Art of the Story-Teller E-Book

Marie L. Shedlock

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 306

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Story-telling is almost the oldest art in the world - the first conscious form of literary communication. In the East it still survives, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a crowd at a street corner held by the simple narration of a story. There are signs in the West of a growing interest in this ancient art, and we may yet live to see the renaissance of the troubadours and the minstrels whose appeal will then rival that of the mob orator or itinerant politician. One of the surest signs of a belief in the educational power of the story is its introduction into the curriculum of the training-college and the classes of the elementary and secondary schools. It is just at the time when the imagination is most keen, the mind being unhampered by accumulation of facts, that stories appeal most vividly and are retained for all time.

Leseprobe

Art of the Story-Teller

Pages de titreINTRODUCTION.PART I. THE ART OF THE STORY-TELLER.CHAPTER II. THE ESSENTIALS OF THE STORY.CHAPTER III. THE ARTIFICES OF STORY-TELLING.CHAPTER IV. ELEMENTS TO AVOID IN THE SELECTION OF MATERIAL.CHAPTER V. ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL.MILKING-TIMETHE CHILDETHEL CLIFFORDCHAPTER V. HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.CHAPTER VII. QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS.PART II. THE STORIES.A SAGA.JOHN RUSSELLARTHUR IN THE CAVE.HAFIZ, THE STONE-CUTTER.THE PROUD COCK.SNEGOURKA.THE WATER NIXIE.THE BLUE ROSE.THE TWO FROGS.THE WISE OLD SHEPHERD.THE FOLLY OF PANIC.THE TRUE SPIRIT OF A FESTIVAL DAY.FILIAL PIETYTHE SWINEHERD.THE NIGHTINGALE.THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA.PART III. LIST OF STORIES. BOOKS SUGGESTED TO THE STORY-TELLERBUDDHAFROISSARTHERODOTUSMACKENZIEPLUTARCHSWINTONSYNNERTONNOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENTCopyright

ART OF THE STORY-TELLER, by MARIE L. SHEDLOCK

PREFACE.

Some day we shall have a science of education comparable to the

science of medicine; but even when that day arrives the art of

education will still remain the inspiration and the guide of all

wise teachers. The laws that regulate our physical and mental

development will be reduced to order; but the impulses which lead

each new generation to play its way into possession of all that

is best in life will still have to be interpreted for us by the

artists who, with the wisdom of years, have not lost the direct

vision of children.

Some years ago I heard Miss Shedlock tell stories in England. Her

fine sense of literary and dramatic values, her power in sympathetic

interpretation, always restrained within the limits of the art she was

using, and her understanding of educational values, based on a wide

experience of teaching, all marked her as an artist in story-telling.

She was equally at home in interpreting the subtle blending of wit and

wisdom in Daudet, the folk lore philosophy of Grimm, or the deeper

world philosophy and poignant human appeal of Hans Christian Andersen.

Then she came to America and for two or three years she taught us the

difference between the nightingale that sings in the tree tops and the

artificial bird that goes with a spring. Cities like New York, Boston,

Pittsburgh and Chicago listened and heard, if sometimes indistinctly,

the notes of universal appeal, and children saw the Arabian Nights

come true.

Yielding to the appeals of her friends in America and England, Miss

Shedlock has put together in this little book such observations and

suggestions on story-telling as can be put in words. Those who have

the artist’s spirit will find their sense of values quickened by her

words, and they will be led to escape some of the errors into which

even the greatest artists fall. And even those who tell stories with

their minds will find in these papers wise generalizations and

suggestions born of wide experience and extended study which well go

far towards making even an artificial nightingale’s song less

mechanical. To those who know, the book is a revelation of the

intimate relation between a child’s instincts and the finished art of

dramatic presentation. To those who do not know it will bring echoes

of reality.

Earl Barnes.

CONTENTS.

PART I. THE ART OF STORY-TELLING.

CHAPTER.

I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY.

II. THE ESSENTIALS OF THE STORY.

III. THE ARTIFICES OF STORY-TELLING.

IV. ELEMENTS TO AVOID IN SELECTION OF MATERIAL.

V. ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN THE CHOICE OF MATERIAL.

VI. HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.

VII. QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS.

PART II. THE STORIES.

