Charles A. McMurry

“ When a child makes the discovery, as Hugh Miller said, "that learning to read is learning to get stories out of books" he has struck the chord that should vibrate through all his future life. The real motive for reading is to get something worth the effort of reading. Even if it takes longer to accomplish the result in this way, the result when accomplished is in all respects more valuable. But it is probable that children will learn to read fully as soon who spend a good share of their time in oral story work. ”

“ Indeed the king, prince, and princess, if they only speak and act like children, are much nearer the child's comprehension than any of the children paraded in a manufactured story, designed for the 'industrious youth.' For just as real poetry so the real child's story lies beyond reality in the field of fancy. With all its plainness of thought and action, the genuine child's story knows how to take hold of the child's fancy and set its wings in motion. ”

“ We need to know human life directly and in all sorts of acts, habits, feelings, motives, and conditions,—something as Shakespeare knew it, only within the compass of our narrower possibilities. Likewise the physical world with its visible and invisible forces and objects besetting us on every side. These things must impress themselves upon us vividly in detail as well as in the bulk. The hand that has been calloused by skill-producing labor, the back that aches with burdens bravely borne, the brain that has sweat with strong effort, are expressions of this kind of knowledge of the world. ”

“ After all, in two or three recitation periods a week, extending through a year, it cannot be expected that children will make the acquaintance of all the literature that could be properly called the myth of the heroic age in different countries. All that we may expect is to enter this paradise of children, to pluck a few of its choicest flowers, and get such a breath of their fragrance that there will be a child's desire to return again and again. The school also should provide in the succeeding year for an abundance of reading of myths. ”

“ A book story cannot do otherwise than simply narrate; it cannot develop, set problems and questions and have children to find solutions and answers. It must tell the facts and answer the questions. But in oral narration there is room not only for all the skill of the story-writer, but also the added force of voice, personality, lively manner, gesture, action, and close adaptation to the immediate needs of children and subject. This is enough to command the undivided effort of the young teacher at first, without entering the stormy waters and shifting currents of pure development work. ”

“ There may be a few central problems in every story, which, after the necessary facts and conditions have been plainly told, can be thoroughly sifted out by questions, answers, and discussions. But to work out all the little details of a story by question and surmise, to get the crude, unbaked opinions of all the members of a class upon every episode and fact in a story, is a pitiful caricature of good instruction. ”

“ Important for the life of children is the rigor with which the fairy tale punishes disobedience and falsehood. Think of the suggestive legendary story of the child which was visited again and again with misfortune because of its obstinacy, till its final confession of guilt brings full pardon. It is everywhere a Christian thread which runs through so many fairy stories. It is love for the rejected, oppressed, and abandoned. Whatever is loaded with burdens and troubles receives the palm, and the first becomes the last. ”

“ To this Song of Hiawatha!
A happy, sympathetic love for the sights and sounds in nature is a fortunate beginning of nature lore. The imaginative interpretations are common to all the early races and in full harmony with the temper of childhood. Even from the standpoint of nature study, this early poetic joy in nature descriptions is profitable. The matter-of-fact, analytic study of natural science in succeeding years need not begrudge the children this happiness, this interpretative play of the imagination, this music of field and forest. ”

“ No condescension is needed, but ascension to a free and ready flight of fancy. By learning to drink at these ancient fountains of song and poetry, the teacher might learn to tell a fairy story for himself. But doubtless it will be well to mingle oral narrative and description on the part of the teacher with the fit reading of choice parts so as to better preserve the classic beauty and suggestion of the author. Children are quite old enough now to appreciate beauty of language and expressive, happy turns of speech. ”

“ Children are able to benefit by hearing fairy tales before they can read. But that is not the only reason. It is the childhood of the race, as we have seen, that speaks in the fairy story of the child of to-day. It is the voice of an ancient far-off past that echoes from the lips of the storyteller. The words 'once upon a time' open up a vague retrospect into the past, and the child gets its first indistinct notions of history in this way. ”

“ Adler says: "Often when a child has committed some fault, it is useful to refer by name to the fable that fits it. As, when a boy has made room in his seat for another, and the other crowds him out, the mere mention of the fable of the porcupine is a telling rebuke; or the fable of the hawk and the pigeons may be called to mind when a boy has been guilty of mean excuses. On the same principle that angry children are sometimes taken before a mirror to show them how ugly they look, the fable is a kind of mirror for the vices of the young." ”

“ It may be remarked that, for the great majority of people, story-telling is not a gift but an acquisition. There are, of course, occasional geniuses, but they may be left out of consideration. They are not often found in the schoolroom any more than in other walks of life. What we need is a practical, sensible development of a power which we all possess in varying degrees. Nor is it the fluent, volatile, verbose talker who makes a good oral teacher, but rather one who can see and think clearly: one who knows how to combine his ideas and experiences into clear and connected series of thought. ”

