Transcriber's Note.

A list of the changes made can be found at the [end of the book].

THE ART OF STORY-TELLING

THE ART OF STORY-TELLING

By MARIE L. SHEDLOCK

WITH A PREFACE BY
Professor JOHN ADAMS
CHAIR OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1915

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

By Professor John Adams,
Chair of Education, University of London.

Those who do not love schoolmasters tell us that the man who can do something supremely well contents himself with doing it, while the man who cannot do it very well must needs set about showing other people how it should be done. The masters in any craft are prone to magnify their gifts by maintaining that the poet—or the stove-pipe maker—is born, not made. Teachers will accordingly be gratified to find in the following pages the work of a lady who is at the same time a brilliant executant and an admirable expositor. Miss Shedlock stands in the very first rank of story-tellers. No one can claim with greater justice that the gift of Scheherazade is hers by birthright. Yet she has recognised that even the highest natural gifts may be well or ill manipulated: that in short the poet, not to speak of the stove-pipe maker, must take a little more trouble than to be merely born.

It is well when the master of a craft begins to take thought and to discover what underlies his method. It does not, of course, happen that every master is able to analyse the processes that secure him success in his art. For after all the expositor has to be born as well as the executant; and it is perhaps one of the main causes of the popularity of the born-not-made theory that so few people are born both good artists and good expositors. Miss Shedlock has had this rare good fortune, as all those who have both read her book and heard her exemplify her principles on the platform will readily admit.

Let no one who lacks the gift of story-telling hope that the following pages will confer it. Like Comenius and like the schoolmaster in Shakespeare, Miss Shedlock is entitled to claim a certain capacity or ingenuity in her pupils, before she can promise effective help. But on the other hand let no successful story-teller form the impression that he has nothing to learn from the exposition here given. The best craftsmen are those who are not only most able but most willing to learn from a fellow master. The most inexperienced story-teller who has the love of the art in his soul will gather a full harvest from Miss Shedlock's teaching, while the most experienced and skilful will not go empty away.

The reader will discover that the authoress is first and last an artist. “Dramatic joy” is put in the forefront when she is enumerating the aims of the story-teller. But her innate gifts as a teacher will not be suppressed. She objects to “didactic emphasis” and yet cannot say too much in favour of the moral effect that may be produced by the use of the story. She raises here the whole problem of direct versus indirect moral instruction, and decides in no uncertain sound in favour of the indirect form. There is a great deal to be said on the other side, but this is not the place to say it. On the wide question Miss Shedlock has on her side the great body of public opinion among professional teachers. The orthodox master proclaims that he is, of course, a moral instructor, but adds that in the schoolroom the less said about the matter the better. Like the authoress, the orthodox teacher has much greater faith in example than in precept: so much faith indeed that in many schools precept does not get the place it deserves. But in the matter of story-telling the artistic element introduces something that is not necessarily involved in ordinary school work. For better or for worse modern opinion is against the explicitly stated lesson to be drawn from any tale that is told. Most people agree with Mark Twain's condemnation of “the moral that wags its crippled tail at the end of most school-girls' essays.”

The justification of the old-fashioned “moral” was not artistic but didactic. It embodied the determination of the story-teller to see that his pupils got the full benefit of the lesson involved. If the moral is to be cut out, the story-teller must be sure that the lesson is so clearly conveyed in the text that any further elaboration would be felt as an impertinent addition. Whately assures us that men prefer metaphors to similes because in the simile the point is baldly stated, whereas in the metaphor the reader or hearer has to be his own interpreter. All education is in the last resort self-education, and Miss Shedlock sees to it that her stories compel her hearers to make the application she desires.

In two other points modern opinion is prepared to give our authoress rein where our forefathers would have been inclined to restrain her. The sense of humour has come to its proper place in our schoolrooms—pupils' humour, be it understood, for there always was scope enough claimed for the humour of the teacher. So with the imagination. The time is past when this “mode of being conscious” was looked at askance in school. Parents and teachers no longer speak contemptuously about “the busy faculty,” and quote Genesis in its condemnation.

Miss Shedlock has been well advised to keep to her legitimate subject instead of wandering afield in a Teutonic excursion into the realms of folk-lore. What parents and teachers want is the story as here and now existing and an account of how best to manipulate it. This want the book now before us admirably meets.

JOHN ADAMS.

INTRODUCTION.

Story-telling is almost the oldest Art in the world—the first conscious form of literary communication. In the East it still survives, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a crowd at a street-corner held by the simple narration of a story. There are signs in the West of a growing interest in this ancient art, and we may yet live to see the renaissance of the troubadours and the minstrels whose appeal will then rival that of the mob orator or itinerant politician. One of the surest signs of a belief in the educational power of the story is its introduction into the curriculum of the Training-College and the classes of the Elementary and Secondary Schools. It is just at the time when the imagination is most keen—the mind being unhampered by accumulation of facts—that stories appeal most vividly and are retained for all time.

It is to be hoped that some day stories will only be told to school groups by experts who have devoted special time and preparation to the art of telling them. It is a great fallacy to suppose that the systematic study of story-telling destroys the spontaneity of narrative. After a long experience, I find the exact converse to be true, namely, that it is only when one has overcome the mechanical difficulties that one can “let oneself go” in the dramatic interest of the story.

By the expert story-teller I do not mean the professional elocutionist. The name—wrongly enough—has become associated in the mind of the public with persons who beat their breast, tear their hair, and declaim blood-curdling episodes. A decade or more ago, the drawing-room reciter was of this type, and was rapidly becoming the bugbear of social gatherings. The difference between the stilted reciter and the simple story-teller is perhaps best illustrated by an episode in Hans C. Andersen's immortal story of the Nightingale.[1] The real Nightingale and the artificial Nightingale have been bidden by the Emperor to unite their forces and to sing a duet at a Court function. The duet turns out most disastrously, and whilst the artificial Nightingale is singing his one solo for the thirty-third time, the real Nightingale flies out of the window back to the green wood—a true artist, instinctively choosing his right atmosphere. But the bandmaster—symbol of the pompous pedagogue—in trying to soothe the outraged feelings of the courtiers, says, “Because, you see, Ladies and Gentlemen, and, above all, Your Imperial Majesty, with the real nightingale you never can tell what you will hear, but in the artificial nightingale everything is decided beforehand. So it is, and so it must remain. It cannot be otherwise.”

And as in the case of the two nightingales, so it is with the stilted reciter and the simple narrator: one is busy displaying the machinery, showing “how the tunes go”—the other is anxious to conceal the art. Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and here the comparison with the Nightingale breaks down) it is a simplicity which comes after much training in self-control, and much hard work in overcoming the difficulties which beset the presentation.

