Stories To Tell To Children

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SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE
STORY-TELLER

Concerning the fundamental points of
method in telling a story, I have little to
add to the principles which I have already
stated as necessary, in my opinion, in the
book of which this is, in a way, the
continuation. But in the two years which
have passed since that book was written, I
have had the happiness of working on
stories and the telling of them, among
teachers and students all over this country,
and in that experience certain secondary
points of method have come to seem more
important, or at least more in need of
emphasis, than they did before. As so
often happens, I had assumed that "those
things are taken for granted;" whereas, to
the beginner or the teacher not naturally
a story-teller, the secondary or implied
technique is often of greater difficulty than
the mastery of underlying principles. The
few suggestions which follow are of this
practical, obvious kind.

Take your story seriously. No matter
how riotously absurd it is, or how full of
inane repetition, remember, if it is good
enough to tell, it is a real story, and must
be treated with respect. If you cannot feel
so toward it, do not tell it. Have faith in
the story, and in the attitude of the children
toward it and you. If you fail in this, the
immediate result will be a touch of shame-
facedness, affecting your manner unfavorably,
and, probably, influencing your
accuracy and imaginative vividness.

Perhaps I can make the point clearer
by telling you about one of the girls in a
class which was studying stories last
winter; I feel sure if she or any of her fellow
students recognizes the incident, she will
not resent being made to serve the good
cause, even in the unattractive guise of a
warning example.

A few members of the class had prepared
the story of "The Fisherman and
his Wife." The first girl called on was
evidently inclined to feel that it was rather
a foolish story. She tried to tell it well,
but there were parts of it which produced
in her the touch of shamefacedness to
which I have referred.

When she came to the rhyme,--

"O man of the sea, come, listen to me,
For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,
Has sent me to beg a boon of thee,"

she said it rather rapidly. At the first
repetition she said it still more rapidly; the
next time she came to the jingle she said it
so fast and so low that it was unintelligible;
and the next recurrence was too much for
her. With a blush and a hesitating smile
she said, "And he said that same thing,
you know!" Of course everybody laughed,
and of course the thread of interest and
illusion was hopelessly broken for everybody.

Now, any one who chanced to hear Miss
Shedlock tell that same story will remember
that the absurd rhyme gave great opportunity
for expression, in its very repetition;
each time that the fisherman came to the
water's edge his chagrin and unwillingness
was greater, and his summons to the magic
fish mirrored his feeling. The jingle IS
foolish; that is a part of the charm. But if
the person who tells it FEELS foolish, there
is no charm at all! It is the same principle
which applies to any address to any
assemblage: if the speaker has the air of
finding what he has to say absurd or
unworthy of effort, the audience naturally
tends to follow his lead, and find it not
worth listening to.

Let me urge, then, take your story
seriously.

Next, "take your time." This suggestion
needs explaining, perhaps. It does
not mean license to dawdle. Nothing is
much more annoying in a speaker than too
great deliberateness, or than hesitation of
speech. But it means a quiet realization of
the fact that the floor is yours, everybody
wants to hear you, there is time enough
for every point and shade of meaning and
no one will think the story too long. This
mental attitude must underlie proper control
of speed. Never hurry. A business-like
leisure is the true attitude of the storyteller.

And the result is best attained by
concentrating one's attention on the episodes
of the story. Pass lightly, and comparatively
swiftly, over the portions between
actual episodes, but take all the time you
need for the elaboration of those. And
above all, do not FEEL hurried.

The next suggestion is eminently plain
and practical, if not an all too obvious one.
It is this: if all your preparation and
confidence fails you at the crucial moment, and
memory plays the part of traitor in some
particular, if, in short, you blunder on a
detail of the story, NEVER ADMIT IT. If it was
an unimportant detail which you misstated,
pass right on, accepting whatever you said,
and continuing with it; if you have been so
unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a
necessary link in the chain, put it in, later,
as skillfully as you can, and with as
deceptive an appearance of its being in the
intended order; but never take the children
behind the scenes, and let them hear
the creaking of your mental machinery.
You must be infallible. You must be in
the secret of the mystery, and admit your
audience on somewhat unequal terms;
they should have no creeping doubts as
to your complete initiation into the secrets
of the happenings you relate.

