The Art of the Story-Teller | Page 7

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
actualpicture.
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