make pictures whilst listening to a style which is beyond his everyday use. Nevertheless, once in a way, when the children are in a quiet mood, not eager for action but able to give themselves up to the pure joy of sound, then it is possible to give them a beautiful piece of writing in praise of Nature, such as the following, taken fromThe Divine Adventure, by Fiona Macleod:

“Then he remembered the ancient wisdom of the Gael and came out of the Forest Chapel and went into the woods. He put his lip to the earth, and lifted a green leaf to his brow, and held a branch to his ear, and because he was no longer heavy with the sweet clay of mortality, though yet of human clan he heard that which we do not hear, and saw that which we do not see, and knew that which we do not know. All the green life was his. In that new world, he saw the lives of trees, now pale green, now of woodsmoke blue, now of amethyst; the gray lives of stone; breaths of the grass and reed, creatures of the air, delicate and wild as fawns, or swift and fierce and terrible, tigers, of that undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost invisible but for their luminous wings, and opalescent crests.”

The value of this particular passage is the mystery pervading the whole picture, which forms so beautiful an antidote to the eternal explaining of things. I think it of the highest importance for children to realise that the best and most beautiful things cannot be expressed in everyday language and that they must content themselves with a flash here and there of the beauty which may come later. One does not enhance the beauty of the mountain by pulling to pieces some of the earthy clogs: one does not increase the impression of a vast ocean by analysing the single drops of water. But at a reverent distance one gets a clear impression of the whole, and can afford to leave the details in the shadow.

In presenting such passages (and it must be done very sparingly) experience has taught me that we should take the children into our confidence by telling them frankly that nothing exciting is going to happen, so that they will be free to listen to the mere words. A very interesting experiment might occasionally be made by asking the children some weeks afterwards to tell you in their own words what pictures were made on their minds. This is a very different thing from allowing the children to reproduce the passage at once, the danger of which proceeding I speak of later in detail. (See Chapter on Questions.)

We now come to the question as to what proportion ofDramatic Excitementwe should present in the stories for a normal group of children. Personally, Ishould like, while the child is very young (I mean in mind, not in years) to exclude the element of dramatic excitement, but though this may be possible for the individual child, it is quite Utopian to hope we can keep the average child free from what is in the atmosphere. Children crave for excitement, and unless we give it to them in legitimate form, they will take it in any riotous form it presents itself, and if from our experience we can control their mental digestion by a moderate supply of what they demand, we may save them from devouring too eagerly the raw material they can so easily find for themselves.

There is a humorous passage bearing on this question in the story of the small Scotch boy, when he asks leave of his parents to present the pious little book—a gift to himself from his Aunt—to a little sick friend, hoping probably that the friend's chastened condition will make him more lenient towards this mawkish form of literature. The parents expostulate, pointing out to their son how ungrateful he is, and how ungracious it would be to part with his Aunt's gift. Then the boy can contain himself no longer. He bursts out, unconsciously expressing the normal attitude of children at a certain stage of development: “It's adaftbook ony way; there's naebody gets kilt en't. I like stories about folk getting their heids cut off, or stabbit through and through, wi' swords an' spears. An' there's nae wile beasts. I like Stories about black men gettin' ate up, an' white men killin' lions and tigers an' bears an'——”

Then, again, we have the passage from George Eliot's “Mill on the Floss”:

“Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?”“Hurt me? No,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:“I gave Spooner a black eye—that's what he got for wanting to leather me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”“Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?”“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows.”“No, but if we were in the lion countries—I mean in Africa where it's very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it.”“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”“But if you hadn't got a gun?—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you do, Tom?”Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: “But the lionisn'tcoming. What's the use of talking?”

“Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?”

“Hurt me? No,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:

“I gave Spooner a black eye—that's what he got for wanting to leather me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”

“Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?”

“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows.”

“No, but if we were in the lion countries—I mean in Africa where it's very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it.”

“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”

“But if you hadn't got a gun?—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you do, Tom?”

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: “But the lionisn'tcoming. What's the use of talking?”

This passage illustrates also the difference between the highly-developed imagination of the one and the stodgy prosaical temperament of the other. Tom could enter into the elementary question of giving his school-fellow a black eye, but could not possibly enter into the drama of the imaginary arrival of a lion. He was sorely in need of Fairy Stories.

