Mrs. Katherine Dunlap Cather

“ It is certain that love of nature is not born with every one, and that what is the fortunate heritage of the few must be instilled into the many. This can be done, and it can be done through story-telling. The careless child, the unobservant child, to whom a flower is just a flower or a bird a bunch of feathers, can be led to open his eyes and see what he did not see before, while the one who has already found joy in the life of field and stream will respond with intense pleasure because a new and roseate light is flashed upon what is already familiar. ”

“ Since story-telling, like music, is an art, it is no more possible for every mother, teacher, or librarian to become a Scheherazade than it is possible for every child who takes music lessons to blossom into a Mozart or a Mendelssohn. The inspiration, the creative fire that beguiles the wrath of a sultan or gives birth to a symphony, emanates from within, from the fairy germs planted somewhere in the soul and nurtured into fruition through unceasing effort. ”

“ He never forgot or ceased to love his native Leyden. He lived in the harbor city because it fascinated him and was a better place for an artist than his childhood town, but he never tired of going back to the old home or lost interest in the pigs and cows and the market folk on the Rhine road. Sometimes on these visits he would lie on the ramparts just as he had done when a boy, and strangers journeying to and from The Hague had no idea that the grave-eyed man dreaming there in the shadow of the mill sails was the famous painter of Amsterdam. ”

“ Let him wander at will through every realm of fancy, along its sun-kissed highways, among its shadowy glens and wild cascades, but let him realize it is a world of make-believe, not of fact, which he inhabits during that period. His imagination will be as much aroused, his emotional nature will be stirred as deeply, and there will be no discovery later that his mother or teacher deceived him, no temptation to present as fact what he knows to be purely fancy, which is a certain step toward the field of falsehood. ”

“ To teach history successfully means to give the child vivid pictures of the past, to enable him to see as a whole the march of a race or of a nation across the canvas of time, to watch the legions of warriors go to victory or defeat, to hear the voices of statesmen whose wisdom has builded empires, to walk side by side with the men and women whose lives make up the annals of the world. To be of value to the child, history must be felt, just as a work of literature must be felt. ”

“ We are too prone to center the child interest around military affairs, and neglect to emphasize the importance of conflicts of another kind. The history of every modern industry, of every achievement that has meant anything to the world, is a story of struggle, of victory over opposing forces. It has its succession of events, its periods of triumph and defeat, its moments of suspense, and its thrilling climax, and if presented in all its possibilities, is as fascinating to childhood as Napoleon’s Russian campaign. ”

“ To give them the fact that the Clermont made a successful trip from New York to Albany in 1807, is like telling the end of a story without the beginning or intervening chapters, and a snatch of a tale never has the effect of the whole. But if the children have all the light and shade of that splendid narrative of invention, of the labor beside the Seine, of the hope and discouragement there, it becomes a fascinating, unforgotten tale. ”

“ It was like a breeze from their native island, where they had heard it from the lips of the village story-teller and seen it pictured on the market carts, and the fact that she knew something that had fascinated them gained their sympathy and coöperation. Those who have even a limited knowledge of child life know that before the babe can read he delights in listening to a nursery tale, and that even after he journeys into bookland he is more interested in the story told him than in the one he reads for himself. Why? Because the voice and personality of the speaker make it alive and vital. ”

“ Franz lost no time in getting to a piano. Sunday comes just once a week, and another would not come for seven long days. He sat down at one of the lovely instruments, playing and singing as if nothing in the world mattered so much as music. He was only eleven years old, and boys of that age usually want to be out with others, engaged in the sports and games boys love. But not so with Franz Schubert. He was happiest at his music. He played and played and was so busy that he did not see a stranger come into the warehouse or hear his voice in earnest conversation with Josef. ”

“ Then one morning, down among the seaweeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly, and smaller than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf. That was the last thing she did; then she died, and our story henceforth concerns only one of those little eggs.
One day the sun shone down into the water—the same sun that shines over the Oconto sawmills now—and touched these eggs with life; and a little fellow whom we will call Favosites, because that was his name, woke up inside the egg, and came out into the world. ”

“ The secular narrator, as well as the teacher of religion, should use the Bible tales freely, that men and women of the future may have a broader knowledge of literature, history, and life than they can have without them. This is no impossible task, even for the amateur, because the Biblical narratives are perfect ones for telling. Nowhere else in literature do we find such thrilling tales of adventure, such exquisite idylls, such sublime ballads, such annals of high purpose and noble achievement, as in the epic of Israel. Nowhere else are there more spectacular, perfectly constructed plots. ”

“ It is a practice that scientists decry, and it is condemned by all who believe that a story fit to give to children must be worthy of the name of literature, and consequently, whether fact or fiction, must be true in spirit. The tale that portrays a fairy up in the sky keeping the planets in motion like so many checkers on a board, or one in which enchanted creatures bury their beads in the ground, causing them to send up roses and lilies and other beautiful blossoms, is not a nature story. It may be a charming fanciful tale, but it should not be given to teach the truths of science. ”

“ In one of the upland valleys of Italy, shut away from the rest of the world by the high, white peaks men call the Dolomites, there lived, about five hundred years ago, a little boy named Leonardo. He dwelt in a tiny hut with his black-eyed peasant mother, fed the pigeons and milked the goats each day, and in the evening, the pleasant summer evening that spread rainbow-colored draperies over the Dolomite peaks, he lay in the shadows under the plum tree, thinking about his brother Vittorio, who was a soldier down in the great city of Venice. ”