“ The dignity and authority which centre in the person of Abraham, together with a marked gravity and strength of character, lend a distinct grandeur to his personality, so that he has been recognized in all ages as one of the great figures in the history of the world; the foremost of the old patriarchs,—the father of the faithful. A similar respect and dignity attaches to all these old Bible characters, and in the case of Moses, rises to a supreme height, while in David the warrior, statesman, and poet are united in one of the most pronounced and pleasing characters in the world's history. ”

“ It is an interesting blunder of teachers, and one that shows their unreflecting acceptance of traditional customs, to assume that the all-absorbing problem of primary instruction is the acquisition of a new book language (the learning to read) , and to ignore that rich mother tongue, already abundantly familiar, as an avenue of acquisition and culture. But we are now well convinced that the ability to read is an instrument of culture, not culture itself, and primarily the great object of education is to inoculate the children with the ideas of our civilization. ”

“ It is interesting to consider the function and value of a good child's story to fit in to such varying needs and personalities. If the purpose of the primary school is simply to keep children busy at some kind of orderly work, there are other tamer employments than stories. But if the idea is to put children's minds and bodies into healthy, vigorous action, it would be difficult to find a more suitable instrument than a fitting story.
But a good primary teacher knows better than to establish brusque and fixed standards of uniform success for all children. ”

“ The telling and reading of stories to children in early years, before they have mastered the art of reading, is of such importance as to awaken the serious thought of parents and teachers. To older people it is a source of constant surprise—the attentive interest which children bestow upon stories. Almost any kind of a story will command their wide-awake thought. But the tale which they can fully understand and enjoy has a unique power to concentrate their mental energy. There is an undivided, unalloyed absorption of mind in good stories which augurs well for all phases of later effort. ”

“ The mother and father, the aunts and uncles, and any older person who delights in children, find true comfort and entertainment in rehearsing the famous stories to children. The Mother Goose, the fables, the fairy tales, the "Arabian Nights," Eugene Field's and Stevenson's poems of child life, the Bible stories, the myths, and some of the old ballads have untold treasures for children. If one has a voice for singing the old melodies, the charm of music intensifies the effect. ”

“ Fairy tales are charged with misleading children by falsifying the truth of things. And, indeed, they pay little heed to certain natural laws that practical people of good sense always respect. A child, however, is not so humdrum practical as these serious truth-lovers. A little girl talks to her doll as if it had real ears. She and her little brother make tea [Pg 49] cups and saucers out of acorns with no apparent compunctions of conscience. They follow Cinderella to the ball in a pumpkin chariot, transformed by magic wand, with even greater interest than we read of a presidential ball. ”

“ The happiness that even a simple flower may bring to a home is a contagious example. Kindly treatment of the old and feeble, and sympathy for the innocent and helpless, spring into the child's own thought. The fancy, sympathy, and interest awakened by a good fairy tale make it a vehicle by which, consciously and unconsciously, many advantages are borne home to pupils. ”

“ But on the other hand, many of the most beautiful of the old myths are as plain and simple to a child as a floating summer cloud. High in the sky they may be or deep in the reflection of some lake or spring, but clear and plain to the thought of a little child. ”

“ They want something new and more exciting, and press for the rest of the story. Many children are at first deficient in power of attention and in language, so that their efforts at reproduction are clumsy and poor. The interest is weak, the attention of the children scattering, and the class is apt to go to pieces under the strain of such dull work. This is an emergency where a teacher needs both skill and force of character. (What a comfort it is to a writer to have such a platitude as this to fall back upon, when he gets a teacher into a place where nothing but his own devices can save him.) ”

“ And can there be any question that there is a time in the lives of children when these ideas fill the horizon of their thought? Samson and David and Hercules, Bellerophon and Jason, are a child's natural thoughts or, at least, they fit the frame of his mind so exactly that one may say the picture and the frame were made for each other. The history of most countries contains such an age of heroes. Tell in Switzerland, Siegfried in Germany, Bruce in Scotland, Romulus and Horatius at Rome, Alfred in England, are all national heroes of the mythical age, whose deeds are heroic and of public good. ”

“ A good story always finds its setting in the midst of nature or society, and touches up with a simple, homely, but poetic charm the commonest verities of human experience. The appeal to the sensibility and moral judgment of pupils is direct and spontaneous, because of the interests and sympathies that are inherent in persons, and touch directly the childish fancy. And, lastly, the irrepressible traditional demand that children shall learn to read, is fairly and honestly met and satisfied. ”

“ In the fairy story the fancy seldom pushes rudely against the boundaries of the real world. But otherwise in 'Crusoe.' Here it is the practical fancy that is aroused, if this expression appear not contradictory. What is Crusoe to do now? How can he help himself? What means can he invent? Many of the proposals of the children will have to be rejected. The inexorable 'not possible' shoves a bolt before the door. The imagination is compelled to limit itself to the task of combining and adjusting real things. The compulsion of things conditions the progress of the story. ”