Plainly, there can be lapses of memory
so complete, so all-embracing, that frank
failure is the only outcome, but these are
so few as not to need consideration, when
dealing with so simple material as that of
children's stories. There are times, too,
before an adult audience, when a speaker
can afford to let his hearers be amused with
him over a chance mistake. But with children
it is most unwise to break the spell of
the entertainment in that way. Consider,
in the matter of a detail of action or
description, how absolutely unimportant the
mere accuracy is, compared with the effect
of smoothness and the enjoyment of the
hearers. They will not remember the detail,
for good or evil, half so long as they
will remember the fact that you did not
know it. So, for their sakes, as well as for
the success of your story, cover your slips
of memory, and let them be as if they were
not.

And now I come to two points in method
which have to do especially with humorous
stories. The first is the power of initiating
the appreciation of the joke. Every natural
humorist does this by instinct and the
value of the power to story-teller can
hardly be overestimated. To initiate
appreciation does not mean that one
necessarily gives way to mirth, though even that
is sometimes natural and effective; one
merely feels the approach of the humorous
climax, and subtly suggests to the hearers
that it will soon be "time to laugh." The
suggestion usually comes in the form of
facial expression, and in the tone. And
children are so much simpler, and so much
more accustomed to following another's
lead than their elders, that the expression
can be much more outright and unguarded
than would be permissible with a mature
audience.

Children like to feel the joke coming, in
this way; they love the anticipation of a
laugh, and they will begin to dimple, often,
at your first unconscious suggestion of
humor. If it is lacking, they are sometimes
afraid to follow their own instincts.
Especially when you are facing an audience
of grown people and children together, you
will find that the latter are very hesitant
about initiating their own expression of
humor. It is more difficult to make them
forget their surroundings then, and more
desirable to give them a happy lead. Often
at the funniest point you will see some
small listener in an agony of endeavor to
cloak the mirth which he--poor mite--
fears to be indecorous. Let him see that it
is "the thing" to laugh, and that everybody
is going to.

Having so stimulated the appreciation
of the humorous climax, it is important to
give your hearers time for the full savor
of the jest to permeate their consciousness.
It is really robbing an audience of its rights,
to pass so quickly from one point to
another that the mind must lose a new one if
it lingers to take in the old. Every vital
point in a tale must be given a certain
amount of time: by an anticipatory pause,
by some form of vocal or repetitive
emphasis, and by actual time. But even
more than other tales does the funny story
demand this. It cannot be funny without it.

Every one who is familiar with the theatre
must have noticed how careful all comedians
are to give this pause for appreciation
and laughter. Often the opportunity
is crudely given, or too liberally offered;
and that offends. But in a reasonable degree
the practice is undoubtedly necessary
to any form of humorous expression.

A remarkably good example of the type
of humorous story to which these principles
of method apply, is the story of "Epaminondas."
It will be plain to
any reader that all the several funny crises
are of the perfectly unmistakable sort children
like, and that, moreover, these funny
spots are not only easy to see; they are easy
to foresee. The teller can hardly help sharing
the joke in advance, and the tale is
an excellent one with which to practice for
power in the points mentioned.

Epaminondas is a valuable little rascal
from other points of view, and I mean to
return to him, to point a moral. But just
here I want space for a word or two about
the matter of variety of subject and style
in school stories.

There are two wholly different kinds of
story which are equally necessary for
children, I believe, and which ought to be
given in about the proportion of one to
three, in favor of the second kind; I make
the ratio uneven because the first kind is
more dominating in its effect.

The first kind is represented by such
stories as the "Pig Brother," which has now
grown so familiar to teachers that it will
serve for illustration without repetition here.
It is the type of story which specifically
teaches a certain ethical or conduct lesson,
in the form of a fable or an allegory,--it
passes on to the child the conclusions as to
conduct and character, to which the race
has, in general, attained through centuries
of experience and moralizing. The story
becomes a part of the outfit of received
ideas on manners and morals which is an
inescapable and necessary possession of the
heir of civilization.

Children do not object to these stories
in the least, if the stories are good ones.
They accept them with the relish which
nature seems to maintain for all truly
nourishing material. And the little tales
are one of the media through which we
elders may transmit some very slight share
of the benefit received by us, in turn, from
actual or transmitted experience.