I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who could hold an audience without preparation, but they are so rare in number that we can afford to neglect them in our general consideration; for this work is dedicated to the average story-tellers anxious to make the best use of their dramatic ability, and it is to them that I present my plea for special study and preparation before telling a story to a group of children—that is, if they wish for the far-reaching effects I shall speak of later on. Only the preparation must be of a much less stereotyped nature than that by which the ordinary reciters are trained for their career.

Some years ago, when I was in the States, I was asked to put into the form of lectures my views upon the educational value of telling stories. A sudden inspiration seized me. I began to cherish a dream of long hours to be spent in the British Museum, the Congressional Library in Washington and the Public Library at Boston—and this is the only portion of the dream which has been realized. I planned an elaborate scheme of research work which was to result in a magnificent (if musty) philological treatise. I thought of trying to discover by long and patient researches what species of lullaby were crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the elementary dramatic poems in vogue among Assyrian nursemaids which were the prototypes of “Little Jack Horner,” “Dickory, Dickory Dock,” and other nursery classics. I intended to follow up the study of these ancient documents by making an appendix of modern variants, showing what progress we had made—if any—among modern nations.

But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from Racine's “Plaideurs” in which the counsel for the defence, eager to show how fundamental is his knowledge, begins his speech:—

“Before the Creation of the World”—And the Judge (with a touch of weariness tempered by humour) suggests:—

“Let us pass on to the Deluge.”

And thus I, too, have “passed on to the Deluge.” I have abandoned an account of the origin and past of stories which at the best would only have displayed a little recently-acquired book-knowledge. When I thought of the number of scholars who could treat this part of the question so infinitely better than myself, I realized how much wiser it would be—though the task is much more humdrum—to deal with the present possibilities of story-telling for our generation of parents and teachers, and, leaving out the folk-lore side, devote myself to the story itself.

My objects in urging the use of stories in the education of children are at least five-fold:

First, to give them dramatic joy, for which they have a natural craving. Secondly, to develop a sense of humour, which is really a sense of proportion. Thirdly, to correct certain tendencies by showing the consequences in the career of the hero in the story. (Of this motive the children must be quite unconscious, and there must be no didactic emphasis.) Fourthly, by means of example, not precept, to present such ideals as will sooner or later (I care not which) be translated into action. Fifthly, to develop the imagination, which really takes in all the other points.

So much for the purely educational side of the book. But the art of story-telling, quite apart from the subject, appeals not only to the educational world or to parents as parents, but also to a wider outside public, who may be interested in the purely human point of view.

In great contrast to the lofty scheme I had originally proposed to myself, I now simply place before all those who are interested in the Art of Story-telling in any form the practical experience I have had in my travels across the United States and through England; and, because I am confining myself to personal experience which must of necessity be limited, I am very anxious not to appear dogmatic or to give the impression that I wish to lay down the law on the subject. But I hope my readers may profit by my errors, improve on my methods, and thus help to bring about the revival of an almost lost art—one which appeals more directly and more stirringly than any other method to the majority of listeners.

In Sir Philip Sidney's “Defence of Poesy” we find these words:

“Forsooth he cometh to you with a tale, which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner, and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste.”

MARIE L. SHEDLOCK.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See p. [138].

CHAPTER I.

The Difficulties of the Story.

I propose to deal in this chapter with the difficulties or dangers which beset the path of the Story-teller, because, until we have overcome these, we cannot hope for the finished and artistic presentation which is to bring out the full value of the story.

The difficulties are many, and yet they ought not to discourage the would-be narrators, but only show them how all-important is the preparation for the story, if it is to have the desired effect.

I propose to illustrate by concrete examples, thereby hoping to achieve a two-fold result: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of the student—the other to use the Art of Story-telling to explain itself.

I have chosen one or two instances from my own personal experience. The grave mistakes made in my own case may serve as a warning to others, who will find, however, that experience is the best teacher. For positive work, in the long run, we generally find out our own method. On the negative side, however, it is useful to have certain pitfalls pointed out to us, in order that we may save time by avoiding them: it is for this reason that I sound a note of warning. These are:—

I.—The danger of side issues. An inexperienced story-teller is exposed to the temptation of breaking off from the main dramatic interest in a short exciting story, in order to introduce a side issue, which is often interesting and helpful, but should be reserved for a longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns on some dramatic moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half its effect.

I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and, just at the most dramatic moment in it, some impulse prompted me to go off on a side issue to describe the personal appearance of Ulysses.

The children were visibly bored, but with polite indifference they listened to my elaborate description of the hero. If I had given them an actual description from Homer, I believe that the strength of the language would have appealed to their imagination (all the more strongly because they might not have understood the individual words) and have lessened their disappointment at the dramatic issue being postponed; but I trusted to my own lame verbal efforts, and signally failed. Attention flagged, fidgeting began, the atmosphere was rapidly becoming spoiled, in spite of the patience and toleration still shown by the children. At last, however, one little girl in the front row, as spokeswoman for the class, suddenly said: “If you please, before you go any further, do you mind telling us whether, after all, that Poly ... (slight pause) that (final attempt) Polyanthus died?”

Now, the remembrance of this question has been of extreme use to me in my career as a story-teller. I have realized that in a short dramatic story the mind of the listeners must be set at ease with regard to the ultimate fate of the special “Polyanthus” who takes the centre of the stage.

I remember too the despair of a little boy at a dramatic representation of “Little Red Riding-Hood,” when that little person delayed the thrilling catastrophe with the Wolf, by singing a pleasant song on her way through the wood. “Oh, why,” said the little boy, “does she not get on?” And I quite shared his impatience.

This warning is only necessary in connection with the short dramatic narrative. There are occasions when we can well afford to offer short descriptions for the sake of literary style, and for the purpose of enlarging the vocabulary of the child. I have found, however, in these cases, it is well to take the children into your confidence—warning them that they are to expect nothing particularly exciting in the way of dramatic event: they will then settle down with a freer mind (though the mood may include a touch of resignation) to the description you are about to offer them.[2]

II.—The danger of altering the story to suit special occasions. This is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children; it is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they (equally conscientious) are apt to “turn and rend” the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the Rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the class—namely, nine years. I threw therefore, a domestic colouring over the whole subject, and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was a strong-minded woman, thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[3] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy, but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited them to reproduce for the next day the tale I had just told them.

A small child in the class presented me, as you will see, with the ethical problem from which I had so laboriously protected her. The essay ran:

“Once upon a time the King of Troy's son was called Paris. And he went over to Greace to see what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helener, and likewise her husband Menelayus. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: ‘Do you not feel dul in this palis?’ And Helener said: ‘I feel very dull in this pallice,[4] and Paris said: 'Come away and see the world with me.’ So they sliped off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and he said: ‘Who is the young lady?’ So Paris told him. ‘But,’ said the King, ‘it is not propper for you to go off with other people's wifes. So Helener shall stop here.’ Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home, he stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers, and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it was no use standing any longer, so they built a wooden horse in memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town.”