It is for this element we have to cater, and we cannot shirk our responsibilities.

William James says: “Living things, moving things or things that savour of danger or blood, thathave a dramatic quality, these are the things natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and the teacher of young children (until more artificial interests have grown up) will keep in touch with his pupils by constant appeal to such matters as those.”[34]

Of course the savour of danger and blood is onlyoneof the things to which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point clearer.

This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for “blugginess” is slaked.

And here I should like to say that, whilst wishing to encourage in children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine qualities which have been displayed in times of war, and which have mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession as soldiers. Thus we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sidney and the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his dead friends to receive the blessing of the archbishop after the battle of Roncevalles[35]; and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England. There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of the slaughter of his enemies, and says, “I wonder if I am less brave than others, because I kill men less willingly than they.”

And in the “Njal's Burning” from Andrew Lang's “Book of Romance” we have the words of the boy Thord when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges him to go out of the burning house.

“You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I never should go from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you than live after you.”

Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown; none of these heroes feared to die in battle or in open single fight, but to face a death by fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to the child.

In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our soldiers and sailors,[36]should we not try to offer also in our stories the romance and excitement of saving as well astakinglife?

I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures of the Life-Boat and the Fire Brigade, of which I hope to present examples in the final Story List.

Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with Death, especially with children who are of an age to realise that it must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories of Death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and unselfishness; or of Death coming as a result of treachery, such as we find in the death of Baldur, of Siegfried, and of others, so that children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of stories dealing with death thatcomes naturally, when our work is done and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of a leaf from the tree. In this way we can give children the first idea that the individual is so much less than the whole.

Quite small children often take Death very naturally. A boy of five met two of his older companions at the school door. They said sadly and solemnly: “We have just seen a dead man!” “Well,” said the little philosopher, “that's all right. We'veallgot to die when our work's done.”

In one of the Buddha stories which I reproduce at the end of this book, the little Hare (who is, I think, a symbol of nervous Individualism) constantly says: “Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would become of me?”

As an antidote to the ordinary attitude towards death, I commend an episode from a German folk-lore story called “Unlucky John,” which is included in the list of stories recommended at the end of this book.

The following sums up in poetic form some of the material necessary for the wants of a child:

THE CHILD.

The little new soul has come to Earth,He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.His sandals are girt on his tender feet,And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.What will you give to him, Fate Divine?What for his scrip on the winding road?A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?A sword to wield, or is gold his load?What will you give him for weal or woe?What for the journey through day and night?Give or withhold from him power and fame,But give to him love of the earth's delight.Let him be lover of wind and sunAnd of falling rain; and the friend of trees;With a singing heart for the pride of noon,And a tender heart for what twilight sees.Let him be lover of you and yours—The Child and Mary; but also Pan,And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.Love and a song and the joy of earth,These be the gifts for his scrip to keepTill, the journey ended, he stands at lastIn the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.

The little new soul has come to Earth,He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.His sandals are girt on his tender feet,And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.

The little new soul has come to Earth,

He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.

His sandals are girt on his tender feet,

And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.

What will you give to him, Fate Divine?What for his scrip on the winding road?A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?A sword to wield, or is gold his load?

What will you give to him, Fate Divine?

What for his scrip on the winding road?

A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?

A sword to wield, or is gold his load?

What will you give him for weal or woe?What for the journey through day and night?Give or withhold from him power and fame,But give to him love of the earth's delight.

What will you give him for weal or woe?

What for the journey through day and night?

Give or withhold from him power and fame,

But give to him love of the earth's delight.

Let him be lover of wind and sunAnd of falling rain; and the friend of trees;With a singing heart for the pride of noon,And a tender heart for what twilight sees.

Let him be lover of wind and sun

And of falling rain; and the friend of trees;

With a singing heart for the pride of noon,

And a tender heart for what twilight sees.

Let him be lover of you and yours—The Child and Mary; but also Pan,And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.

Let him be lover of you and yours—

The Child and Mary; but also Pan,

And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,

And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.

Love and a song and the joy of earth,These be the gifts for his scrip to keepTill, the journey ended, he stands at lastIn the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.

Love and a song and the joy of earth,

These be the gifts for his scrip to keep

Till, the journey ended, he stands at last

In the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.

