The Art of the Story-Teller | Page 8

my eyes The views I know: the Forest,
River, Sea And Mist--the scenes of Ono now expand.
I have often heard objections raised to this theory by teachers dealing
with children whose knowledge of objects outside their own circle is so
scanty that words we use without a suspicion that they are unfamiliar
are really foreign expressions to them. Such words as sea, woods, fields,
mountains, would mean nothing to them, unless some explanation were
offered. To these objections I have replied that where we are dealing
with objects that can actually be seen with the bodily eyes, then it is
quite legitimate to show pictures before you begin the story, so that the
distraction between the actual and mental presentation may not cause
confusion; but, as the foregoing example shows, we should endeavor to
accustom the children to seeing much more than mere objects
themselves, and in dealing with abstract qualities we must rely solely
on the power and choice of words and dramatic qualities of
presentation, and we need not feel anxious if the response is not
immediate, nor even if it is not quick and eager.[7]
7. The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many details

is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it shown only in the narrative form. I
have often heard really brilliant after-dinner stories marred by this
defect. One remembers the attempt made by Sancho Panza to tell a
story to Don Quixote. I have always felt a keen sympathy with the latter
in his impatience over the recital.
"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd--no, I mean a
goatherd--which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called
Lope Ruiz--and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called
Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich
herdsman---"
"If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have
done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say
no more."
"I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country," answered
Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to
require me to make new customs."
"Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate
that I should here it, go on."
Sancho continued:
"He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him,
but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The
fisherman got into the boat and carried over on goat; he returned and
carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir,
keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for
if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be
impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for
another goat, and another, and another and another---"
"Suppose them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not
have finished carrying them this twelve months!"
"Tell me, how many have passed already?" said Sancho.

"How should I know?" answered Don Quixote.
"See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is
an end of the story. I can go no further."
"How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to
know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error be
made the story can proceed no further?"
"Even so," said Sancho Panza.
8. The danger of overexplanation is fatal to the artistic success of any
story, but it is even more serious in connection with stories told from an
educational point of view, because it hampers the imagination of the
listener, and since the development of that faculty is one of our chief
aims in telling these stories, we must leave free play, we must not test
the effect, as I have said before, by the material method of asking
questions. My own experience is that the fewer explanations you offer,
provided you have been careful with the choice of your material and
artistic in the presentation, the more the child will supplement by his
own thinking power what is necessary for the understanding of the
story.
Queyrat says: "A child has no need of seizing on the exact meaning of
words; on the contrary, a certain lack of precision seems to stimulate
his imagination only the more vigorously, since it gives him a broader
liberty and firmer independence."[8]
9. The danger of lowering the standard of the story in order to appeal
to the undeveloped taste of the child is a special one. I am alluding
here only to the story which