Now the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay particular stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate original form.

Whilst travelling in the States, I was provided with a delightful appendix to this story. I had been telling Miss Longfellow and her sister the little girl's version of the Siege of Troy, and Mrs. Thorpe made the following comment, with the American humour whose dryness adds so much to its value:

“I never realised before,” she said, “how glad the Greeks must have been to sit down even inside a horse, when they had been standing for eleven years.”

III.—The danger of introducing unfamiliar words. This is the very opposite danger of the one to which I have just alluded; it is the taking for granted that children are acquainted with the meaning of certain words upon which turns some important point in the story. We must not introduce (without at least a passing explanation) words which, if not rightly understood, would entirely alter the picture we wish to present.

I had once promised to tell stories to an audience of Irish peasants, and I should like to state here that, though my travels have brought me into touch with almost every kind of audience, I have never found one where the atmosphere is so “self-prepared” as in that of a group of Irish peasants. To speak to them (especially on the subject of Fairy-tales) is like playing on a delicate harp: the response is so quick and the sympathy is so keen. Of course the subject of Fairy-tales is one which is completely familiar to them and comes into their every-day life. They have a feeling of awe with regard to fairies, which in some parts of Ireland is very deep.[5]

On this particular occasion I had been warned by an artist friend who had kindly promised to sing songs between the stories, that my audience would be of varying age and almost entirely illiterate. Many of the older men and women, who could neither read nor write, had never been beyond their native village. I was warned to be very simple in my language and to explain any difficult words which might occur in the particular Indian story I had chosen for that night, namely, “The Tiger, The Jackal and the Brahman.”[6] It happened that the older portion of the audience had scarcely ever seen even the picture of wild animals. I profited by the advice, and offered a word of explanation with regard to the Tiger and the Jackal. I also explained the meaning of the word Brahman—at a proper distance, however, lest the audience should class him with wild animals. I then went on with my story, in the course of which I mentioned the Buffalo. In spite of the warning I had received, I found it impossible not to believe that the name of this animal would be familiar to any audience. I therefore went on with the sentence containing this word, and ended it thus: “And then the Brahman went a little further and met an old Buffalo turning a wheel.”

The next day, whilst walking down the village street, I entered into conversation with a thirteen-year-old girl who had been in my audience the night before, and who began at once to repeat in her own words the Indian story in question. When she came to the particular sentence I have just quoted, I was greatly startled to hear her version, which ran thus: “And the priest went on a little further, and he met another old gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow.” I stopped her at once, and not being able to identify the sentence as part of the story I had told, I questioned her a little more closely. I found that the word Buffalo had evidently conveyed to her mind an old “buffer” whose name was “Lo” (probably taken to be an Indian form of appellation, to be treated with tolerance though it might not be Irish in sound). Then, not knowing of any wheel more familiarly than that attached to a barrow, the young narrator completed the picture in her own mind—which, doubtless, was a vivid one—but one must admit that it had lost something of the Indian atmosphere which I had intended to gather about it.

IV.—The danger of claiming the co-operation of the class by means of questions. The danger in this case is more serious for the teacher than the child, who rather enjoys the process and displays a fatal readiness to give any sort of answer if only he can play a part in the conversation. If we could depend on the children giving the kind of answer we expect, all might go well, and the danger would be lessened; but children have a perpetual way of frustrating our hopes in this direction, and of landing us in unexpected bypaths from which it is not always easy to return to the main road without a very violent reaction. As illustrative of this, I quote from “The Madness of Philip,” by Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, a truly delightful essay on Child Psychology, in the guise of the lightest of stories.

The scene takes place in a Kindergarten—where a bold and fearless visitor has undertaken to tell a story on the spur of the moment to a group of restless children.

She opens thus: “Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think I saw?”

The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested “an el'phunt.”

“Why, no. Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It was not nearly so big as that—it was a little thing.”

“A fish,” ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently.

“Now, how could a fish, a live fish, get into my front yard?”

“A dead fish,” says Eddy. He had never been known to relinquish voluntarily an idea.

“No; it was a little kitten,” said the story-teller decidedly. “A little white kitten. She was standing right near a big puddle of water. Now, what else do you think I saw?”

“Another kitten,” suggests Marantha, conservatively.

“No; it was a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water. Now, cats don't like water, do they? What do they like?”

“Mice,” said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly.

“Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like water, what do they like?”

“Milk,” cried Sarah Fuller confidently.

“They like a dry place,” said Mrs. R. B. Smith. “Now, what do you suppose the dog did?”

It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners. It may be that the very range of choice presented to them and the dog alike dazzled their imagination. At all events, they made no answer.

“Nobody knows what the dog did?” repeated the story-teller encouragingly. “What would you do if you saw a little kitten like that?”

And Philip remarked gloomily:

“I'd pull its tail.”

“And what do the rest of you think? I hope you are not as cruel as that little boy.”

A jealous desire to share Philip's success prompted the quick response:

“I'd pull it too.”

Now, the reason of the total failure of this story was the inability to draw any real response from the children, partly because of the hopeless vagueness of the questions, partly because, there being no time for reflection, the children said the first thing that comes into their head without any reference to their real thoughts on the subject.

I cannot imagine anything less like the enlightened methods of the best Kindergarten teaching. Had Mrs. R. B. Smith been a real, and not a fictional, person, it would certainly have been her last appearance as a raconteuse in this educational institution.

V.—The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story upon the audience. This rises from lack of observation and experience; it is the want of these qualities which leads to the adoption of such a method as I have just presented. We learn in time that want of expression on the faces of the audience and want of any kind of external response does not always mean either lack of interest or attention. There is often real interest deep down, but no power, or perhaps no wish, to display that interest, which is deliberately concealed at times so as to protect oneself from questions which may be put.

I was speaking on one occasion in Davenport in the State of Iowa. I had been engaged to deliver a lecture to adults on the “Fun and Philosophy” of Hans C. Andersen's Fairy Tales. When I arrived at the Hall, I was surprised and somewhat annoyed to find four small boys sitting in the front row. They seemed to be about ten years old, and, knowing pretty well from experience what boys of that age usually like, I felt rather anxious as to what would happen, and I must confess that for once I wished children had the useful faculty, developed in adults, of successfully concealing their feelings. Any hopes I had conceived on this point were speedily shattered. After listening to the first few sentences, two of the boys evidently recognised the futility of bestowing any further attention on the subject, and consoled themselves for the dulness of the occasion by starting a “scrap.” I watched this proceeding for a minute with great interest, but soon recalled the fact that I had not been engaged in the capacity of spectator, so, addressing the antagonists in as severe a manner as I could assume, I said: “Boys, I shall have to ask you to go to the back of the hall.” They responded with much alacrity, and evident gratitude, and even exceeded my instructions by leaving the hall altogether.

