How To Tell Children Stories | Page 6

demand for stories is made solely in the interests of
literary culture, sometimes in far ampler and vaguer relations, ranging
from inculcation of scientific fact to admonition of moral theory; but
whatever the reason given, the conclusion is the same: tell the children
stories.
The average teacher has yielded to the pressure, at least in theory.
Cheerfully, as she has already accepted so many modifications of old
methods by "new thought," she accepts the idea of instilling mental and
moral desiderata into the receptive pupil, via the charming tale. But,
confronted with the concrete problem of what desideratum by which
tale, and how, the average teacher sometimes finds her cheerfulness
displaced by a sense of inadequacy to the situation.
People who have always told stories to children, who do not know
when they began or how they do it; whose heads are stocked with the
accretions of years of fairyland- dwelling and nonsense-sharing,--these
cannot understand the perplexity of one to whom the gift and the
opportunity have not "come natural." But there are many who can
understand it, personally and all too well. To these, the teachers who
have not a knack for story- telling, who feel as shy as their own
youngest scholar at the thought of it, who do not know where the good
stories are, or which ones are easy to tell, it is my earnest hope that the
following pages will bring something definite and practical in the way
of suggestion and reference.

HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN

CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL
Let us first consider together the primary matter of the AIM in
educational story-telling. On our conception of this must depend very
largely all decisions as to choice and method; and nothing in the whole
field of discussion is more vital than a just and sensible notion of this
first point. What shall we attempt to accomplish by stories in the
schoolroom? What can we reasonably expect to accomplish? And what,
of this, is best accomplished by this means and no other?
These are questions which become the more interesting and practical
because the recent access of enthusiasm for stories in education has led
many people to claim very wide and very vaguely outlined territory for
their possession, and often to lay heaviest stress on their least essential
functions. The most important instance of this is the fervour with which
many compilers of stories for school have directed their efforts solely
toward the ration of natural phenomena. Geology, zoology, botany, and
even physics are taught by means of more or less happily constructed
narratives based on the simpler facts of these sciences. Kindergarten
teachers are familiar with such narratives: the little stories of
chrysalis-breaking, flower-growth, and the like. Now this is a perfectly
proper and practicable aim, but it is not a primary one. Others, to which
at best this is but secondary, should have first place and receive greatest
attention.
What is a story, essentially? Is it a textbook of science, an appendix to
the geography, an introduction to the primer of history? Of course it is
not. A story is essentially and primarily a work of art, and its chief
function must be sought in the line of the uses of art. Just as the drama
is capable of secondary uses, yet fails abjectly to realise its purpose
when those are substituted for its real significance as a work of art, so
does the story lend itself to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and
most strongly to be recognised in its real significance as a work of art.
Since the drama deals with life in all its parts, it can exemplify
sociological theory, it can illustrate economic principle, it can even

picture politics; but the drama which does these things only, has no
breath of its real life in its being, and dies when the wind of popular
tendency veers from its direction. So, you can teach a child interesting
facts about bees and butterflies by telling him certain stories, and you
can open his eyes to colours and processes in nature by telling certain
others; but unless you do something more than that and before that, you
are as one who should use the Venus of Milo for a demonstration in
anatomy.
The message of the story is the message of beauty, as effective as that
message in marble or paint. Its part in the economy of life is TO GIVE
JOY. And the purpose and working of the joy is found in that
quickening of the spirit which answers every perception of the truly
beautiful in the arts of man. To give joy; in and through the joy to stir
and feed the life of the spirit: is not this the legitimate function of the
story