STURLA, THE HISTORIAN.

A SAGA.

THE LEGEND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER.

ARTHUR IN THE CAVE.

HAFIZ, THE STONE-CUTTER.

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH.

THE PROUD COCK.

SNEGOURKA.

THE WATER NIXIE.

THE BLUE ROSE.

THE TWO FROGS.

THE WISE OLD SHEPHERD.

THE FOLLY OF PANIC.

THE TRUE SPIRIT OF A FESTIVAL DAY.

FILIAL PIETY.

THREE STORIES FROM HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

THE SWINEHERD.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA.

PART III. LIST OF STORIES. BOOKS SUGGESTED TO THE STORY-TELLER AND

BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE LIST OF STORIES.

INTRODUCTION.

Story-telling is almost the oldest art in the world—the first

conscious form of literary communication. In the East it still

survives, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a crowd at a street

corner held by the simple narration of a story. There are signs in

the West of a growing interest in this ancient art, and we may yet

live to see the renaissance of the troubadours and the minstrels whose

appeal will then rival that of the mob orator or itinerant politician.

One of the surest signs of a belief in the educational power of the

story is its introduction into the curriculum of the training-college

and the classes of the elementary and secondary schools. It is just

at the time when the imagination is most keen, the mind being

unhampered by accumulation of facts, that stories appeal most vividly

and are retained for all time.

It is to be hoped that some day stories will be told to school groups

only by experts who have devoted special time and preparation to the

art of telling them. It is a great fallacy to suppose that the

systematic study of story-telling destroys the spontaneity of

narrative. After a long experience, I find the exact converse to be

true, namely, that it is only when one has overcome the mechanical

difficulties that one can “let one’s self go” in the dramatic interest

of the story.

By the expert story-teller I do not mean the professional elocutionist.

The name, wrongly enough, has become associated in the mind of the

public with persons who beat their breast, tear their hair, and declaim

blood-curdling episodes. A decade or more ago, the drawing-room reciter

was of this type, and was rapidly becoming the bugbear of social

gatherings. The difference between the stilted reciter and the simple

story-teller is perhaps best illustrated by an episode in Hans Christian

Andersen’s immortal “Story of the Nightingale.” The real Nightingale

and the artificial Nightingale have been bidden by the Emperor to unite

their forces and to sing a duet at a Court function. The duet turns out

most disastrously, and while the artificial Nightingale is singing his

one solo for the thirty-third time, the real Nightingale flies out of

the window back to the green wood—a true artist, instinctively choosing

his right atmosphere. But the bandmaster—symbol of the pompous

pedagogue—in trying to soothe the outraged feelings of the courtiers,

says, “Because, you see, Ladies and Gentlemen, and above all, Your

Imperial Majesty, with the real nightingale you never can tell what you

will hear, but in the artificial nightingale everything is decided

beforehand. So it is, and so it must remain. It cannot be otherwise.”

And as in the case of the two nightingales, so it is with the stilted

reciter and the simple narrator: one is busy displaying the machinery,

showing “how the tunes go”; the other is anxious to conceal the art.

Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and her the

comparison with the nightingale breaks down) it is a simplicity which

comes after much training in self-control, and much hard work in

overcoming the difficulties which beset the presentation.

I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who could hold an

audience without preparation, but they are so rare in number that we can

afford to neglect them in our general consideration, for this work is

dedicated to the average story-tellers anxious to make the best use of

their dramatic ability, and it is to them that I present my plea for

special study and preparation before telling a story to a group of

children—that is, if they wish for the far-reaching effects I shall

speak of later on. Only the preparation must be of a much less

stereotyped nature than that by which the ordinary reciters are trained

for their career.