My sympathy was now transferred to the two remaining boys, who sat motionless, and one of them never took his eyes off me during the whole lecture. I feared lest they might be simply cowed by the treatment meted out to their companions, whose joy in their release had been somewhat tempered by the disgrace of ejection. I felt sorry that I could not provide these model boys with a less ignominious retreat, and I cast about in my mind how I could make it up to them. At the end of the lecture, I addressed them personally and, congratulating them on their quiet behaviour, said that, as I feared the main part of the lecture could scarcely have interested them, I should conclude, not with the story I had intended for the adults, but with a special story for them, as a reward for their good behaviour. I then told Hans C. Andersen's “Jack the Dullard,” which I have always found to be a great favourite with boys. These particular youths smiled very faintly, and left any expression of enthusiasm to the adult portion of the audience. My hostess, who was eager to know what the boys thought, enquired of them how they liked the lecture. The elder one said guardedly: “I liked it very well, but I was piqued at her underrating my appreciation of Hans Andersen.”

I was struck with the entirely erroneous impression I had received of the effect I was producing upon the boys. I was thankful at least that a passing allusion to Schopenhauer in my lecture possibly provided some interest for this “young old” child.

I felt somewhat in the position of a Doctor of Divinity in Canada to whom a small child confided the fact that she had written a parody on “The Three Fishers,” but that it had dropped into the fire. The Doctor made some facetious rejoinder about the impertinence of the flames in consuming her manuscript. The child reproved him in these grave words: “Nature, you know, is Nature, and her laws are inviolable.”

VI.—The danger of over illustration. After long experience, and after considering the effect produced on children when pictures are shown to them during the narration, I have come to the conclusion that the appeal to the eye and the ear at the same time is of doubtful value, and has, generally speaking, a distracting effect; the concentration on one channel of communication attracts and holds the attention more completely. I was confirmed in this theory when I addressed an audience of blind people for the first time, and noticed how closely they attended, and how much easier it seemed to them, because they were so completely “undistracted by the sights around them.”[7]

I have often suggested to young teachers two experiments in support of this theory. They are not practical experiments, nor could they be repeated often with the same audience, but they are intensely interesting and they serve to show the actual effect of appealing to one sense at a time. The first of these experiments is to take a small group of children and suggest that they should close their eyes whilst you tell them a story. You will then notice how much more attention is given to the intonation and inflection of the voice. The reason is obvious: because there is nothing to distract the attention, it is concentrated on the only thing offered to the listeners (that is, sound), to enable them to seize the dramatic interest of the story.

We find an example of the dramatic power of 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.” (Letters of T. E. Brown, p. 55.)

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 it. In this case this 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 marvellous 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 present—certainly to all Anglo-Saxons.

I cannot touch on this subject without admitting the enormous dramatic value connected with the kinematograph. 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 over-estimate, 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 a 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 (as quite distinct from the stories which deal with facts)—which is 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, which is of far greater joy, and of much greater educational value, since by this process the child co-operates with you instead of having all the work done for it.

Queyrat, in his work on “La Logique chez l'Enfant” quotes Madame Necker de Saussure:[8] “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-coloured 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 visualisation by offering to their outward vision an actual picture.

I was struck with the following note by a critic of the “Outlook,” referring to a Japanese play but bearing 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 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 little limited 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 of those objects 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 endeavour to accustom the children to seeing much more than the 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, nor need we feel anxious if the response is not immediate, or even if it is not quick and eager.[9]

VII.—The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many details. This is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it only shown 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, and 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 hear 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 one 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.”

VIII.—The danger of over-explanation. Again, another danger lurks in the temptation to offer over much explanation of the story, which is common to most story-tellers. This 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 let it have free play, nor must we 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 readily 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 it a broader liberty and firmer independence.”[10]

IX.—One special danger lies in the lowering of the standard of the story in order to cater to the undeveloped taste of the child. I am alluding here only to the story which is presented from the educational point of view. There are moments of relaxation in a child's life, as in that of an adult, when a lighter taste can be gratified. I am alluding now to the standard of story for school purposes.

There is one development of the subject which seems to have been very little considered either in the United States or in our own country, namely, the telling of stories to old people, and that not only in institutions or in quiet country villages, but in the heart of the busy cities and in the homes of these old people. How often, when the young people are able to enjoy outside amusements, the old people, necessarily confined to the chimney-corner and many unable to read much for themselves, might return to the joy of their childhood by hearing some of the old stories told them in dramatic form. Here is a delightful occupation for those of the leisured class who have the gift, and a much more effective way of capturing attention than the more usual form of reading aloud.

Lady Gregory, in talking to the workhouse folk in Ireland, was moved by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the splendours of the tale.

She says: “The stories they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors, and of lovers' flight on the backs of eagles, and music-loving witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for 700 years.”

I fear it is only the Celtic imagination that will glory in such romantic material; but I am sure the men and women of the poorhouse are much more interested than we are apt to think in stories outside the small circle of their lives.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] With regard to the right moment for choosing this kind of story, I shall return to the subject in a later chapter.

[3] I venture to hope (at this long distance of years) that my language in telling the story was more simple than appears from this account.

[4] This difference of spelling in the same essay will be much appreciated by those who know how gladly children offer an orthographical alternative, in hopes that one if not the other may satisfy the exigency of the situation.

[5] I refer, of course, to the Irish in their native atmosphere.

[6] See[ List of Stories].

[7] This was at the Congressional Library at Washington.

[8] Page [55].

[9] In further illustration of this point see “When Burbage played” (Austin Dobson) and “In the Nursery” (Hans C. Andersen).

[10] From “Les Jeux des Enfants,” page 16.

CHAPTER II

The Essentials of the Story.

It would be a truism to suggest that dramatic instinct and dramatic power of expression are naturally the first essentials for success in the Art of Story-telling, and that, without these, no story-teller would go very far; but I maintain that, even with these gifts, no high standard of performance will be reached without certain other qualities—among the first of which I place apparent simplicity, which is really the art of concealing the art.

I am speaking here of the public story-teller, or of the teachers with a group of children—not the spontaneous (and most rare) power of telling stories at the fireside by some gifted village grandmother, such as Béranger gives us in his poem, Souvenirs du Peuple:

Mes enfants, dans ce village,

Suivi de rois, il passa;

Voilà bien longtemps de ça;

Je venais d'entrer en ménage.

A pied grimpant le côteau,

Où pour voir je m'étais mise.

Il avait petit chapeau

Avec redingote grise.

Près de lui je me troublai!

Il me dit: Bonjour, ma chère,

Bonjour, ma chère.