Ethel Clifford.

And so our stories should contain all the essentials for the child's scrip on the road of life, providing the essentials and holding or withholding the non-essentials. But, above all, let us fill the scrip with gifts that the child need never reject, even when he passes through “the gate of sleep.”

FOOTNOTES:[24]Chapter I, page3.[25]This experiment cannot be made with a group of children, for obvious reasons.[26]From an address on the “Cultivation of the Imagination.”[27]“The House in the Wood” (Grimm) is a good instance of triumph for the youngest child.[28]To be found in Andrew Lang's Collection. Seelist of Stories.[29]To be found in Jacob's “More English Tales.”[30]For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, seeStory Lists.[31]I believe that I am quite in a minority among Educationists in this matter. Possibly my constantly specialising in the stories may have formed my opinion.[32]These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang. (Boston.)[33]From “Moral Instruction of Children,” page 66. “The Use of Fairy Tales.”[34]From “Talks to Teachers,” page 93.[35]An excellent account of this is to be found in “The Song of Roland,” by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender.[36]This passage was written before the Great War.

[24]Chapter I, page3.

[25]This experiment cannot be made with a group of children, for obvious reasons.

[26]From an address on the “Cultivation of the Imagination.”

[27]“The House in the Wood” (Grimm) is a good instance of triumph for the youngest child.

[28]To be found in Andrew Lang's Collection. Seelist of Stories.

[29]To be found in Jacob's “More English Tales.”

[30]For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, seeStory Lists.

[31]I believe that I am quite in a minority among Educationists in this matter. Possibly my constantly specialising in the stories may have formed my opinion.

[32]These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang. (Boston.)

[33]From “Moral Instruction of Children,” page 66. “The Use of Fairy Tales.”

[34]From “Talks to Teachers,” page 93.

[35]An excellent account of this is to be found in “The Song of Roland,” by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender.

[36]This passage was written before the Great War.

How to Obtain and Maintain the Effect of the Story.

Weare now coming to the most important part of the question of Story-Telling, to which all the foregoing remarks have been gradually leading, and that is the Effects of these stories upon the child, apart from the dramatic joy he experiences in listening to them, which would in itself be quite enough to justify us in the telling. But, since I have urged upon teachers the extreme importance of giving so much time to the manner of telling and of bestowing so much care on the selection of the material, it is right that they should expect some permanent results, or else those who are not satisfied with the mere enjoyment of the children will seek other methods of appeal—and it is to them that I most specially dedicate this chapter.

I think we are on the threshold of the re-discovery of an old truth, that the Dramatic Presentation is the quickest and surest, because it is the only one with which memory plays no tricks. If a thing has appeared before us in a vital form, nothing can really destroy it; it is because things are often given in a blurred, faint light that they gradually fade out of our memory. A very keen scientist was deploring to me, on one occasion, the fact that stories were told so much in the schools, to the detriment of science, for which she claimed the same indestructible element that Irecognise in the best-told stories. Being very much interested in her point of view, I asked her to tell me, looking back on her school days, what she could remember as standing out from other less clear information. After thinking some little time over the matter, she said with some embarrassment, but with a candour that did her much honour:

“Well, now I come to think of it, it was the story of Cinderella.”

Now, I am not holding any brief for this story in particular. I think the reason it was remembered was because of the dramatic form in which it was presented to her, which fired her imagination and kept the memory alight. I quite realise that a scientific fact might also have been easily remembered if it was presented in the form of a successful chemical experiment: but this also has something of the dramatic appeal and will be remembered on that account.

Sully says: “We cannot understand the fascination of a story for children save in remembering that for their young minds, quick to imagine, and unversed in abstract reflection, words are not dead things butwinged, as the old Greeks called them.”[37]

The Red Queen (in “Through the Looking-Glass”) was more psychological than she knew when she made the memorable statement: “When once you'vesaida thing thatfixesit, and you must take the consequences.”

In Curtin's Introduction to “Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians,” he says:

“I remember well the feeling roused in my mind at the mention or sight of the nameLuciferduring the early years of my life. It stood for me as the name of a being stupendous, dreadful in moral deformity, lurid, hideous and mighty. I remember the surprisewhich, whenI had grown somewhat older and began to study Latin, I came upon the name in Virgil where it meanslight-bringer—the herald of the Sun.”

