The Great Stone Face

You had only to lift your eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

What was the Great Stone Face?

It seemed as if an enormous giant had sculptured his own likeness on a mountain side. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken would have rolled in thunder from one end of the valley to the other. True it was that if you came too near, you lost the outline of the Face and could see only a heap of ponderous rocks, but when you retraced your steps, the wondrous features could be seen again, and the people who lived below it believed that their valley was so fertile because the Great Stone Face looked down upon it lighting up the clouds, and giving tenderness to the sunshine.

Now there was a little boy named Ernest who lived in the valley, and his mother had told him a story that her mother had told to her; a story so very old that even the Indians did not know who had first told it, unless it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops. This was the story—that, sometime, a child should be born who would become the greatest and noblest person of his time, and his face, in manhood, should be the exact likeness of the Great Stone Face. But though the people had watched and waited until they were weary, no man greater and nobler than his neighbors had they yet beheld.

“Oh, mother, dear mother!” cried Ernest. “I do hope I shall live to see him.”

“Perhaps you may,” said his mother doubtfully.

And Ernest never forgot the story. It was always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He grew up in the log cottage, and was dutiful to his mother, and helped her with his little hands and more with his loving heart. From a lad he became a quiet youth, sunbrowned from work in the fields, and well learned, though he never had any teacher except that Great Stone Face which smiled down upon him at night when his work was done.

About this time there went a rumor through the valley that the great man who was to bear a resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. His name was Gathergold, and he was a very rich merchant and owned a whole fleet of ships. All the countries of the world had added to his wealth. The cold regions of the North had sent him furs; hot Africa had gathered the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the East had brought him spices and teas and diamonds and pearls. Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years to count his money so he decided to go back and end his days in the valley where he was born.

He ordered a wonderful palace of marble so dazzlingly white that it seemed as if it would melt in the sunshine. When the mansion was done, the upholsterers came with magnificent furniture, and then a whole troop of black and white servants who said that Mr. Gathergold would arrive at sunset.

“Here he comes,” cried the people who were waiting to see him. “Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!”

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it sat a little old man with a skin as yellow as his own gold.

“The very image of the Great Stone Face!” shouted the people, but Ernest, who had been watching, too, turned sadly and looked up the valley, where, in the gathering mist, he could see the wonderful Face, and the lips seemed to say:

“He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come.”

The years went on, and Ernest was a young man, still good, and true, and kind. Poor Mr. Gathergold died and was buried, and the oddest part of the matter was that his wealth all disappeared before he died, leaving nothing of him but a skeleton covered with a wrinkled yellow skin; and every one decided that he had never borne the slightest resemblance to the Great Stone Face.

Then a warworn veteran, who had won great honors on the battlefield and was named Old Blood-and-Thunder decided to come back to the valley where he had been born. His neighbors resolved to welcome him with a salute of cannon and a public dinner, for they were all quite sure Old Blood-and-Thunder would bear the likeness of the Great Stone Face.

On the day of his arrival Ernest and all the others left their work and went out to meet Old-Blood-and-Thunder.

“’Tis the same face, to a hair!” cried one man.

“Wonderfully like,” cried another.

Then Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the crowd with glittering epaulets and an embroidered collar and there, too, through the vista of the forest appeared the Great Stone Face.

“This is not he,” thought Ernest.

More years passed. Ernest was now an older man. He still laboured for his bread, but he had done so much for his neighbors that it seemed as if he had been talking with the angels and had gotten a portion of their wisdom unawares.

The people of the Valley had found out—after a while—that Old Blood-and-Thunder’s face had not the gentleness of the Great Stone Face and now they said, again, that its likeness was to appear upon the broad shoulders of a great statesman.

Old Stony Phiz, he was called, and while his friends were doing their best to make him President, he set out on a visit to the valley where he had been born.

Ernest and all the others went out to meet him. A cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a clattering of hoofs. There was a band of music, and while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting, an open barouche came by, drawn by four black horses. Inside with his massive head uncovered sat the great statesman, Old Stony Phiz, himself.

“Confess it,” cried some one to Ernest. “The Great Stone Face has met its equal.”

But Ernest turned away disappointed. The eyes and brow of the great man had none of the nobleness of the Face on the mountain side.

And Ernest grew to be an old man, but a strange thing happened. He was no longer an obscure husbandman. Men from the cities began coming to see him to learn from him the things that he had learned from the Great Stone Face, things not put down in books, and he was suddenly become famous.

One day a great Poet came to the Valley and stopped at Ernest’s cottage to ask shelter for the night.

