Part 4 (1/2)

”We have all this straight from the alderman's newspaper, but it is not to be depended on” From ”Jack the Dullard,” Hans Christian Andersen

Or by evading the point:

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

From ”A Great Grief,” Hans Christian Andersen

Or by soht up with the three days heof the world, and he has never learnt how to behave” Froot his Hugested in this chapter a few of the artifices which I have found useful in ht be added

CHAPTER IV ELEMENTS TO AVOID IN THE SELECTION OF MATERIAL

I areat difficulty, because I cannot afford to be as catholic as I could wish (this rejection or selection ofpri with noruish between a story told to an individual child in the horoup 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 andworld In the for 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 iven fearlessly to the abnormal child; I mean the child who, by circumstances or temperament, is developed beyond his 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 ofis specially necessary today, 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,the last ten years, to see how this spirit has crept into our literature and life

Now, this tendency to analyze is obviously erous for children than for adults, because, froy, the child's analysis is incomplete It cannot see all the causes of the action, nor can it s the adult to truer conclusions

Therefore, we should discourage the child who shows a tendency to analyze too closely theto thee them to persist in this course

I reht to a little girl ofup in bed, very wide- awake Her eyes were shi+ning, her cheeks were flushed, and when I asked her what had excited her sotoday, 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 e because it is so close, but when it is a little further off, you will be able to see better and know ”

I am happy to say that she tookshe had forgotten the wrong over which she had been unhealthily brooding the night before

2 _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 appearance, and it is only the abnorrown-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 hich Rabelais has ever scattered”

I will hasten to add that I should not wish children to have their sympathy too much drawn out, of their emotions kindled too much to pity, because this would be neither healthy nor helpful to themselves or others I only want to protect children froerous critical attitude induced by the use of satire which sacrifices too s which ought to be an essential of child life By indulging in satire, the sense of kindness in children would become perverted, their sympathy cramped, and they themselves would be old before their time We have an excellent example of this in Hans Christian Andersen's ”Snow Queen”

When Kay gets the piece of broken er sees the world froer see anything but the foibles of those about him, a condition usually 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 re 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 Aneirlishness of the Snowdrops, the domesticity of the Sweetpeas--all this tickles the palate of the adult, but does not belong to the place of the norain, I repeat, that the unusual child may take all this in and even preserve his kindly attitude towards the world, but it is dangerous atmosphere for the ordinary child

3 _Stories of a sentie to say, this ele teachers than to the children themselves It is difficult to define the difference between real sentiirl of, let us say, ten or eleven years old, seeh the distinction is not so clear a few years later

Mrs Elisabeth McCracken contributed an excellent article soo to the _Outlook_ on the subject of literature for the young, in which we find a good illustration of this power of discri teacher was telling her pupils the story of the emotional lady who, to put her lover to the test, bade hilove which she had thron into the arena between the tiger and the lion