“ And as years rolled into decades and centuries passed away, all the herders of Judea came to know the story and to shape their lives by it, so that to this day the Syrian shepherds have remained men of tender heart and simple faith. And when strangers visit the land and wonder at the gentleness of the keepers of the flocks, some old grandfather or brown-eyed boy is ever ready to explain what it is that has kept them sweet and serene, and tells the story of Ben Ezra, the shepherd who on the wonderful night went back to the hills, and so came late to Bethlehem. ”

“ Story-Telling to Awaken an Appreciation of Art
The child who is surrounded by good pictures from his earliest years grows to love good pictures, and gaudily colored, cheap ones have no charm for him. His taste has been formed for the fine and true, and nothing else will satisfy him. To behold a beautiful painting gives him pleasure, while to see a glaring chromo produces an unpleasant sensation. ”

“ Of course it is easier for one who is familiar with the masterpieces of melody to lead children to them than for one who is not; but even though the mother or teacher was not in her own childhood familiar with Mozart or Mendelssohn, she can bring children to appreciate these artists because the talking machine has made it possible. She need not try to acquaint them with the technical terms, and mechanics of music, but she can arouse an interest that is the twin sister of inspiration, and she can do it in such a way that every minute devoted to the work is filled with delight. ”

“ Georges Ohnet, Jacques Vincent, Ludovic Halévy, and dozens of other writers have produced works that are not only a part of the education of every one who aspires to become a cultured man or woman, but are as fascinating as fairy tales to a child. Then there is the great treasure house of English and American literature, as rich in priceless things of pen and brain as the gallery of the Vatican is rich in paintings and sculpture. Boys and girls will not draw from this wealth unguided, because they do not know where it is stored. ”

“ There is no finer adventure tale in any literature than that of Robin Hood, none more satisfying to children in the early heroic period. This statement often brings a cry of remonstrance, and the objection is made that there is danger in portraying an outlaw as a hero, or in picturing the allurement of a brigandish career. But Robin Hood an outlaw? He lived in an age of injustice when might made right. The man of the people was but the chattel of a king, with no rights his lord was bound to respect. ”

“ The music he had loved grew wearisome, the never ending dance became hateful to his eyes.
He wanted to return to Nagasaki, but there was no way. The boat that had carried him to the islands had long since fallen into decay, and it was impossible to get another. He must stay forever and ever in the land of dance and song, and the thought became hideous.
Then he heard a weird cry. Looking behind him, he saw a giant stork settling on the bank of a lake to catch some of the rainbow fish within.
A happy thought came to him. No, he would not dwell eternally in Horaisan. He would go back to Nagasaki. ”

“ But if we give them frequent glimpses of its brightness, if we half open the door of the repository and let them peep inside, they will follow, seeking it, as the miner follows the half-revealed ore vein, or as Ortnit of old pursued the Fata Morgana. They need not drift into pools that breed disease, when by enough story-telling to awaken their interest in the beautiful and fine they may sail into open streams where the water is clear, and where there are no submerged reefs to wreck their fragile crafts. ”

“ The woman screamed in anger. “Wheat!” she yelled. “A cargo of wheat! I told you to bring me the most precious thing in the world, and do you mean to say that you have brought a common, cheap thing like wheat?”
The captain was terribly frightened, but he did not regret his selection. He believed in the value of his cargo, and tried to lead the woman to see that he had made a wise purchase.
“Pardon, madame,” he spoke. “Wheat is not cheap and common. It is in truth the most precious thing in the world, for without it we could have no bread, and without bread we could not live.” ”

“ Workers with little children should be ever on the alert, seeking stories that deserve the name of literature, with plot and characters that will appeal to their small charges, because such stories mold a child’s taste and give a key that will unlock doors into the great treasure house of art. Whenever the mother or teacher or librarian reads a story that is a literary gem, let her analyze it and determine whether or not, if told in simple language, it would delight a child. ”

“ Now the ships of the world sail by, going toward China or Australia or to the American shores far, far away, and sometimes they stop at the little island, and sometimes those on board rest there among the palms and think it so delightful a land that they wish they never had to go away, but might stay there always and always. Yet but for a wee, curious sea creature that island would not be, for it had its beginning in a tiny animal, more like a drop of jelly than anything else, that floated one day between Samoa and the Australian mainland, and made its house upon a bit of submerged rock. ”

“ We cannot change human nature and keep the boy of sixteen from being drawn as if by a magnet to the maid who is lovely in his eyes, but we can give him an ideal that will make his feeling an elevating thing instead of a debasing one. We can put into the heart of the girl a poetry and idealism that will keep her worthy of the prince, and we can do it through literature. ”

“ The biographical story, the tale of the leader who towers above his fellows like the Matterhorn above the Valais foothills, is a boon to every teacher of history. Because it is unified in plot and dramatic in appeal to the imagination, it is the most easily handled of all the history material, and should be used freely. But if children are not to have a distorted idea of the story of the human race, we must not stop with the biographical tale. ”

“ The story hour in the home is a formidable rival of the street and the nickelodeon, and the teacher whose fund of tales is large and who tells them joyously has little trouble with discipline. Her charges know that she holds the key to Magic Land, and that if they are good she will open the gate. They remember her with affection, and best of all remember the dreams that came into being under her spell. She is queen of her little realm through the royal right of the minstrel, and no pretender can dislodge her from her throne in the hearts that she has won. ”

“ He must be taught to see that a Gainsborough is more beautiful than an advertising chromo, that a face by Raphael is the expression of an inspiration that is almost divine. [98] Only through an association that gives pleasure will he come to see and appreciate, and here again story-telling can work wonders, because through it we can intensify a child’s delight in a picture.
In the field of art the biographical tale is of immeasurable value, for the story of an artist’s life, illustrated by reproductions of his works, can be made the pathway to appreciation. ”