Part 2 (1/2)

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 Wors.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 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 allude now to the standard of story for school purposes.

There is one development of story-telling which seems to have been very little considered, either in America or in our own country, namely, the telling of stories to _old_ people, and that not only in inst.i.tutions 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 cla.s.s who have the gift, and a much more effective way 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 splendors 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' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for seven hundred 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.

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 teacher with a group of children, not the spontaneous (and most rare) power of telling stories such as Beranger gives us in his poem, ”Souvenirs du Peuple”:

Mes enfants, dans ce village, Suivi de rois, il pa.s.sa; Voila; bien longtemps de cela!