Some years ago, when I was in America, I was asked to put into the

form of lectures my views as to the educational value of telling

stories. A sudden inspiration seized me. I began to cherish a dream

of long hours to be spent in the British Museum, the Congressional

Library in Washington and the Public Library in Boston—and this

is the only portion of the dream which has been realized. I planned

an elaborate scheme of research work which was to result in a

magnificent (if musty) philological treatise. I thought of trying to

discover by long and patient researches what species of lullaby were

crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the

elementary dramatic poems in vogue among Assyrian nursemaids which

were the prototypes of “Little Jack Horner,” “Dickory, Dickory Dock”

and other nursery classics. I intended to follow up the study of

these ancient documents by making an appendix of modern variants,

showing what progress we had made—if any—among modern nations.

But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from

Racine’s “Plaideurs,” in which the counsel for the defence, eager to

show how fundamental his knowledge, begins his speech: “Before the

Creation of the World”—And the Judge (with a touch of weariness

tempered by humor) suggests:

“Let us pass on to the Deluge.”

And thus I, too, have passed on to the Deluge. I have abandoned an

account of the origin and past of stories which at best would only

have displayed a little recently acquired book knowledge. When I

thought of the number of scholars who could treat this part of the

question infinitely better than myself, I realized how much wiser it

would be—though the task is more humdrum—to deal with the present

possibilities of story-telling for our generation of parents

and teachers.

My objects in urging the use of stories in the education of children

are at least fivefold:

First, to give them dramatic joy, for which they have a natural

craving; to develop a sense of humor, which is really a sense of

proportion; to correct certain tendencies by showing the consequences

in the career of the hero in the story [Of this motive the children

must be quite unconscious and there should be no didactic emphasis];

to present by means of example, not precept, such ideals as will

sooner or later be translated into action; and finally, to develop the

imagination, which really includes all the other points.

But the art of story-telling appeals not only to the educational world

and to parents as parents, but also to a wider public interested in

the subject from a purely human point of view.

In contrast to the lofty scheme I had originally proposed to myself, I

now simply place before all those who are interested in the art of

story-telling in any form the practical experiences I have had in my

travels in America and England.

I hope that my readers may profit by my errors, improve on my methods,

and thus help to bring about the revival of an almost lost art.

In Sir Philip Sydney’s “Defence of Poesie: we find these words:

“Forsooth he cometh to you with a tale, which holdeth children from

play, and old men from the chimney-corner, and pretending no more,

doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue even as

the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them

in such other as have a pleasant taste.”

MARIE L. SHEDLOCK, LONDON.

PART I. THE ART OF THE STORY-TELLER.

CHAPTER I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY.

I propose to deal in this chapter with the difficulties or dangers

which beset the path of the story-teller, because, until we have

overcome these, we cannot hope to bring out the full value of the

story.

The difficulties are many, and yet they ought not to discourage the

would-be narrators, but only show them how all-important is the

preparation for the story, if it is to have the desired effect.

I propose to illustrate by concrete examples, thereby serving a

twofold purpose: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of

the student, the other to use the art of story-telling to explain

itself.

I have chosen one or two instances from my own personal experience.

The grave mistakes made in my own case may serve as a warning to

others who will find, however, that experience is the best teacher.

For positive work, in the long run, we generally find out our own

method. On the negative side, however, it is useful to have certain

pitfalls pointed out to us, in order that we may save time by avoiding

them. It is for this reason that I sound a note of warning.

1. There is the danger of side issues. An inexperienced story-teller

is exposed to the temptation of breaking off from the main dramatic

interest in a short exciting story in order to introduce a side issue

which is often interesting and helpful but which must be left for a

longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns on some dramatic

moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half

its effect.

I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus

and Ulysses, and just at the most dramatic moment in the story some

impulse for which I cannot account prompted me to go off on a side

issue to describe the personal appearance of Ulysses.

The children were visibly bored, but with polite indifference they

listened to my elaborate description of the hero. If I had given them

an actual description from Homer, I believe that the strength of the

language would have appealed to their imagination (all the more

strongly because the might not have understood the individual words)

and have lessened their disappointment at the dramatic issue being

postponed; but I trusted to my own lame verbal efforts, and signally

failed. Attention flagged, fidgeting began, the atmosphere was

rapidly becoming spoiled in spit of the patience and toleration still

shown by the children. At last, however, one little girl in the front

row, as spokeswoman for the class, suddenly said: “If you please,

before you go on any further, do you mind telling us whether, after

all, that Poly … [slight pause] … that … [final attempt]

… Polyanthus died?”

