Kinds of Stories to Tell
We appear to be coming to the agreement that we should tell the children many of the old, old stories and some of the new, many stories from the world of the imagination, some from the real world; stories that will aid them in interpreting their world, themselves, other children, some grown-ups, nature; stories that will direct aright the imagination, the sympathies, and the taste; playful stories and more serious, sensible and nonsensical; short stories and longer; stories to be told over and over again, stories to be told in passing. To meet the child’s and later the girl’s and boy’s changing tastes and interests, and the needs of their developing imagination and sympathies, our choice should embrace, besides a great many others that as yet have eluded classification, fairy tales, fables, myths, legends, romances, tales of adventure, stories of animal life, child life, growing boy and girl life, stories of great men and women.
Some teachers find it hard to see any educational value in play-stories like “The Three Bears,” nonsense stories like “Chicken-Licken,” and drolls, or farce “funny” stories like “Lazy Jack.” They do not get the child’s point of view. They are disturbed by the apparently idle pleasure or extravagance of them. “Chicken-Licken” appears to be nothing but driveling nonsense. The writer has no desire to attempt to turn it into sense nor to press unduly the claim of this particular type of story. But why not let it in as a nonsense tale, an opportunity for giving the mind a frolic? This is advanced by some students of the tale as its possible origin. It may be thought of as a reflection in literature of the naïveté of childhood; it catches capitally its guilelessness in motive, social intercourse, and deed. Its form also is childlike. The child ekes out invention in the manner of the tale, by the open artifice of cumulation and repetition. Or the story may be dignified into literary introduction to that type of classic which records the very common human situation, “much ado about nothing.”
The same teachers are disturbed also by the ethical code of many of the folk tales; they find it crude and fleshly. It deals in large and sense-delighting rewards. But may it not be possible that the child must be allowed time to grow to a more discriminating standard of conduct and a finer kind of satisfaction?
It is to be hoped, however, that even then the child will retain his capacity for laughing at merry play and hearty comedy. Laughter is good for the world. It is a tonic to the emotions, and regeneration to the spirit, spurring it to fresh and better effort; it is a sign, too, of broadening imagination and sympathy. The man that has no laughter in him is like Shakespeare’s man that has no music in him, “fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Let no such man be trusted.” Most stories will give the children a more reserved pleasure, happy mental and æsthetic satisfaction; some a fine gladness and exaltation. But let us not be too narrow to admit the wholesomely “funny” story.
The over-strained, anæmic, goody-good story is likely to breed up a generation of canting hypocrites. The little child is much occupied, it is true, with the task of being good, and he is a great admirer of the good people in the stories. There is room in children’s literature for the rather obviously moral tale, if it be not too often presented and if it be really charming. From this point of view, Constance D’Arcy Mackay’s book of plays called “The House of the Heart and Other Tales” is a suggestive contribution to children’s drama.
For the younger children the story with plenty of action, often with animals as characters, and with happy ending has proved best. The story with less joyous “inevitable ending” is, however, not to be excluded; life is not to be distorted. Besides, not all sad-ending stories are negative in effect, leaving the child knowing only “what not to do” rather than “what to do.” A story like Hans Andersen’s “Daisy,” for example, induces constructive inference and effect.