It was Ernest’s custom each evening to talk to the assemblage of neighbors in a small nook among the hills near his cottage. To this spot he and the Poet went at sunset. All about was the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, while Ernest’s friends sat in the grove at his feet and in another direction could be seen the Great Stone Face with heavy mists about it, like the white leaves around the brow of Ernest.

At that moment Ernest’s face, as he began to speak, grew wonderfully grand, and the Poet threw his arms aloft and shouted,

“Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face.”

Then all the people looked and saw that what the poet said was true. The prophecy was fulfilled.

Through the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE EACH HAS A WELL-DEVELOPED CLIMAX

Mr. Frog and Mr. Elephant In Firelight Stories
The Ugly Duckling Hans Christian Andersen
The Princess and the Pea Hans Christian Andersen
The Happy Prince Oscar Wilde
Little Cosette Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables
The Golden Windows Laura E. Richards, in The Golden Windows
The Shut-Up-Posy Annie Trumbull Slosson, in Story Tell Lib
The Boy That Was Scared of Dying Annie Trumbull Slosson, in Story Tell Lib
Nahum Prince Edward Everett Hale
The Anxious Leaf Henry Ward Beecher, in Norwood
The Stone in the Road In For the Children’s Hour

CHAPTER VI
TRAINING A CHILD’S MEMORY BY MEANS OF A STORY

IN the first place, what is the mental process by means of which we recall something stored in the cedar and lavender of our mind chests?

As you pass along a crowded city thoroughfare you are suddenly and unexpectedly confronted by an old friend. She steps out of a crowd of strangers and faces you. You recognize her at once as a bit of long-ago, changed with the years a bit but still, in a measure, familiar. You are unable though, for an instant’s space, to recall your friend’s name. In that instant’s pause, however, a mental miracle takes place illuminating for us the process by means of which the human mind brings about a recall of an idea.

You clasp your friend’s hand. You look deep into her eyes. You note a similar perfume permeating her clothing that you knew in former years. She speaks to you, and you recognize the old, familiar quality of tone in her voice. Then the miracle happens, and your friend’s name finds its way to your lips. It is Mrs. B——. You had not really forgotten Mrs. B’s name. It had been stored away in a cobweb-hung corner of your mind together with its mental associates; the touch memories of her hand clasp, the odor memory of her perfume, the sound memory of her voice. As you again experience these touch, odor and sound stimuli, Mrs. B’s name rises in their wake like a phœnix long buried in the ashes of forgetfulness.

Memory is a process of association of ideas. Not repetition of an idea, but surrounding it with a host of witnesses gives it permanency in the mind.

To a greater extent than can possibly be estimated does this associative quality of memory hold in the case of children. We wish to teach a kindergarten child that a certain type of flower is known as a rose. We do not repeat to him over and over again, or ask him to repeat to us, in order to fix this fact in his mind—“This is a rose. This is a rose.” Instead, we ask him to smell of the flower, note its color, the shape of its petals, its peculiar, thorny stem, its leaves. We help the child to draw a picture of a rose. We ask him to show us all the roses he can find as we take him to walk in the garden. Then, when the child has the flower’s color, odor, feeling, form and garden environment as a crowd of mind witnesses to prove its individuality, we say “This is a rose,” and the child is very apt to remember the flower.

A well-constructed child’s story has the associative quality that characterizes the mental process of memorizing. It has one central theme; an act of heroism, a nature fact, a bit of natural history, a note of the fantastic or the humorous and around this central theme are grouped the story associates; the dialogue, the description, the sensory elements, the surprise of the climax, all of which fix indelibly in the mind this central theme around which the story is written.

Every well told story means an added possibility of a recall in the child’s mind and strengthens the general process of memory.

Laura Richards’ story of “The Pig Brother” illustrates the type of story for which the story teller should search in order to train a child’s memory. The theme of the story, the idea that is to be made a fixture in the child’s mind, is that of the value of cleanliness, and order in life. The treatment of the theme is constructive, a process of building up scenes and blocking out unessentials to strengthen and make permanent the theme in the child’s mind.

“There was once a child who was untidy,” the story begins.

With no wasting of time over details the child who hears the story is introduced to the theme. There follows a bit of description explaining the kind of untidiness of the little story hero, how he left his toys and boots scattered about his play-room, spilled ink and covered his pinafore with jam. Then the child is confronted by the Tidy Angel who tells him to go out in the garden and play with his brother while she puts his nursery back into its former state of orderliness. The child goes out to the garden but he is in a condition of wonder in regard to this brother whom he is to seek. He meets a squirrel in the garden path, and he asks it if it is his brother, but the squirrel denies all relationship to the child because of his untidiness. Then the child meets a wren, and asks it the same question, which the bird also indignantly denies because of the child’s untidy appearance. The child then interrogates the Tommy Cat who scorns all thought of relationship to him, telling him to go and look at himself in a mirror. The climax of the story is found when the child meets a pig who promptly claims relationship with him and causes the child to go back to his play-room resolved to be tidy and orderly in the future.