Now, the remembrance of this question has been of extreme use to me in

my career as a story-teller. I have realized that in a short dramatic

story the mind of the listeners must be set at ease with regard to

the ultimate fate of the special Polyanthus who takes the center of

the stage.

I remember, too, the despair of a little boy at a dramatic

representation of “Little Red Riding-Hood,” when that little person

delayed the thrilling catastrophe with the Wolf, by singing a pleasant

song on her way through the wood. “Oh, why,” said the little boy,

“does she not get on?” And I quite shared his impatience.

This warning is necessary only in connection with the short dramatic

narrative. There are occasions when we can well afford to offer short

descriptions for the sake of literary style, and for the purpose of

enlarging the vocabulary of the child. I have found, however, in

these cases, it is well to take the children into your confidence,

warning them that they are to expect nothing particularly exciting in

the way of dramatic event. They will then settle down with a freer

mind (though the mood may include a touch of resignation) to the

description you are about to offer them.

2. Altering the story to suit special occasions is done sometimes

from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the

ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which

they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt

to “turn and rend” the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the

story of the Siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt

anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the rape of Helen

not altogether suitable for the average age of the class, namely, nine

years. I threw, therefore, a domestic coloring over the whole subject

and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in

which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was strong-minded woman

thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come

away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which

would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[1] I then gave

the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy,

but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the

story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited

them to reproduce in writing for the next day the story I had just told

them. A small child presented me, as you will see, with the ethical

problem from which I had so laboriously protected her. The essay ran:

Once upon a time the King of Troy’s son was called Paris. And he

went over to Greace to see what it was like. And here he saw the

beautiful Helen_er,_ and likewise her husband Menela_yus_. And one

day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone,

and Paris said: “Do you not feel dul in this palis?“_[2] And

Helener said: “I feel very dull in this _pallice_,” and Paris said:

“Come away and see the world with me.” So they sliped off together,

and they came to the King of Egypt, and he said: “Who is the

young lady”? So Paris told him. “But,” said the King, “it is not

propper for you to go off with other people’s wifes. So Helener

shall stop here.” Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home,

he stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers,

and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it

was no use standing any longer, so they built a wooden horse in

memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town.

Now, the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay any particular

stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which

really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for

the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds

of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate

original form.

While traveling in America, I was provided with a delightful appendix

to this story. I had been telling Miss Longfellow and her sister the

little girl’s version of the Siege of Troy, and Mrs. Thorpe made the

following comment, with the American humor the dryness of which adds

so much to its value:

“I never realized before,” she said, “how glad the Greeks must have

been to sit down even inside a horse, when they had been standing for

eleven years.”

3. The danger of introducing unfamiliar words is the very opposite

danger of the one to which I have just alluded; it is the taking for

granted that children are acquainted with the meaning of certain words

upon which turns some important point in the story. We must not

introduce, without at least a passing explanation, words which, if not

rightly understood, would entirely alter the picture we wish to present.

I had once promised to tell stories to an audience of Irish peasants,

and I should like to state here that, though my travels have brought

me in touch with almost every kind of audience, I have never found one

where the atmosphere is so “self-prepared” as in that of a group of

Irish peasants. To speak to them, especially on the subject of fairy-tales, is like playing on a delicate harp: the response is so quick

and the sympathy so keen. Of course, the subject of fairy-tales is

one which is completely familiar to them and comes into their everyday

life. They have a feeling of awe with regard to fairies, which is

very deep in some parts of Ireland.

On this particular occasion I had been warned by an artist friend who

had kindly promised to sing songs between the stories, that my

audience would be of varying age and almost entirely illiterate. Many

of the older men and women, who could neither read nor write, had

never been beyond their native village. I was warned to be very

simple in my language and to explain any difficult words which might

occur in the particular Indian story I had chosen for that night,

namely, “The Tiger, the Jackal and the Brahman.”[3]—at a proper

distance, however, lest the audience should class him with the wild

animals. I then went on with my story, in the course of which I

mentioned a buffalo. In spite of the warning I had received, I found

it impossible not to believe that the name of this animal would be

familiar to any audience. I, therefore, went on with the sentence

containing this word, and ended it thus: “And then the Brahman went a

little further and met an old buffalo turning a wheel.”