Plato has said: “That the End of Education should be the training by suitable habits of the Instincts of Virtue in the Child.”

About two thousand years later, Sir Philip Sidney, in his “Defence of Poesy,” says: “The final end of learning is to draw and lead us to so high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of.”

And yet it is neither the Greek philosopher nor the Elizabethan poet that makes the every-day application of these principles; but we have a hint of this application from the Pueblo tribe of Indians, of whom Lummis tells us the following:

“There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to be content with a bare command: Do this. For each he learns a fairy-tale designed to explain how children first came to know that it was right to ‘do this,’ and detailing the sad results that befell those who did otherwise. Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories of their people and who possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and having prepared a feast for him, she and her little brood, who are curled up near her, await the Fairy Stories of the dreamer, who after his feast and smoke entertains the company for hours.”

In modern times, the nurse, who is now receiving such complete training for her duties with the children, should be ready to imitate the “dreamer” of the Indian tribe. I rejoice to find that regular instructionin Story-telling is being given in many of the institutions where the nurses are trained.

Some years ago there appeared a book by Dion Calthrop called “King Peter,” which illustrates very fully the effect of story-telling. It is the account of the education of a young prince which is carried on at first by means of stories, and later he is taken out into the arena of Life to be shown what is happening there—the dramatic appeal being always the means used to awaken his imagination. The fact that onlyonestory a year is told him prevents our seeing the effect from day to day, but the time matters little. We only need faith to believe that the growth, though slow, was very sure.

There is something of the same idea in the “Adventures of Telemachus,” written by Fénélon for his royal pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy; but whereas Calthrop trusts to the results of indirect teaching by means of dramatic stories, Fénélon, on the contrary, makes use of the somewhat heavy, didactic method, so that one would think the attention of the young prince must have wandered at times; and I imagine Telemachus was in the same condition when he was addressed at some length by Mentor, who, being Minerva (though in disguise), should occasionally have displayed that sense of humour which must always temper true wisdom:

Take, for instance, the heavy reproof conveyed in the following passage:

“Death and shipwreck are less dreadful than the pleasures that attack Virtue.... Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though nothing in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies on its own strength, believing everything with the utmost levity and without any precaution.”

And on another occasion, when Calypso hospitably provides clothes for the shipwrecked men, and Telemachus is handling a tunic of the finest wool and white as snow, with a vest of purple embroidered with gold, and displaying much pleasure in the magnificence of the clothes, Mentor addresses him in a severe voice, saying: “Are these, O Telemachus, the thoughts that ought to occupy the heart of the son of Ulysses? A young man who loves to dress vainly, as a woman does, is unworthy of wisdom or glory.”

I remember, as a schoolgirl of thirteen, having to commit to memory several books of these adventures, so as to become familiar with the style. Far from being impressed by the wisdom of Mentor, I was simply bored, and wondered why Telemachus did not escape from him. The only part in the book that really interested me was Calypso's unrequited love for Telemachus, but this was always the point where we ceased to learn by heart, which surprised me greatly, for it was here that the real human interest seemed to begin.

Of all the effects which I hope for from the telling of stories in the schools, personally I place first the dramatic joy we bring to the children and to ourselves. But there are many who would consider this result as fantastic, if not frivolous, and not to be classed among the educational values concocted with the introduction of stories into the school curriculum. I therefore propose to speak of other effects of story-telling which may seem of more practical value.

The first, which is of a purely negative character, is that through means of a dramatic story we can counteract some of the sights and sounds of the streets which appeal to the melodramatic instinct in children. I am sure that all teachers whose work lies in the crowdedcities must have realised the effect produced on children by what they see and hear on their way to and from school. If we merely consider the hoardings, with their realistic representations, quite apart from the actual dramatic happenings in the street, we at once perceive that the ordinary school interests pale before such lurid appeals as these. How can we expect the child who has stood open-mouthed before a poster representing a woman chloroformed by a burglar, whilst that hero escapes in safety with her jewels, to display any interest in the arid monotony of the multiplication-table? The illegitimate excitement created by the sight of the depraved burglar can only be counteracted by something equally exciting along the realistic but legitimate side; and this is where the story of the right kind becomes so valuable, and why the teacher who is artistic enough to undertake the task can find the short path to results which theorists seek for so long in vain. It is not even necessary to have an exceedingly exciting story; sometimes one which will bring about pure reaction may be just as suitable.