The second kind has no preconceived
moral to offer, makes no attempt to affect
judgment or to pass on a standard. It
simply presents a picture of life, usually
in fable or poetic image, and says to the
hearer, "These things are." The hearer,
then, consciously or otherwise, passes judgment
on the facts. His mind says, "These
things are good;" or, "This was good, and
that, bad;" or, "This thing is desirable,"
or the contrary.

The story of "The Little Jackal and the
Alligator" is a good illustration
of this type. It is a character-story. In the
naive form of a folk tale, it doubtless
embodies the observations of a seeing eye, in a
country and time when the little jackal and
the great alligator were even more vivid
images of certain human characters than
they now are. Again and again, surely, the
author or authors of the tales must have
seen the weak, small, clever being triumph
over the bulky, well-accoutred, stupid
adversary. Again and again they had laughed
at the discomfiture of the latter, perhaps
rejoicing in it the more because it removed
fear from their own houses. And probably
never had they concerned themselves particularly
with the basic ethics of the struggle.
It was simply one of the things they
saw. It was life. So they made a picture
of it.

The folk tale so made, and of such
character, comes to the child somewhat as an
unprejudiced newspaper account of to-
day's happenings comes to us. It pleads
no cause, except through its contents; it
exercises no intentioned influence on our
moral judgment; it is there, as life is there,
to be seen and judged. And only through
such seeing and judging can the individual
perception attain to anything of power or
originality. Just as a certain amount of
received ideas is necessary to sane development,
so is a definite opportunity for
first-hand judgments essential to power.

In this epoch of well-trained minds we
run some risk of an inundation of accepted
ethics. The mind which can make independent
judgments, can look at new facts
with fresh vision, and reach conclusions
with simplicity, is the perennial power in
the world. And this is the mind we are
not noticeably successful in developing, in
our system of schooling. Let us at least
have its needs before our consciousness,
in our attempts to supplement the regular
studies of school by such side-activities as
story-telling. Let us give the children a
fair proportion of stories which stimulate
independent moral and practical decisions.

And now for a brief return to our little
black friend. "Epaminondas" belongs to
a very large, very ancient type of funny
story: the tale in which the jest depends
wholly on an abnormal degree of stupidity
on the part of the hero. Every race which
produces stories seems to have found this
theme a natural outlet for its childlike
laughter. The stupidity of Lazy Jack, of
Big Claus, of the Good Man, of Clever
Alice, all have their counterparts in the
folly of the small Epaminondas.

Evidently, such stories have served a
purpose in the education of the race. While
the exaggeration of familiar attributes
easily awakens mirth in a simple mind,
it does more: it teaches practical lessons
of wisdom and discretion. And possibly
the lesson was the original cause of the
story.

Not long ago, I happened upon an
instance of the teaching power of these
nonsense tales, so amusing and convincing
that I cannot forbear to share it. A
primary teacher who heard me tell "Epaminondas"
one evening, told it to her pupils
the next morning, with great effect. A
young teacher who was observing in the
room at the time told me what befell.
She said the children laughed very heartily
over the story, and evidently liked it
much. About an hour later, one of them
was sent to the board to do a little problem.
It happened that the child made an
excessively foolish mistake, and did not
notice it. As he glanced at the teacher for
the familiar smile of encouragement, she
simply raised her hands, and ejaculated
"`For the law's sake!'"

It was sufficient. The child took the cue
instantly. He looked hastily at his work,
broke into an irrepressible giggle, rubbed
the figures out, without a word, and began
again. And the whole class entered into
the joke with the gusto of fellow-fools, for
once wise.

It is safe to assume that the child in
question will make fewer needless
mistakes for a long time because of the wholesome
reminder of his likeness with one
who "ain't got the sense he was born with."
And what occurred so visibly in his case
goes on quietly in the hidden recesses of
the mind in many cases. One "Epaminondas"
is worth three lectures.

I wish there were more of such funny
little tales in the world's literature, all
ready, as this one is, for telling to the
youngest of our listeners. But masterpieces
are few in any line, and stories for
telling are no exception; it took generations,
probably, to make this one. The
demand for new sources of supply comes
steadily from teachers and mothers, and
is the more insistent because so often met
by the disappointing recommendations of
books which prove to be for reading only,
rather than for telling. It would be a
delight to print a list of fifty, twenty-five,
even ten books which would be found
full of stories to tell without much adapting.
But I am grateful to have found even
fewer than the ten, to which I am sure the
teacher can turn with real profit. The
following names are, of course, additional
to the list contained in "How to Tell Stories
to Children."