The next day, while walking down the village street, I entered into

conversation with a thirteen-year-old girl who had been in my audience

the night before and who began at once to repeat in her own words the

Indian story in questions. When she came to the particular sentence I

have just quoted, I was greatly startled to hear her version, which

ran thus: “And the priest went on a little further, and he met another

old gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow.” I stopped her at once, and not

being able to identify the sentence as part of the story I had told, I

questioned her a little more closely. I found that the word “buffalo,”

had evidently conveyed to her mind an old “buffer” whose name was “Lo,”

probably taken to be an Indian form of appellation, to be treated with

tolerance though it might not be Irish in sound. Then, not knowing of

any wheel more familiarly than that attached to a barrow, the young

narrator completed the picture in her own mind—but which, one must

admit, had lost something of the Indian atmosphere which I had

intended to gather about.

4. _The danger of claiming cooperation of the class by means of

questions_ is more serious for the teacher than the child, who

rather enjoys the process and displays a fatal readiness to give any

sort of answer if only he can play a part in the conversation. If we

could in any way depend on the children giving the kind of answer we

expect, all might go well and the danger would be lessened; but

children have a perpetual way of frustrating our hopes in this

direction, and of landing us in unexpected bypaths from which it is

not always easy to return to the main road without a very violent

reaction. As illustrative of this, I quote from the “The Madness of

Philip,” by Josephine Daskam Bacon, a truly delightful essay on child

psychology in the guise of the lightest of stories.

The scene takes place in a kindergarten, where a bold and fearless

visitor has undertaken to tell a story on the spur of the moment to a

group of restless children.

She opens thus:

“Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think

I saw?”

The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that

Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested, “An el’phunt.”

“Why, no. Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It was not

nearly so big as that—it was a little thing.”

“A fish,” ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the

corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently.

“Now, how could a fish, a live fish, get into my front yard?”

“A dead fish,” says Eddy.

He had never been known to relinquish voluntarily an idea.

“No; it was a little kitten,” said the story-teller decidedly. “A

little white kitten. She was standing right near a big puddle of

water. Now, what else do you think I saw?”

“Another kitten,” suggests Marantha, conservatively.

“No; it was a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the

water. Now, cats don’t like water, do they? What do they like?”

“Mice,” said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly.

“Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I’m sure you

know what I mean. If they don’t like water, what do they like?”

“Milk,” cried Sarah Fuller confidently.

“They like a dry place,” said Mrs. R. B. Smith. “Now, what do you

suppose the dog did?”

It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners.

Itmay be that the very range of choice presented to them and the

dog alike dazzled their imagination. At all events, they made

no answer.

“Nobody knows what the dog did?” repeated the story-teller

encouragingly. “What would you do if you saw a little kitten

like that?”

And Philip remarked gloomily:

“I’d pull its tail.”

“And what do the rest of you think? I hope you are not as cruel as

that little boy.”

A jealous desire to share Philip’s success prompted the quick response:

“I’d pull it too.”

Now, the reason of the total failure of this story was the inability

to draw any real response from the children, partly because of the

hopeless vagueness of the questions, partly because, there being no

time for reflection, children say the first thing that comes into

their heads without any reference to their real thoughts on the subject.

I cannot imagine anything less like the enlightened methods of the

best kindergarten teaching. Had Mrs. R. B. Smith been a real, and not

a fictional, person, it would certainly have been her last appearance

as a raconteuse in this educational institution.

5. _The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story upon the

audience_ rises from lack of observation and experience; it is the

want of these qualities which leads to the adoption of such a method

as I have just presented. We learn in time that want of expression on

the faces of the audience and want of any kind of external response do

not always mean either lack of interest or attention. There is often

real interest deep down, but no power, or perhaps no wish, to display

that interest, which is deliberately concealed at times so as to

protect oneself from questions which may be put.

