How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell | Page 8

the
loathsomeness of evil itself.
And no less truly than this story has served to many as an embodiment
of moral law has another household tale stood for a type of common
experience. How much the poorer should we be, mentally, without our
early prophecy of the "ugly ducklings" we are to meet later in
life!--those awkward offspring of our little human duckyard who are
mostly well kicked and buffeted about, for that very length of limb and
breadth of back which needs must be, to support swan's wings. The
story of the ugly duckling is much truer than many a bald statement of
fact. The English-speaking world bears witness to its verity in constant
use of the title as an identifying phrase: "It is the old story of the ugly
duckling," we say, or "He has turned out a real ugly duckling." And we
know that our hearers understand the whole situation.
The consideration of such familiar types and expressions as that of the
ugly duckling suggests immediately another good reason for giving the
child his due of fairy lore. The reason is that to omit it is to deprive him

of one important element in the full appreciation of mature literature. If
one thinks of it, one sees that nearly all adult literature is made by
people who, in their beginnings, were bred on the wonder tale. Whether
he will or no, the grown-up author must incorporate into his work the
tendencies, memories, kinds of feeling which were his in childhood.
The literature of maturity is, naturally, permeated by the influence of
the literature of childhood. Sometimes it is apparent merely in the use
of a name, as suggestive of certain kinds of experience; such are the
recurrences of reference to the Cinderella story. Sometimes it is an
allusion which has its strength in long association of certain qualities
with certain characters in fairydom--like the slyness of Brother Fox,
and the cruelty of Brother Wolf. Sometimes the association of ideas lies
below the surface, drawing from the hidden wells of poetic illusion
which are sunk in childhood. The man or woman whose infancy was
nourished exclusively on tales adapted from science-made- easy, or
from biographies of good men and great, must remain blind to these
beauties of literature. He may look up the allusion, or identify the
reference, but when that is done he is but richer by a fact or two; there
is no remembered thrill in it for him, no savour in his memory, no
suggestion to his imagination; and these are precisely the things which
really count. Leaving out the fairy element is a loss to literary culture
much as would be the omission of the Bible or of Shakespeare. Just as
all adult literature is permeated by the influence of these, familiar in
youth, so in less degree is it transfused with the subtle reminiscences of
childhood's commerce with the wonder world.
To turn now from the inner to the outer aspects of the old-time tale is to
meet another cause of its value to children. This is the value of its style.
Simplicity, directness, and virility characterise the classic fairy tales
and the most memorable relics of folklore. And these are three of the
very qualities which are most seriously lacking in much of the new
writing for children, and which are always necessary elements in the
culture of taste. Fairy stories are not all well told, but the best fairy
stories are supremely well told. And most folk-tales have a movement,
a sweep, and an unaffectedness which make them splendid foundations
for taste in style.

For this, and for poetic presentation of truths in easily assimilated form,
and because it gives joyous stimulus to the imagination, and is
necessary to full appreciation of adult literature, we may freely use the
wonder tale.
Closely related to, sometimes identical with, the fairy tale is the old,
old source of children's love and laughter,
THE NONSENSE TALE
Under this head I wish to include all the merely funny tales of
childhood, embracing the cumulative stories like that of the old woman
and the pig which would not go over the stile. They all have a specific
use and benefit, and are worth the repetition children demand for them.
Their value lies, of course, in the tonic and relaxing properties of
humour. Nowhere is that property more welcome or needed than in the
schoolroom. It does us all good to laugh, if there is no sneer nor smirch
in the laugh; fun sets the blood flowing more freely in the veins, and
loosens the strained cords of feeling and thought; the delicious shock of
surprise at every "funny spot" is a kind of electric treatment for the
nerves. But it especially does us good to laugh when we