I remember in my personal experience an instance of this kind. I had been reading with some children of about ten years old the story from Cymbeline, of Imogen in the forest scene, when the brothers strew flowers upon her, and sing the funeral dirge,

“Fear no more the heat of the sun.”

Just as we had all taken on this tender, gentle mood, the door opened and one of the prefects announced in a loud voice the news of the relief of Mafeking. The children were on their feet at once, cheering lustily, and for the moment the joy over the relief of the brave garrison was the predominant feeling. Then, beforethe Jingo spirit had time to assert itself, I took advantage of a momentary reaction and said: “Now, children, don't you think we can pay England the tribute of going back to England's greatest poet?” In a few minutes we were back in the heart of the Forest, and I can still hear the delightful intonation of those subdued voices repeating:

Golden lads and girls all mustLike chimney-sweepers come to dust.

Golden lads and girls all must

Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.

It is interesting to note that the same problem that is exercising us to-day was a source of difficulty to people in remote times. The following is taken from an old Chinese document, and has particular interest for us to-day.

“The Philosopher Mentius (born 371B.C.) was left fatherless at a very tender age and brought up by his mother Changsi. The care of this prudent and attentive mother has been cited as a model for all virtuous parents. The house she occupied was near that of a butcher: she observed at the first cry of the animals that were being slaughtered, the little Mentius ran to be present at the sight, and that, on his return, he sought to imitate what he had seen. Fearful lest his heart might become hardened, and accustomed to the sights of blood, she removed to another house which was in the neighbourhood of a cemetery. The relations of those who were buried there came often to weep upon their graves, and make their customary libations. The lad soon took pleasure in their ceremonies and amused himself by imitating them. This was a new subject of uneasiness to his mother: she feared her son might come to consider as a jest what is of all things the most serious, and that he might acquire a habit of performing with levity, and as a matter of routinemerely, ceremonies which demand the most exact attention and respect. Again therefore she anxiously changed the dwelling, and went to live in the city, opposite to a school, where her son found examples the most worthy of imitation, and began to profit by them. This anecdote has become incorporated by the Chinese into a proverb, which they constantly quote: The Mother of Mentius seeks a neighbourhood.”

Another influence we have to counteract is that of newspaper headings which catch the eye of children in the streets and appeal so powerfully to their imagination.

Shakespeare has said:

Tell me where is Fancy bred,Or in the heart, or in the head?How begot, how nourished?Reply, reply.It is engendered in the eyesWith gazing fed: and Fancy diesIn the cradle where it lies.Let us all ring Fancy's knell.I'll begin it—ding, dong, bell.

Tell me where is Fancy bred,

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.

It is engendered in the eyes

With gazing fed: and Fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring Fancy's knell.

I'll begin it—ding, dong, bell.

“Merchant of Venice.”

If this be true, it is of importance to decide what our children shall look upon as far as we can control the vision, so that we can form some idea of the effect upon their imagination.

Having alluded to the dangerous influence of the street, I should hasten to say that this influence is very far from being altogether bad. There are possibilities of romance in street life which may have just the same kind of effect on children as the telling of exciting stories. I am indebted to Mrs. Arnold Glover (Hon. Sec. of the National Organisation of Girls' Clubs), one of the most widely informed people on this subject, for the two following experiences gathered from thestreets which bear indirectly on the subject of story-telling:

Mrs. Glover was visiting a sick woman in a very poor neighbourhood, and found, sitting on the doorstep of the house, two children, holding something tightly grasped in their little hands, and gazing with much expectancy towards the top of the street. She longed to know what they were doing, but not being one of those unimaginative and tactless folk who rush headlong into the mysteries of children's doings, she passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still in the same silent and expectant posture half-an-hour later that she said tentatively: “I wonder whether you would tell me what you are doing here?” After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy voice: “We're waitin' for the barrer.” It then transpired that, once a week, a vegetable-and flower-cart was driven through this particular street, on its way to a more prosperous neighbourhood, and on a few red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell out of the back of the cart; and those two little children were waiting there in hope, with their hands full of soil, ready to plant anything which might by golden chance fall that way, in their secret garden of oyster-shells.