6. The danger of overillustration. After long experience, and

after considering the effect produced on children when pictures are

shown to them during the narration, I have come to the conclusion that

the appeal to the eye and the ear at the same time is of doubtful

value, and has, generally speaking, a distracting effect: the

concentration on one channel of communication attracts and holds the

attention more completely. I was confirmed in this theory when I

addressed an audience of blind people[4] for the first time, and

noticed how closely they attended, and how much easier it seemed to

them because they were so completely “undistracted by the sights

around them.”

I have often suggested to young teachers two experiments in support

of this theory. They are not practical experiments, nor could they

be repeated often with the same audience, but they are intensely

interesting, and they serve to show the actual effect of appealing to

one sense at a time. The first of these experiments is to take a small

group of children and suggest that they should close their eyes while

you tell them a story. You will then notice how much more attention is

given to the intonation and inflection of the voice. The reason is

obvious. With nothing to distract the attention, it is concentrated on

the only thing offered the listeners, that is, sound, to enable them to

seize the dramatic interest of the story.

We find an example of the dramatic power of the voice in its appeal to

the imagination in one of the tributes brought by an old pupil to

Thomas Edward Brown, Master at Clifton College:

“My earliest recollection is that his was the most vivid teaching I

ever received; great width of view and poetical, almost passionate,

power of presentment. We were reading Froude’s History, and I shall

never forget how it was Brown’s words, Brown’s voice, not the

historian’s, that made me feel the great democratic function which the

monasteries performed in England; the view became alive in his mouth.”

And in another passage: “All set forth with such dramatic force and

aided by such a splendid voice, left an indelible impression on my

mind.”[5]

A second experiment, and a much more subtle and difficult one, is to

take the same group of children on another occasion, telling them a

story in pantomime form, giving them first the briefest outline of the

story. In this case it must be of the simplest construction, until the

children are able, if you continue the experiment, to look for

something more subtle.

I have never forgotten the marvelous performance of a play given in

London many years ago entirely in pantomime form. The play was called

“L’Enfant Prodigue,” and was presented by a company of French artists.

It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the strength of that

“silent appeal” to the public. One was so unaccustomed to reading

meaning and development of character into gesture and facial expression

that it was really a revelation to most of those present—certainly to

all Anglo-Saxons.

I cannot touch on this subject without admitting the enormous dramatic

value connected with the cinematograph. Though it can never take the

place of an actual performance, whether in story form or on the stage,

it has a real educational value in its possibilities of representation

which it is difficult to overestimate, and I believe that its

introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest

supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its

present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management,

is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination,

but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am

convinced that in the future of the movement good will predominate.

The real value of the cinematograph in connection with stories is that

it provides the background that is wanting to the inner vision of the

average child, and does not prevent its imagination from filling in

the details later. For instance, it would be quite impossible for the

average child to get an idea from mere word-painting of the atmosphere

of the polar regions as represented lately on the film in connection

with Captain Scott’s expedition, but any stories told later on about

these regions would have an infinitely greater interest.

There is, however, a real danger in using pictures to illustrate the

story, especially if it be one which contains a direct appeal to the

imagination of the child and one quite distinct from the stories which

deal with facts, namely, that you force the whole audience of children

to see the same picture, instead of giving each individual child the

chance of making his own mental picture. That is of far greater joy,

and of much great educational value, since by this process the child

cooperates with you instead of having all the work done for him.

Queyrat, in his works on “La Logique chez l’Enfant,” quotes Madame

Necker de Saussure:[6] “To children and animals actual objects present

themselves, not the terms of their manifestations. For them thinking

is seeing over again, it is going through the sensations that the real

object would have produced. Everything which goes on within them is

in the form of pictures, or rather, inanimate scenes in which life is

partially reproduced… . Since the child has, as yet, no capacity

for abstraction, he finds a stimulating power in words and a

suggestive inspiration which holds him enchanted. They awaken vividly

colored images, pictures far more brilliant than would be called into

being by the objects themselves.”

Surely, if this be true, we are taking from children that rare power

of mental visualization by offering to their outward vision an actual

picture.