Il vous a parlé, grand'mère?

Il vous a parlé?

I am sceptical enough to think that it is not the spontaneity of the grandmother but the art of Béranger which enhances the effect of the story told in the poem.

This intimate form of narration, which is delightful in its special surroundings, would fail to reach, much less hold, a large audience, not because of its simplicity but often because of the want of skill in arranging material and of the artistic sense of selection which brings the interest to a focus and arranges the sidelights. In short, the simplicity we need for the ordinary purpose is that which comes from ease and produces a sense of being able to let ourselves go, because we have thought out our effects: it is when we translate our instinct into art that the story becomes finished and complete.

I find it necessary to emphasise this point because people are apt to confuse simplicity of delivery with carelessness of utterance, loose stringing of sentences of which the only connections seem to be the ever-recurring use of “and” and “so,” and “er ...”—this latter inarticulate sound has done more to ruin a story and distract the audience than many more glaring errors of dramatic form.

The real simplicity holds the audience because the lack of apparent effort in the artist has the most comforting effect upon the listener. It is like turning from the whirring machinery of process to the finished article, bearing no trace of manufacture except in the harmony and beauty of the whole, from which we realise that the individual parts have received all proper attention.

And what really brings about this apparent simplicity which ensures the success of the story? It has been admirably expressed in a passage from Henry James's lecture on Balzac:

“The fault in the Artist which amounts most completely to a failure of dignity is the absence of saturation with his idea. When saturation fails, no other real presence avails, as when, on the other hand, it operates, no failure of method fatally interferes.”

I now offer two illustrations of the effect of this saturation, one to show that the failure of method does not prevent successful effect, the other to show that when it is combined with the necessary secondary qualities the perfection of art is reached.

In illustration of the first point, I recall an experience in the North of England when the Head Mistress of an elementary school asked me to hear a young, inexperienced girl tell a story to a group of very small children.

When she began, I felt somewhat hopeless, because of the complete failure of method. She seemed to have all the faults most damaging to the success of a speaker. Her voice was harsh, her gestures awkward, her manner was restless and melodramatic; but as she went on, I soon began to discount all these faults and, in truth, I soon forgot about them, for so absorbed was she in her story, so saturated with her subject, that she quickly communicated her own interest to her audience, and the children were absolutely spellbound.

The other illustration is connected with a memorable peep behind the stage, when the late M. Coquelin had invited me to see him in the green-room between the first and second Acts of “L'Abbé Constantin,” one of the plays given during his last season in London, the year before his death. The last time I had met M. Coquelin was at a dinner-party, where I had been dazzled by the brilliant conversation of this great artist in the rôle of a man of the world. But on this occasion, I met the simple, kindly priest, so absorbed in his rôle that he inspired me with the wish to offer a donation for his poor, and on taking leave to ask for his blessing for myself. Whilst talking to him, I had felt puzzled: it was only when I had left him that I realised what had happened—namely, that he was too thoroughly saturated with his subject to be able to drop his rôle during the interval, in order to assume the more ordinary one of host and man of the world.

Now, it is this spirit I would wish to inculcate into the would-be story-tellers. If they would apply themselves in this manner to their work, it would bring about a revolution in the art of presentation, that is, in the art of teaching. The difficulty of the practical application of this theory is the constant plea, on the part of the teachers, that there is not the time to work for such a standard in an art which is so apparently simple that the work expended on it would never be appreciated.

My answer to this objection is that, though the counsel of perfection would be to devote a great deal of time to the story, so as to prepare the atmosphere quite as much as the mere action of the little drama (just as photographers use time exposure to obtain sky effects, as well as the more definite objects in the picture), yet it is not so much a question of time as concentration on the subject which is one of the chief factors in the preparation of the story.

So many story-tellers are satisfied with cheap results, and most audiences are not critical enough to encourage a high standard.[11] The method of “showing the machinery” has more immediate results, and it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and the means for reaching it.

Therefore I maintain that capacity for work, and even drudgery, is among the essentials of story work. Personally I know of nothing more interesting than to watch the story grow gradually from mere outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine, which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under adverse conditions, in a certain time, and is similar to thousands of other pieces of work; but that work upon which we can bestow unlimited time and concentrated thought.

The special joy in the slowly-prepared story comes in the exciting moment when the persons, or even the inanimate objects, become alive and move as of themselves.

I remember spending two or three discouraging weeks with Andersen's story of the “Adventures of a Beetle.” I passed through times of great depression, because all the little creatures—beetles, earwigs, frogs, etc.—behaved in such a conventional, stilted way (instead of displaying the strong individuality which Andersen had bestowed upon them) that I began to despair of presenting a live company at all.

But one day the Beetle, so to speak, “took the stage,” and at once there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of guiding the movement of the little drama, suggesting side issues and polishing the details, always keeping a careful eye on the Beetle, that he might “gang his ain gait” and preserve to the full his own individuality.

There is a tendency in preparing stories to begin with detail work (often a gesture or side issue which one has remembered from hearing a story told), but if this is done before the contemplative period, only scrappy, jerky and ineffective results are obtained, on which one cannot count for dramatic effects. This kind of preparation reminds one of a young peasant woman who was taken to see a performance of Wilhelm Tell, and when questioned as to the plot, could only sum it up by saying, “I know some fruit was shot at.”[12]

I realise the extreme difficulty for teachers to devote the necessary time to the perfecting of the stories they tell in school, because this is only one of the subjects they have to take in an already over-crowded curriculum. To them I would offer this practical advice: Do not be afraid to repeat your stories.[13] If you did not undertake more than seven stories a year (chosen with infinite care), and if you repeated these stories six times during the year of forty-two weeks, you would be able to do artistic (and therefore lasting) work; you would give a very great deal of pleasure to the children, who delight in hearing a story many times. You would be able to avoid the direct moral application (to which subject I shall return later on); for each time a child hears a story artistically told, a little more of the meaning underlying the simple story will come to him without any explanation on your part. The habit of doing one's best, instead of one's second-best, means, in the long run, that one has no interest except in the preparation of the best, and the stories, few in number, polished and finished in style, will have an effect of which one can scarcely over-state the importance.

In the story of the Swineherd,[14] Hans Andersen says:

“On the grave of the Prince's father there grew a rose-tree. It only bloomed once in five years, and only bore one rose. But what a rose! Its perfume was so exquisite that whoever smelt it forgot at once all his cares and sorrows.”

Lafcadio Hearn says: “Time weeds out the errors and stupidities of cheap success, and presents the Truth. It takes, like the aloe, a long time to flower, but the blossom is all the more precious when it appears.”

FOOTNOTES:

[ [11] A noted Greek gymnast struck his pupil, though he was applauded by the whole assembly. “You did it clumsily, and not as you ought, for these people would never have praised you for anything really artistic.”

