Stories to Tell to Children | Page 9

story-telling in school
finds its second value; ethics is the first ground of its usefulness,
English the second,--and after these, the others. It is, too, for the oral
uses that the secondary forms of story-telling are so available. By
secondary I mean those devices which I have tried to indicate, as used
by many American teachers, in the chapter on "Specific Schoolroom
Uses," in my earlier book. They are re-telling, dramatization, and forms
of seat-work. All of these are a great power in the hands of a wise
teacher. If combined with much attention to voice and enunciation in

the recital of poetry, and with much good reading aloud BY THE
TEACHER, they will go far toward setting a standard and developing
good habit.
But their provinces must not be confused or overestimated. I trust I
may be pardoned for offering a caution or two to the enthusiastic
advocate of these methods,--cautions the need of which has been forced
upon me, in experience with schools.
A teacher who uses the oral story as an English feature with little
children must never lose sight of the fact that it is an aid in unconscious
development; not a factor in studied, conscious improvement. This
truth cannot be too strongly realized. Other exercises, in sufficiency,
give the opportunity for regulated effort for definite results, but the
story is one of the play- forces. Its use in English teaching is most
valuable when the teacher has a keen appreciation of the natural order
of growth in the art of expression: that art requires, as the old rhetorics
used often to put it, "a natural facility, succeeded by an acquired
difficulty." In other words, the power of expression depends, first, on
something more fundamental than the art-element; the basis of it is
something to say, ACCOMPANIED BY AN URGENT DESIRE TO
SAY IT, and YIELDED TO WITH FREEDOM; only after this stage is
reached can the art-phase be of any use. The "why" and "how," the
analytical and constructive phases, have no natural place in this first
vital epoch.
Precisely here, however, does the dramatizing of stories and the
paper-cutting, etc., become useful. A fine and thoughtful principal of a
great school asked me, recently, with real concern, about the growing
use of such devices. He said, "Paper-cutting is good, but what has it to
do with English?" And then he added: "The children use abominable
language when they play the stories; can that directly aid them to speak
good English?" His observation was close and correct, and his
conservatism more valuable than the enthusiasm of some of his
colleagues who have advocated sweeping use of the supplementary
work. But his point of view ignored the basis of expression, which is to
my mind so important. Paper-cutting is external to English, of course.
Its only connection is in its power to correlate different forms of
expression, and to react on speech-expression through sense-stimulus.
But playing the story is a closer relative to English than this. It helps,

amazingly, in giving the "something to say, the urgent desire to say it,"
and the freedom in trying. Never mind the crudities,--at least, at the
time; work only for joyous freedom, inventiveness, and natural forms
of reproduction of the ideas given. Look for very gradual changes in
speech, through the permeating power of imitation, but do not forget
that this is the stage of expression which inevitably precedes art.
All this will mean that no corrections are made, except in flagrant cases
of slang or grammar, though all bad slips are mentally noted, for
introduction at a more favorable time. It will mean that the teacher will
respect the continuity of thought and interest as completely as she
would wish an audience to respect her occasional prosy periods if she
were reading a report. She will remember, of course that she is not
training actors for amateur theatricals, however tempting her
show-material may be; she is simply letting the children play with
expression, just as a gymnasium teacher introduces muscular play,--for
power through relaxation.
When the time comes that the actors lose their unconsciousness it is the
end of the story-play. Drilled work, the beginning of the art, is then the
necessity.
I have indicated that the children may be left undisturbed in their
crudities and occasional absurdities. The teacher, on the other hand,
must avoid, with great judgment, certain absurdities which can easily
be initiated by her. The first direful possibility is in the choice of
material. It is very desirable that children should not be allowed to
dramatize stories of a kind so poetic, so delicate, or so potentially
valuable that the material is in danger of losing future beauty to the
pupils through its present crude handling. Mother Goose is a hardy old
lady, and will not