ALL ABOUT JOHNNIE JONES. By Carolyn Verhoeff.
Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass. Valuable
for kindergartners as a supply of realistic
stories with practical lessons in simplest form.

OLD DECCAN DAYS. By Mary Frere. Joseph
McDonough, Albany, New York. A splendid collection
of Hindu folk tales, adaptable for all ages.

THE SILVER CROWN. By Laura E. Richards.
Little, Brown & Co., Boston. Poetic fables with
beautiful suggestions of ethical truths.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BY Eva March Tappan.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, New York,
and Chicago. A classified collection, in ten
volumes, of fairy, folk tales, fables, realistic,
historical, and poetical stories.

FOR THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BY Carolyn Bailey
and Clara Lewis. Milton Bradley Co., Springfield.
A general collection of popular stories, well
told.

THE SONS OF CORMAC. By Aldis Dunbar. Longmans,
Green & Co., London. Rather mature
but very fine Irish stories.

For the benefit of suggestion to teachers
in schools where story-telling is newly
or not yet introduced in systematic form,
I am glad to append the following list of
stories which have been found, on several
years' trial, to be especially tellable and
likable, in certain grades of the Providence
schools, in Rhode Island. The list is not
mine, although it embodies some of my
suggestions. I offer it merely as a practical
result of the effort to equalize and extend
the story-hour throughout the schools. Its
makers would be the last to claim ideal
merit for it, and they are constantly
improving and developing it. I am indebted
for the privilege of using it to the primary
teachers of Providence, and to their supervisor,
Miss Ella L. Sweeney.

STORIES FOR REPRODUCTION

FIRST GRADE
Chicken Little The Dog and his Shadow
Barnyard Talk The Hare and the Hound
Little Red Hen Five Little Rabbits
Little Gingerbread Boy The Three Bears
The Lion and the Mouse The Red-headed Wood-
The Hungry Lion pecker
The Wind and the Sun Little Red Riding-Hood
The Fox and the Crow Little Half-Chick
The Duck and the Hen The Rabbit and the Turtle
The Hare and the Tortoise The Shoemaker and the
The Three Little Robins Fairies
The Wolf and the Kid The Wolf and the Crane
The Crow and the Pitcher The Cat and the Mouse
The Fox and the Grapes Snow-White and Rose-Red

SECOND GRADE
The North Wind The Lark and her Little
The Mouse Pie Ones
The Wonderful Traveler The Wolf and the Goslings
The Wolf and the Fox The Ugly Duckling
The Star Dollars The Country Mouse and the
The Water-Lil City Mouse
The Three Goats The Three Little Pigs
The Boy and the Nuts Diamonds and Toads
The Honest Woodman The Thrifty Squirrel
The Pied Piper How the Robin's Breast
King Midas became Red
The Town Musicians The Old Woman and her
Raggylug Pig
Peter Rabbit The Sleeping Apple
The Boy who cried "Wolf" The Cat and the Parrot

THIRD GRADE
The Crane Express How the Mole became
Little Black Sambo Blind
The Lantern and the Fan How Fire was brought to
Why the Bear has a Short the Indians
Tail Echo
Why the Fox has a White Piccola
Tip to his Tail The Story of the Morning-
Why the Wren flies low Glory Seed
Jack and the Beanstalk The Discontented Pine
The Talkative Tortoise Tree
Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice The Bag of Winds
The Golden Fleece The Foolish Weather-Vane
The Little Boy who wanted The Shut-up Posy
the Moon Pandora's Box
Benjy in Beastland The Little Match Girl
Tomtit's Peep at the World

FOURTH GRADE
Arachne The First Snowdrop
The Porcelain Stove The Three Golden Apples
Moufflou Androclus and the Lion
Clytie The Old Man and his
The Legend of the Trailing Donkey
Arbutus The Leak in the Dike
Latona and the Frogs King Tawny Mane
Dick Whittington and his The Little Lame Prince
Cat Appleseed John
Dora, the Little Girl of the Narcissus
Lighthouse Why the Sea is Salt
Proserpine The Little Hero of Haarlem
The Miraculous Pitcher
The Bell of Justice