[12] For further details on the question of preparation of the story, see chapter on “[Questions asked by Teachers].”

[13] Sully says that children love exact repetition because of the intense enjoyment bound up with the process of imaginative realisation.

[14] See p. [150].

CHAPTER III.

The Artifices of Story-telling.

By this term I do not mean anything against the gospel of simplicity which I am so constantly preaching, but, for want of a better term, I use the word “artifice” to express the mechanical devices by which we endeavour to attract and hold the attention of the audience. The art of telling stories is, in truth, much more difficult than acting a part on the stage: first, because the narrator is responsible for the whole drama and the whole atmosphere which surrounds it. He has to live the life of each character and understand the relation which each bears to the whole. Secondly, because the stage is a miniature one, gestures and movements must all be so adjusted as not to destroy the sense of proportion. I have often noticed that actors, accustomed to the more roomy public stage, are apt to be too broad in their gestures and movements when they tell a story. The special training for the Story-teller should consist not only in the training of the voice and in choice of language, but above all in power of delicate suggestion, which cannot always be used on the stage because this is hampered by the presence of actual things. The Story-teller has to present these things to the more delicate organism of the “inward eye.”

So deeply convinced am I of the miniature character of the Story-telling Art that I do not believe you can ever get a perfectly artistic presentation of this kind in a very large hall or before a very large audience.

I have made experiments along this line, having twice told a story to an audience exceeding five thousand, in the States,[15] but on both occasions, though the dramatic reaction upon oneself from the response of so large an audience was both gratifying and stimulating, I was forced to sacrifice the delicacy of the story and to take from its artistic value by the necessity of emphasis, in order to be heard by all present.

Emphasis is the bane of all story-telling, for it destroys the delicacy, and the whole performance suggests a struggle in conveying the message; the indecision of the victory leaves the audience restless and unsatisfied.

Then, again, as compared with acting on the stage, in telling a story you miss the help of effective entrances and exits, the footlights, the costume, the facial expression of your fellow-actor which interprets so much of what you yourself say without further elaboration on your part; for, in the story, in case of a dialogue which necessitates great subtlety and quickness in facial expression and gesture, you have to be both speaker and listener.

Now, of what artifices can we make use to take the place of all the extraneous help offered to actors on the stage?

First and foremost, as a means of suddenly pulling up the attention of the audience, is the judicious Art of Pausing.

For those who have not actually had experience in the matter, this advice will seem trite and unnecessary, but those who have even a little experience will realise with me the extraordinary efficacy of this very simple means. It is really what Coquelin spoke of as a “high light,” where the interest is focussed, as it were, to a point.

I have tried this simple art of pausing with every kind of audience, and I have very rarely known it to fail. It is very difficult to offer a concrete example of this, unless one is giving a “live” representation; but I shall make an attempt, and at least I shall hope to make myself understood by those who have heard me tell stories.

In Hans C. Andersen's “Princess and the Pea,”[16] the King goes down to open the door himself. Now, you may make this point in two ways. You may either say: “And then the King went to the door, and at the door there stood a real Princess,” or, “And then the King went to the door, and at the door there stood—(pause)—a real Princess.”

It is difficult to exaggerate the difference of effect produced by so slight a cause.[17] With children it means an unconscious curiosity which expresses itself in a sudden muscular tension—there is just time, during that instant's pause, to feel, though not to formulate, the question: “What is standing at the door?” By this means half your work of holding the attention is accomplished. It is not necessary for me to enter into the psychological reason of this, but I strongly recommend those who are interested in the question to read the chapter in Ribot's work on this subject, Essai sur l'Imagination créatrice, as well as Mr. Keatinge's work on “Suggestion.”

I would advise all teachers to revise their stories with a view to introducing the judicious Pause, and to vary its use according to the age, the number and, above all, the mood of the audience. Experience alone can ensure success in this matter. It has taken me many years to realise the importance of this artifice.

Among other means of holding the attention of the audience and helping to bring out the points of the story is the use of gesture. I consider, however, it must be a sparing use, and not of a broad or definite character. We shall never improve on the advice given by Hamlet to the actors on this subject: “See that ye o'erstep not the modesty of Nature.”

And yet, perhaps, it is not necessary to warn Story-tellers against abuse of gesture: it is more helpful to encourage them in the use of it, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, where we are fearful of expressing ourselves in this way, and, when we do, the gesture often lacks subtlety. The Anglo-Saxon, when he does move at all, moves in solid blocks—a whole arm, a whole leg, the whole body—but if you watch a Frenchman or an Italian in conversation, you suddenly realise how varied and subtle are the things which can be suggested by the mere turn of the wrist or the movement of a finger. The power of the hand has been so wonderfully summed up in a passage from Quintilian that I am justified in offering it to all those who wish to realise what can be done by gesture:

“As to the hands, without the aid of which all delivery would be deficient and weak, it can scarcely be told of what a variety of motions they are susceptible, since they almost equal in expression the power of language itself. For other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these, I may almost say, speak themselves. With our hands we ask, promise, call persons to us and send them away, threaten, supplicate, intimate dislike or fear; with our hands we signify joy, grief, doubt, acknowledgment, penitence, and indicate measure, quantity, number and time. Have not our hands the power of inciting, of restraining, or beseeching, of testifying approbation.... So that amidst the great diversity of tongues pervading all nations and peoples, the language of the hands appears to be a language common to all men.” (From “Education of an Orator,” Book II, Chap. 3.)

One of the most effective artifices in telling stories to young children is the use of mimicry—the imitation of animals' voices and sounds in general is of never-ending joy to the listeners. Only, I should wish to introduce a note of grave warning in connection with this subject. This special artifice can only be used by such narrators as have special aptitude and gifts in this direction. There are many people with good imaginative power but wholly lacking in the power of mimicry, whose efforts in this direction, however painstaking, would remain grotesque and therefore ineffective. When listening to such performances (of which children are strangely critical) one is reminded of the French story in which the amateur animal painter is showing her picture to an undiscriminating friend:

“Ah!” says the friend, “this is surely meant for a lion?”

“No,” says the artist, with some slight show of temper; “it is my little lap-dog.”

Another artifice which is particularly successful with very small children is to ensure their attention by inviting their co-operation before you actually begin the story. The following has proved quite effective as a short introduction to my stories when I was addressing large audiences of children:

“Do you know that last night I had a very strange dream, which I am going to tell you before I begin the stories. I dreamed that I was walking along the streets of—— (here would follow the town in which I happened to be speaking), with a large bundle on my shoulders, and this bundle was full of stories which I had been collecting all over the world in different countries; and I was shouting at the top of my voice: ‘Stories! Stories! Stories! Who will listen to my stories?’ And the children came flocking round me in my dream, saying: ‘Tell us your stories. We will listen to your stories.’ So I pulled out a story from my big bundle and I began in a most excited way, ‘Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen who had no children, and they——’ Here a little boy, very much like that little boy I see sitting in the front row, stopped me, saying: ‘Oh! I know that old story; it's Sleeping Beauty.’