This seems to me as charming a fairy-tale as any that our books can supply.

Another time Mrs. Glover was collecting the pennies for the Holiday Fund Savings Bank from the children who came weekly to her house. She noticed on three consecutive Mondays that one little lad deliberately helped himself to a new envelope from her table. Not wishing to frighten or startle him, she allowed this to continue for some weeks, and then one day, having dismissed the other children, she asked him quitequietly why he was taking the envelopes. At first he was very sulky, and said: “I need them better than you do.” She quite agreed this might be, but reminded him that, after all, they belonged to her. She promised, however, that if he would tell her for what purpose he wanted the envelopes, she would endeavour to help him in the matter. Then came the astonishing announcement: “I am building a navy.” After a little more gradual questioning, Mrs. Glover drew from the boy the information that the Borough Water Carts passed through the side street once a week, flushing the gutter; that then the Envelope Ships were made to sail on the water and pass under the covered ways which formed bridges for wayfarers and tunnels for the “navy.” Great was the excitement when the ships passed out of sight and were recognised as they arrived safely at the other end. Of course the expenses in raw material were greatly diminished by the illicit acquisition of Mrs. Glover's property, and in this way she had unconsciously provided the neighbourhood with a navy and a Commander. Her first instinct, after becoming acquainted with the whole story, was to present the boy with a real boat, but on second thought she collected and gave him a number of old envelopes with names and addresses upon them, which added greatly to the excitement of the sailing, because they could be more easily identified as they came out of the other side of the tunnel, and had their respective reputations as to speed.

Here is indeed food for romance, and I give both instances to prove that the advantages of street life are to be taken into consideration as well as the disadvantages; though I think we are bound to admit that the latter outweigh the former.

One of the immediate results of dramatic stories isthe escape from the commonplace, to which I have already alluded in quoting Mr. Goschen's words. The desire for this escape is a healthy one, common to adults and children. When we wish to get away from our own surroundings and interests, we do for ourselves what I maintain we ought to do for children; we step into the land of fiction. It has always been a source of astonishment to me that, in trying to escape from our own every-day surroundings, we do not step more boldly into the land of pure romance, which would form a real contrast to our every-day life, but in nine cases out of ten the fiction which is sought after deals with the subjects of our ordinary existence—namely, frenzied finance, sordid poverty, political corruption, fast society, and religious doubts.

There is the same danger in the selection of fiction for children: namely, a tendency to choose very utilitarian stories, both in form and substance, so that we do not lift the children out of the commonplace. I remember once seeing the titles of two little books, the contents of which were being read or told to small children of the poorer class: one was called “Tom the Boot-black,” the other, “Dan the News-boy.” My chief objection to these stories was the fact that neither of the heroes rejoiced in their work for the work's sake. Had Tom even invented a new kind of blacking, or if Dan had started a splendid newspaper, it might have been encouraging for those among the listeners who were thinking of engaging in similar professions. It is true, both gentlemen amassed large fortunes, but surely the school age is not to be limited to such dreams and aspirations as these! One wearies of the tales of boys who arrive in a town with one cent in their pockets, and leave it as millionaires, with the added importance of a Mayoralty, not to speak of aKnighthood. It is true that the romantic prototype of these boys is Dick Whittington, for whom we unconsciously cherish the affection which we often bestow on a far-off personage. Perhaps—who knows?—it is the picturesque adjunct of the cat—lacking to modern millionaires.[38]

I do not think it Utopian to present to children a fair share of stories which deal with the importance of things “untouched by hand.” They too can learn at an early age that “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are spiritual.” To those who wish to try the effect of such stories on children, I present for their encouragement the following lines from Whitcomb Riley:

THE TREASURE OF THE WISE MAN.[39]

Oh, the night was dark and the night was late,When the robbers came to rob him;And they picked the lock of his palace-gate,The robbers who came to rob him—They picked the lock of the palace-gate,Seized his jewels and gems of StateHis coffers of gold and his priceless plate,—The robbers that came to rob him.But loud laughed he in the morning red!—For of what had the robbers robbed him?Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,When the robbers came to rob him,—They robbed him not of a golden shredOf the childish dreams in his wise old head—“And they're welcome to all things else,” he said,When the robbers came to rob him.