The story has a memory value for children because it presents one idea with a number of related associates. The story theme of the unpleasant results of being untidy is never lost sight of, but is presented over and over again in a series of related scenes so differentiated, however, by their contrast as to make them permanent in the child’s mind. We may take these different scenes in the order in which the author presents them, discovering that each forms a stone in the whole structure, differing in their value but all taking form and color from one theme.

Scene 1. The child hero is banished from his play-room and his toys as a result of his own acts.

Scene 2. The child finds that he has no part in the outside world of little wild creatures, also because of his untidy habits.

Scene 3. For the same self-inflicted reason, he is disowned by his friends, the birds.

Scene 4. His house friend, the cat, disowns him because his habits of personal cleanliness do not accord with her standards.

Scene 5. The child finds the natural consequence of his untidiness in his welcome by the despised pig which brings about his resolve to be clean and orderly, hereafter.

Each story scene, as shown in this analysis is carefully planned, having in mind a grouping of associated ideas that will strengthen and vivify the image made on the child’s mind by the story theme. As a result the child who has heard the story of “The Pig Brother” has gained a store of associated ideas that will be recalled when some one asks him to pick up his toys or use care in eating. He will remember that squirrels and birds are orderly in their nest making, that his cat uses care in regard to her person, that there is a big, unseen force at work in the world that makes for order—whether one calls it an Angel, or not, it really exists—and he remembers that a disregard of this law of order means disaster to the law breaker. The child of the story escaped from the Pig. He may not be so fortunate if he breaks the law. So our real child turns over and examines and sorts and weighs his mental associates of the concept untidiness, and makes his own decision in the negative in a way that would not have been possible without the carefully associated scenes of the story.

This may seem an over fine analysis of one story but it will help us in judging other child stories having a regard to their memory value for the child.

Almost, if not more important a consideration than the writing of a drama, is the matter of the stage “business” in its successful production. The manager must decide which movements of his actors, which exits and entrances, which stage arrangement, lighting and what scheme of costuming will strengthen the salient idea underlying the plot of the drama and make it a memory in the minds of the audience. Stage “business” is a matter of psychology. It means that the stage manager, the playwright or whoever knows the audience best is going to plan a mechanical background, a hedge, a wall, of associates that will make the audience remember the play. A good story should have “business,” the necessary costuming and lighting.

How shall the story teller apply this memory test in her selection of stories? How shall she be able to say with authority:

“My children will not forget this story!”

In the first place we should assure ourselves to our complete satisfaction in selecting a story that it has a theme, a motif upon which we can build the chords of a complete melody. It is doubtful if the story of “The Greedy Cat” has a sufficient theme to make it of value as a memory story, although it has a very real place in the child’s life as a relaxing bit of nonsense. “The Little Pine Tree That Wished New Leaves” has a well defined theme—that of contentment.

The second question that we will ask ourselves will be, is this story theme a worth while one for us to give the children as a permanent part of their mental lives? We would hardly wish a child to remember always about the greed of the gormandizing cat. We would be glad to have him hang up in his mind house a picture of content as illustrated by the little green tree that discovered his own leaves to be better than any others.

Last, we will ask, is the story theme so compellingly associated with other ideas that it will become a memory for the child? In the case of the story of the Little Pine Tree, this treatment is carefully adhered to. Never is the leaf idea lost. Instead, the idea is presented in the form of gold leaves, leaves of glass, in fact all the strange and different leaves for which the discontented tree wished. But the gold leaves are stolen by a miser; the glass leaves are broken in a storm, and its juicy large leaves are all eaten by a goat. The climax is reached when the little tree is glad to have back its slender green needles; and the story is fixed in a child’s mind because of its associative treatment.

This memory training by means of story telling is a legitimate “short cut” in teaching. The nature fact, that difficult bit of geography, that fine point of ethics may all be given a permanent place in the child’s mind if we can find just the right story to help in fixing them. The list of stories that follows at the end of this chapter was selected having in mind in the case of each story, its associative treatment of one theme worth while as a memory for the child. Hans Andersen’s story of Little Tuk is a brilliant example of using associated ideas to set the memory gem of the plot.