“So I pulled out a second story, and began: ‘Once upon a time there was a little girl who was sent by her mother to visit her grandmother——’ Then a little girl, so much like the one sitting at the end of the second row, said: 'Oh! everybody knows that story! It's——’”

Here I would make a judicious pause, and then the children in the audience would shout in chorus, with joyful superiority: “Little Red Riding-Hood!” (before I had time to explain that the children in my dream had done the same).

This method I repeated two or three times, being careful to choose very well-known stories. By this time the children were all encouraged and stimulated. I usually finished with congratulations on the number of stories they knew, expressing a hope that some of those I was going to tell that afternoon would be new to them.

I have rarely found this plan fail for establishing a friendly relation between oneself and the juvenile audience.

It is often a matter of great difficulty, not to win the attention of an audience but to keep it, and one of the most subtle artifices is to let the audience down (without their perceiving it) after a dramatic situation, so that the reaction may prepare them for the interest of the next situation.

An excellent instance of this is to be found in Rudyard Kipling's story of “The Cat that walked ...” where the repetition of words acts as a sort of sedative until you realise the beginning of a fresh situation.

The great point is never to let the audience quite down, that is, in stories which depend on dramatic situations. It is just a question of shade and colour in the language. If you are telling a story in sections, and spread over two or three occasions, you should always stop at an exciting moment. It encourages speculation between whiles in the children's minds, which increases their interest when the story is taken up again.

Another very necessary quality in the mere artifice of story-telling is to watch your audience, so as to be able to know whether its mood is for action or reaction, and to alter your story accordingly. The moods of reaction are rarer, and you must use them for presenting a different kind of material. Here is your opportunity for introducing a piece of poetic description, given in beautiful language, to which the children cannot listen when they are eager for action and dramatic excitement.

Perhaps one of the greatest artifices is to take a quick hold of your audience by a striking beginning which will enlist their attention from the start; you can then relax somewhat, but you must be careful also of the end, because that is what remains most vivid for the children. If you question them as to which story they like best in a programme, you will constantly find it to be the last one you have told, which has for the moment blurred out the others.

Here are a few specimens of beginnings which seldom fail to arrest the attention of the child:

“There was once a giant ogre, and he lived in a cave by himself.”

—From “The Giant and the Jackstraws,” Starr Jordan.

“There were once twenty-five tin soldiers, who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon.”

—From “The Tin Soldier,” Hans C. Andersen.

“There was once an Emperor who had a horse shod with gold.”

—From “The Beetle,” Hans C. Andersen.

“There was once a merchant who was so rich that he could have paved the whole street with gold, and even then he would have had enough for a small alley.”

—From “The Flying Trunk,” Hans C. Andersen.

“There was once a shilling which came forth from the mint springing and shouting, 'Hurrah! Now I am going out into the wide world.'”

—From “The Silver Shilling,” Hans C. Andersen.

“In the High and Far Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk.”

—From “The Elephant's Child”: Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling.

“Not always was the Kangaroo as now we behold him, but a Different Animal with four short legs.”

—From “Old Man Kangaroo”: Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling.

“Whichever way I turn,” said the weather-cock on a high steeple, “no one is satisfied.”

—From “Fireside Fables,” Edwin Barrow.

“A set of chessmen, left standing on their board, resolved to alter the rules of the game.”

—From the same source.

“The Pink Parasol had tender whalebone ribs and a slender stick of cherry-wood.”

—From “Very Short Stories,” Mrs. W. K. Clifford.

“There was once a poor little Donkey on Wheels; it had never wagged its tail, or tossed its head, or said ‘Hee-haw,’ or tasted a tender thistle.”

—From the same source.

Now, some of these beginnings are, of course, for very young children, but they all have the same advantage, that of plunging in medias res, and therefore are able to arrest attention at once, as distinct from the stories which open on a leisurely note of description.

In the same way we must be careful about the endings of the stories; in some way or other they must impress themselves either in a very dramatic climax to which the whole story has worked up, such as we have in the following:

“Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods, or up the Wet Wild Trees, or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his Wild Tail, and walking by his Wild Lone.”

—From “Just So Stories,” Rudyard Kipling.

Or by an anti-climax for effect:

“We have all this straight out of the alderman's newspaper, but it is not to be depended on.”

—From “Jack the Dullard,” Hans C. Andersen.

Or by evading the point:

“Whoever does not believe this must buy shares in the Tanner's yard.”

—From “A Great Grief,” Hans C. Andersen.

Or by some striking general comment:

“He has never caught up with the three days he missed at the beginning of the world, and he has never learnt how to behave.”

—From “How the Camel got his Hump”: Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Once at the Summer School at Chatauqua, New York, and once in Lincoln Park, Chicago.

[16] See p. [156].

[17] There must be no more emphasis in the second manner than the first.

CHAPTER IV.

Elements to Avoid in Selection of Material.

I am confronted, in this portion of my work, with a great difficulty, because I cannot afford to be as catholic as I could wish (this rejection or selection of material being primarily intended for those story-tellers dealing with normal children); but I wish from the outset to distinguish between a story told to an individual child in the home circle or by a personal friend, and a story told to a group of children as part of the school curriculum. And if I seem to reiterate this difference, it is because I wish to show very clearly that the recital of parents and friends may be quite separate in content and manner from that offered by the teaching world. In the former case, almost any subject can be treated, because, knowing the individual temperament of the child, a wise parent or friend knows also what can be presented or not presented to the child; but in dealing with a group of normal children in school, much has to be eliminated that could be given fearlessly to the abnormal child: I mean the child who, by circumstances or temperament, is developed beyond its years.

I shall now mention some of the elements which experience has shown me to be unsuitable for class stories.

I.—Stories dealing with analysis of motive and feeling.

This warning is specially necessary to-day, because this is above all an age of introspection and analysis. We have only to glance at the principal novels and plays during the last quarter of a century—most especially during the last ten years—to see how this spirit has crept into our literature and life.

Now, this tendency to analyse is obviously more dangerous for children than for adults, because, from lack of experience and knowledge of psychology, the child's analysis is incomplete. He cannot see all the causes of the action, nor can he make that philosophical allowance for mood which brings the adult to truer conclusions.

Therefore we should discourage children who show a tendency to analyse too closely the motives of their actions, and refrain from presenting in our stories any example which might encourage them to persist in this course.