Oh, the night was dark and the night was late,

When the robbers came to rob him;

And they picked the lock of his palace-gate,

The robbers who came to rob him—

They picked the lock of the palace-gate,

Seized his jewels and gems of State

His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,—

The robbers that came to rob him.

But loud laughed he in the morning red!—For of what had the robbers robbed him?Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,When the robbers came to rob him,—They robbed him not of a golden shredOf the childish dreams in his wise old head—“And they're welcome to all things else,” he said,When the robbers came to rob him.

But loud laughed he in the morning red!—

For of what had the robbers robbed him?

Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,

When the robbers came to rob him,—

They robbed him not of a golden shred

Of the childish dreams in his wise old head—

“And they're welcome to all things else,” he said,

When the robbers came to rob him.

There is a great deal of this romantic spirit, combined with a delightful sense of irresponsibility, which I claim above all things for small children, to be found in our old Nursery Rhymes. I quote from the following article written by the Rev. R. L. Gales for theNation.

After speaking on the subject of Fairy Stories being eliminated from the school curriculum, the writer adds:

“This would be lessening the joy of the world and taking from generations yet unborn the capacity for wonder, the power to take a large unselfish interest in the spectacle of things, and putting them forever at the mercy of small private cares.

A Nursery Rhyme is the most sane, the most unselfish thing in the world. It calls up some delightful image,—a little nut-tree with a silver walnut and a golden pear; some romantic adventure only for the child's delight and liberation from the bondage of unseeing dulness: it brings before the mind the quintessence of some good thing:

'The little dog laughed to see such sport'—there is the soul of good humour, of sanity, of health in the laughter of that innocently wicked little dog. It is the laughter of pure frolic without unkindness. To have laughed with the little dog as a child is the best preservative against mirthless laughter in later years—the horse laughter of brutality, the ugly laughter of spite, the acrid laughter of fanaticism. The world of Nursery Rhymes, the old world of Mrs. Slipper-Slopper, is the world of natural things, of quick, healthy motion, of the joy of living.

In Nursery Rhymes the child is entertained with all the pageant of the world. It walks in Fairy Gardens, and for it the singing birds pass. All the King's horses and all the King's men pass before it in their glorious array. Craftsmen of all sorts, bakers, confectioners, silversmiths, blacksmiths are busy for it with all their arts and mysteries, as at the court of an Eastern King.”

In insisting on the value of this escape from the commonplace, I cannot prove the importance of it more clearly than by showing what may happen to a child who is deprived of his birthright by having none of the Fairy Tale element presented to him. In “Father and Son,” Mr. Edmund Gosse says:

“Meanwhile, capable as I was of reading, I found my greatest pleasure in the pages of books. The range of these was limited, for story-books of every description were sternly excluded. No fiction of any kind, religious or secular, was admitted into the house. In this it was to my Mother, not to my Father, that the prohibition was due. She had a remarkable, I confess, to me somewhat unaccountable impression that to ‘tell a story,’ that is, to compose fictitious narrative of any kind, was a sin.... Nor would she read the chivalrous tales in the verse of Sir Walter Scott, obstinately alleging that they were not true. She would read nothing but lyrical and subjective poetry.... As a child, however, she had possessed a passion for making up stories, and so considerable a skill in it, that she was constantly being begged to indulge others with its exercise.... ‘When I was a very little child,’ she says, ‘I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore (a Calvinistic governess), finding it out, lectured me severely and told me it was wicked. From that time forth I considered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin.... But the longing to invent stories grew with violence. The simplicity of Truth was not enough for me. I must needs embroider imagination upon it, and the folly and wickedness which disgraced my heart are more than I am able to express....’ This (the Author, her son, adds) is surely a very painful instance of the repression of an instinct.”

In contrast to the stifling of the imagination, it is good to recall the story of the great Hermits who, having listened to the discussion of the Monday sitting at the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France) as to the best way to teach the young how to shoot in the direction of mathematical genius, said: “Cultivez l'imagination, messieurs. Tout est là. Si vous voulez des mathématiciens, donnez à vos enfants à lire—des Contes de Fées.”