I was struck with the following note by a critic of the Outlook,

referring to a Japanese play but which bears quite directly on the

subject in hand.

“First, we should be inclined to put insistence upon appeal by

imagination. Nothing is built up by lath and canvas; everything

has to be created by the poet’s speech.”

He alludes to the decoration of one of the scenes which consists

of three pines, showing what can be conjured up in the mind of

the spectator.

Ah, yes. Unfolding now before my eyes

The views I know: the Forest, River, Sea

And Mist—the scenes of Ono now expand.

I have often heard objections raised to this theory by teachers

dealing with children whose knowledge of objects outside their own

circle is so scanty that words we use without a suspicion that they

are unfamiliar are really foreign expressions to them. Such words as

sea, woods, fields, mountains, would mean nothing to them, unless some

explanation were offered. To these objections I have replied that

where we are dealing with objects that can actually be seen with the

bodily eyes, then it is quite legitimate to show pictures before you

begin the story, so that the distraction between the actual and mental

presentation may not cause confusion; but, as the foregoing example

shows, we should endeavor to accustom the children to seeing much more

than mere objects themselves, and in dealing with abstract qualities

we must rely solely on the power and choice of words and dramatic

qualities of presentation, and we need not feel anxious if the

response is not immediate, nor even if it is not quick and eager.[7]

7. _The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many

details_ is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it shown only in the

narrative form. I have often heard really brilliant after-dinner

stories marred by this defect. One remembers the attempt made by

Sancho Panza to tell a story to Don Quixote. I have always felt a

keen sympathy with the latter in his impatience over the recital.

“In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd—no, I mean a

goatherd—which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called

Lope Ruiz—and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess

called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich

herdsman–”

“If this be thy story, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou wilt not have

done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else

say no more.”

“I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country,”

answered Sancho, “and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your

Worship to require me to make new customs.”

“Tell it as thou wilt, then,” said Don Quixote, “since it is the will

of fate that I should here it, go on.”

Sancho continued:

“He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him,

but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The

fisherman got into the boat and carried over on goat; he returned and

carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir,

keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for

if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be

impossible to tell a word more… . I go on, then… . He returned

for another goat, and another, and another and another–”

“Suppose them all carried over,” said Don Quixote, “or thou wilt not

have finished carrying them this twelve months!”

“Tell me, how many have passed already?” said Sancho.

“How should I know?” answered Don Quixote.

“See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There

is an end of the story. I can go no further.”

“How can this be?” said Don Quixote. “Is it so essential to the story

to know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error

be made the story can proceed no further?”

“Even so,” said Sancho Panza.

8. The danger of overexplanation is fatal to the artistic success of

any story, but it is even more serious in connection with stories told

from an educational point of view, because it hampers the imagination of

the listener, and since the development of that faculty is one of our

chief aims in telling these stories, we must leave free play, we must

not test the effect, as I have said before, by the material method of

asking questions. My own experience is that the fewer explanations you

offer, provided you have been careful with the choice of your material

and artistic in the presentation, the more the child will supplement by

his own thinking power what is necessary for the understanding of the story.

Queyrat says: “A child has no need of seizing on the exact meaning of

words; on the contrary, a certain lack of precision seems to stimulate

his imagination only the more vigorously, since it gives him a broader

liberty and firmer independence.”[8]

9. The danger of lowering the standard of the story in order to

appeal to the undeveloped taste of the child is a special one. I

am alluding here only to the story which is presented from the

educational point of view. There are moments of relaxation in a

child’s life, as in that of an adult, when a lighter taste can be

gratified. I allude now to the standard of story for school purposes.

There is one development of story-telling which seems to have been

very little considered, either in America or in our own country,

namely, the telling of stories to old people, and that not only

in institutions or in quiet country villages, but in the heart of the

busy cities and in the homes of these old people. How often, when the

young people are able to enjoy outside amusements, the old people,

necessarily confined to the chimney-corner and many unable to read

much for themselves, might return to the joy of their childhood by

hearing some of the old stories told them in dramatic form. Here is

a delightful occupation for those of the leisured class who have the