I remember, on one occasion, when I went to say good-night to a little girl of my acquaintance, I found her sitting up in bed, very wide awake. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed, and when I asked her what had excited her so much, she said:

“I know I have done something wrong to-day, but I cannot quite remember what it was.”

I said: “But Phyllis, if you put your hand, which is really quite small, in front of your eyes, you could not see the shape of anything else, however large it might be. Now, what you have done to-day appears very large because it is so close, but when it is a little further off, you will be able to see better and know more about it. So let us wait till to-morrow morning.”

I am happy to say that she took my advice. She was soon fast asleep, and the next morning she had forgotten the wrong over which she had been unhealthily brooding the night before.[18]

II.—Stories dealing too much with sarcasm and satire. These are weapons which are too sharply polished, and therefore too dangerous, to place in the hands of children. For here again, as in the case of analysis, they can only have a very incomplete conception of the case. They do not know the real cause which produces the apparently ridiculous situation: it is experience and knowledge which lead to the discovery of the pathos and sadness which often underlie the ridiculous appearance, and it is only the abnormally gifted child or grown-up person who discovers this by instinct. It takes a lifetime to arrive at the position described in Sterne's words: “I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of misery to be entitled to all the Wit which Rabelais has ever scattered.”

I will hasten to add that I should not wish children to have their sympathy too much drawn out, or their emotions kindled too much to pity, because this would be neither healthy nor helpful to themselves or others. I only want to protect the children from the dangerous critical attitude induced by the use of satire: it sacrifices too much of the atmosphere of trust and belief in human beings which ought to be an essential of child-life. If we indulge in satire, the sense of kindness in children tends to become perverted, their sympathy cramped, and they themselves to become old before their time. We have an excellent example of this in Hans C. Andersen's “Snow Queen.”

When Kay gets the piece of broken mirror into his eye, he no longer sees the world from the normal child's point of view: he can no longer see anything but the foibles of those about him—a condition usually only reached by a course of pessimistic experience.

Andersen sums up the unnatural point of view in these words:

“When Kay tried to repeat the Lord's Prayer, he could only remember the multiplication table.” Now, without taking these words in any literal sense, we can admit that they represent the development of the head at the expense of the heart.

An example of this kind of story to avoid is Andersen's “Story of the Butterfly.” The bitterness of the Anemones, the sentimentality of the Violets, the schoolgirlishness of the Snowdrops, the domesticity of the Sweet-peas—all this tickles the palate of the adult, but does not belong to the plane of the normal child. Again I repeat that the unusual child may take all this in and even preserve its kindly attitude towards the world, but it is a dangerous atmosphere for the ordinary child.

III.—Stories of a sentimental kind. Strange to say, this element of sentimentality often appeals more to the young teachers than to the children themselves. It is difficult to define the difference between sentiment and sentimentality, but the healthy normal boy or girl of—let us say ten or eleven years old seems to feel it unconsciously, though the distinction is not so clear a few years later.

Mrs. Elizabeth McKracken contributed an excellent article some years ago to the American Outlook on the subject of literature for the young, in which we find a good illustration of this power of discrimination on the part of a child.

A young teacher was telling her pupils the story of the emotional lady who, to put her lover to the test, bade him pick up the glove which she had thrown down into the arena between the tiger and the lion. The lover does her bidding, in order to vindicate his character as a brave knight. One boy, after hearing the story, at once states his contempt for the knight's acquiescence, which he declares to be unworthy.

“But,” says the teacher, “you see he really did it to show the lady how foolish she was.” The answer of the boy sums up what I have been trying to show: “There was no sense in his being sillier than she was, to show her she was silly.”

If the boy had stopped there, we might have concluded that he was lacking in imagination or romance, but his next remark proves what a balanced and discriminating person he was, for he added: “Now, if she had fallen in, and he had leapt after her to rescue her, that would have been splendid and of some use.” Given the character of the lady, we might, as adults, question the last part of the boy's statement, but this is pure cynicism and fortunately does not enter into the child's calculations.

In my own personal experience (and I have told this story often in the German ballad form to girls of ten and twelve in the High Schools in England) I have never found one girl who sympathised with the lady or who failed to appreciate the poetic justice meted out to her in the end by the dignified renunciation of the knight.

Chesterton defines sentimentality as “a tame, cold, or small and inadequate manner of speaking about certain matters which demand very large and beautiful expression.”

I would strongly urge upon young teachers to revise, by this definition, some of the stories they have included in their repertory, and see whether they would stand the test or not.

IV.—Stories containing strong sensational episodes. The danger is all the greater because many children delight in it, and some crave for it in the abstract, but fear it in the concrete.[19]

An affectionate aunt, on one occasion, anxious to curry favour with a four-year-old nephew, was taxing her imagination to find a story suitable for his tender years. She was greatly startled when he suddenly said, in a most imperative tone: “Tell me the story of a bear eating a small boy.” This was so remote from her own choice of subject that she hesitated at first, but coming to the conclusion that as the child had chosen the situation he would feel no terror in the working up of its details, she began a most thrilling and blood-curdling story, leading up to the final catastrophe. But just as she had reached the great dramatic moment, the child raised his hands in terror and said: “Oh! Auntie, don't let the bear really eat the boy!”

“Don't you know,” said an impatient boy who had been listening to a mild adventure story considered suitable to his years, “that I don't take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore?” Here we have no opportunity of deciding whether or not the actual description demanded would be more alarming than the listener had realised.

Here is a poem of James Stephens, showing a child's taste for sensational things:—

A man was sitting underneath a tree

Outside the village, and he asked me

What name was upon this place, and said he

Was never here before. He told a

Lot of stories to me too. His nose was flat.

I asked him how it happened, and he said,

The first mate of the “Mary Ann” done that,

With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,

And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have killed him.

A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile, bedad,

That's what he said: He taught me how to chew.

He was a real nice man. He liked me too.

The taste that is fed by the sensational contents of the newspapers and the dramatic excitement of street life, and some of the lurid representations of the Kinematograph, is so much stimulated that the interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell on the deleterious effects of over dramatic stimulation, which has been known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when the mischief is done. Kate Douglas Wiggin has said:

“Let us be realistic, by all means, but beware, O Story-teller, of being too realistic. Avoid the shuddering tale of ‘the wicked boy who stoned the birds,’ lest some hearer should be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill.”

I must emphasise the fact, however, that it is only the excess of this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement is necessary; but this question belongs to the positive side of the subject, and I shall deal with it later on.

V.—Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of the child (unless they are wrapped in mystery, which is of great educational value).

The element I wish to eliminate is the one which would make children world-wise and old before their time.

A small American child who had entertained a guest in her mother's absence, when questioned as to whether she had shown all the hospitality the mother would have considered necessary, said: “Oh! yes. And I talked to her in the kind of ‘dressy’ tone you use on your ‘At Home’ days.”