The Story Hour | Page 5

is generally so ineffective. A moral "lugged in" by the heels, so to speak, without any sense of perspective on the part of the Story-Teller, can no more incline a child to nobler living than cold victuals can serve as a fillip to the appetite. The facts themselves should suffice to exert the moral influence; the deeds should speak louder than the words, and in clearer, fuller tones. At the end of such a story, "Go thou and do likewise" sounds in the child's heart, and a new throb of tenderness and aspiration, of desire to do, to grow, and to be, stirs gently there and wakes the soul to higher ideals. In such a story the canting, vapid, or didactic little moral, tacked like a tag on the end, for fear we shall not read the lesson aright, is nothing short of an insult to the better feelings. It used to be very much in vogue, but we have learned better nowadays, and we recognize (to paraphrase Mrs. Whitney's bright speech) that we have often vaccinated children with morality for fear of their taking it the natural way.
It is a curious fact that children sympathize with the imaginary woes of birds and butterflies and plants much more readily than with the sufferings of human beings; and they are melted to tears much more quickly by simple incidents from the manifold life of nature, than by the tragedies of human experience which surround them on every side. Robert Louis Stevenson says in his essay on "Child's Play," "Once, when I was groaning aloud with physical pain, a young gentleman came into the room and nonchalantly inquired if I had seen his bow and arrow. He made no account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to accept so much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct of his elders. Those elders, who care so little for rational enjoyment, and are even the enemies of rational enjoyment for others, he had accepted without understanding and without complaint, as the rest of us accept the scheme of the universe." Miss Anna Buckland quotes in this connection a story of a little boy to whom his mother showed a picture of Daniel in the lions' den. The child sighed and looked much distressed, whereupon his mother hastened to assure him that Daniel was such a good man that God did not let the lions hurt him. "Oh," replied the little fellow, "I was not thinking of that; but I was afraid that those big lions were going to eat all of him themselves, and that they would not give the poor little lion down in the corner any of him!"
It is well to remember the details with which you surrounded your story when first you told it, and hold to them strictly on all other occasions. The children allow you no latitude in this matter; they draw the line absolutely upon all change. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, if you speak of Jimmy when "his name was Johnny;" or if, when you are depicting the fearful results of disobedience, you lose Jane in a cranberry bog instead of the heart of a forest! Personally you do not care much for little Jane, and it is a matter of no moment to you where you lost her; but an error such as this undermines the very foundations of the universe in the children's minds. "Can Jane be lost in two places?" they exclaim mentally," or are there two Janes, and are they both lost? because if so, it must be a fatality to be named Jane."
Perez relates the following incident: "A certain child was fond of a story about a young bird, which, having left its nest, although its mother had forbidden it to do so, flew to the top of a chimney, fell down the flue into the fire, and died a victim to his disobedience. The person who told the story thought it necessary to embellish it from his own imagination. 'That's not right,' said the child at the first change which was made, 'the mother said this and did that.' His cousin, not remembering the story word for word, was obliged to have recourse to invention to fill up gaps. But the child could not stand it. He slid down from his cousin's knees, and with tears in his eyes, and indignant gestures, exclaimed, 'It's not true! The little bird said, coui, coui, coui, coui, before he fell into the fire, to make his mother hear; but the mother did not hear him, and he burnt his wings, his claws, and his beak, and he died, poor little bird.' And the child ran away, crying as if he had been beaten. He had been worse than beaten;