STORY-TELLING IN TEACHING ENGLISH

I have to speak now of a phase of
elementary education which lies very close to
my warmest interest, which, indeed, could
easily become an active hobby if other
interests did not beneficently tug at my skirts
when I am minded to mount and ride too
wildly. It is the hobby of many of you who
are teachers, also, and I know you want to
hear it discussed. I mean the growing
effort to teach English and English literature
to children in the natural way: by speaking
and hearing,--orally.

We are coming to a realization of the fact
that our ability, as a people, to use English
is pitifully inadequate and perverted. Those
Americans who are not blinded by a limited
horizon of cultured acquaintance, and who
have given themselves opportunity to hear
the natural speech of the younger generation
in varying sections of the United States,
must admit that it is no exaggeration to say
that this country at large has no standard
of English speech. There is no general
sense of responsibility to our mother tongue
(indeed, it is in an overwhelming degree
not our mother tongue) and no general
appreciation of its beauty or meaning. The
average young person in every district save
a half-dozen jealously guarded little
precincts of good taste, uses inexpressive, ill-
bred words, spoken without regard to their
just sound-effects, and in a voice which is an
injury to the ear of the mind, as well as a
torment to the physical ear.

The structure of the language and the
choice of words are dark matters to most of
our young Americans; this has long been
acknowledged and struggled against. But
even darker, and quite equally destructive
to English expression, is their state of mind
regarding pronunciation, enunciation, and
voice. It is the essential connection of these
elements with English speech that we have
been so slow to realize. We have felt that
they were externals, desirable but not necessary
adjuncts,--pretty tags of an exceptional
gift or culture. Many an intelligent
school director to-day will say, "I don't care
much about HOW you say a thing; it is WHAT
you say that counts." He cannot see that
voice and enunciation and pronunciation
are essentials. But they are. You can no
more help affecting the meaning of your
words by the way you say them than you
can prevent the expressions of your face
from carrying a message; the message may
be perverted by an uncouth habit, but it
will no less surely insist on recognition.

The fact is that speech is a method
of carrying ideas from one human soul to
another, by way of the ear. And these
ideas are very complex. They are not
unmixed emanations of pure intellect,
transmitted to pure intellect: they are
compounded of emotions, thoughts, fancies, and
are enhanced or impeded in transmission
by the use of word-symbols which have
acquired, by association, infinite complexities
in themselves. The mood of the moment,
the especial weight of a turn of
thought, the desire of the speaker to share
his exact soul-concept with you,--these
seek far more subtle means than the mere
rendering of certain vocal signs; they
demand such variations and delicate
adjustments of sound as will inevitably affect the
listening mind with the response desired.

There is no "what" without the "how"
in speech. The same written sentence
becomes two diametrically opposite ideas,
given opposing inflection and accompanying
voice-effect. "He stood in the front
rank of the battle" can be made praiseful
affirmation, scornful skepticism, or simple
question, by a simple varying of voice and
inflection. This is the more unmistakable
way in which the "how" affects the "what."
Just as true is the less obvious fact. The
same written sentiment, spoken by Wendell
Phillips and by a man from the Bowery
or an uneducated ranchman, is not the
same to the listener. In one case the sentiment
comes to the mind's ear with certain
completing and enhancing qualities of
sound which give it accuracy and poignancy.
The words themselves retain all
their possible suggestiveness in the speaker's
just and clear enunciation, and have a
borrowed beauty, besides, from the
associations of fine habit betrayed in the voice
and manner of speech. And, further, the
immense personal equation shows itself in
the beauty and power of the vocal expressiveness,
which carries shades of meaning,
unguessed delicacies of emotion, intimations
of beauty, to every ear. In the other
case, the thought is clouded by unavoidable
suggestions of ignorance and ugliness,
brought by the pronunciation and voice,
even to an unanalytical ear; the meaning is
obscured by inaccurate inflection and
uncertain or corrupt enunciation; but, worst
of all, the personal atmosphere, the aroma,
of the idea has been lost in transmission
through a clumsy, ill-fitted medium.

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