Another important effect of the story is to develop at an early age sympathy for children of other countries where conditions are different from our own. There is a book used in American schools called “Little Citizens of other Lands,” dealing with the clothes, the games and occupations of those little citizens. Stories of this kind are particularly necessary to prevent the development of insular notions, and are a check on that robust form of Philistinism, only too prevalent, alas! among grown-ups, which looks askance at newsuggestions and makes the withering remark: “How un-English! How queer!”—the second comment being, it would seem, a natural corollary to the first.[40]

I have so constantly to deal with the question of confusion between Truth and Fiction in the mind of children that it might be useful to offer here an example of the way they make the distinction for themselves.

Mrs. Ewing says on this subject:

“If there are young intellects so imperfect as to be incapable of distinguishing between Fancy and Falsehood, it is most desirable to develop in them the power to do so, but, as a rule, in childhood, we appreciate the distinction with a vivacity which as elders our care-clogged memories fail to recall.”

Mr. P. A. Barnett, in his book on the “Commonsense of Education,” says, alluding to Fairy Tales:

“Children willactthem but not actuponthem, and they will not accept the incidents as part of their effectual belief. They will imagine, to be sure, grotesque worlds, full of admirable and interesting personages to whom strange things might have happened. So much the better; this largeness of imagination is one of the possessions that distinguish the better nurtured child from others less fortunate.”

The following passage from Stevenson's essay onChild Play[41]will furnish an instance of children's aptitude for creating their own dramatic atmosphere:

“When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a device to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with milk, and explained it to be a country suffering gradual inundation. You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and travelled on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew furious as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and grew smaller every moment; and how, in fine, the food was of altogether secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we seasoned it with these dreams. But perhaps the most exciting moments I ever had over a meal, were in the case of calves' feet jelly. It was hardly possible not to believe, and you may be quite sure, so far from trying it, I did all I could to favour the illusion—that some part of it was hollow, and that sooner or later my spoon would lay open the secret tabernacle of that golden rock. There, might some Red-Beard await this hour; there might one find the treasures of the Forty Thieves. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savouring the interest. Believe me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and though I preferred the taste when I took cream with it, I used often to go without because the cream dimmed the transparent fractures.”

In his work on Imagination, Ribot says: “The free initiative of children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make for them.”

The passage from Robert Stevenson becomes more clear from a scientific point of view when taken in connection with one from Karl Groos' book on the “Psychology of Animal Play”:

“The Child is wholly absorbed in his play, and yet under the ebb and flow of thought and feeling like still water under wind-swept waves, he has the knowledge that it is pretence after all. Behind the sham ‘I’ that takes part in the game, stands the unchanged ‘I’ which regards the sham ‘I’ with quiet superiority.”

Queyrat speaks of play as one of the distinct phases of a child's imagination; it is “essentially a metamorphosis of reality, a transformation of places and things.”

Now to return to the point which Mrs. Ewing makes, namely, that we should develop in normal children the power of distinguishing between Truth and Falsehood.

I should suggest including two or three stories which would test that power in children, and if they fail to realise the difference between romancing and telling lies then it is evident that they need special attention and help along this line. I give the titles of two stories of this kind in the collection at the end of the book.[42]

So far we have dealt only with the negative results of stories, but there are more important effects, and I am persuaded that if we are careful in our choice of stories, and artistic in our presentation (so that the truth is framed, so to speak, in the memory), we can unconsciously correct evil tendencies in children which they only recognise in themselves when they have already criticised them in the characters of the story. I have sometimes been misunderstood on this point, therefore I should like to make it quite clear. I donotmean that stories should take the place entirely of moral or direct teaching, but that on many occasions they could supplement and strengthen moral teaching, because the dramatic appeal to the imagination is quicker than the moral appeal to the conscience. A child will often resist the latter lest it should make himuncomfortable or appeal to his personal sense of responsibility: it is often not in his power to resist the former, because it has taken possession of him before he is aware of it.

As a concrete example, I offer three verses from a poem entitled “A Ballad for a Boy,” written some twelve years ago by W. Cory, an Eton master. The whole poem is to be found in a book of poems known as “Ionica” (published by George Allen and Co.).

The poem describes a fight between two ships, the French shipTéméraireand the English shipQuebec. The English ship was destroyed by fire. Farmer, the captain, was killed, and the officers taken prisoners:

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