"ROBINSON CRUSOE"
In selecting suitable literature for children of the second grade, we follow in the steps of a number of distinguished writers and teachers and choose an English classic—"Robinson Crusoe." Rousseau gave this book his unqualified approval, and said that it would be the first, and, for a time, the only book that Émile should read. The Herbartians have been using it a number of years, while many American teachers have employed it for oral work in second grade, in a short school edition. In one sense, the book needs no introduction, as it has found its way into every nook and corner of the world. Originally a story for adults, it has reached all, and illustrated Christmas editions, designed even for children from three years and upward, are abundant. To the youth of all lands, it has been, to say the least, a source of delight, but it has been regarded as a book for the family and home. What would happen should the schoolmaster lay his hand on this treasure and desecrate it to school purposes! We desire to test this classic work on the side of its pedagogical value and its adaptation to the uses of regular instruction. If it is really unrivalled as a piece of children's literature, perhaps it has also no equal for school purposes.
In making the transition from the fairy tale to "Robinson Crusoe," an interesting difference or contrast may be noticed. Wilmann says:[5] "'Crusoe' is at once simple, and plain, and fanciful; to be sure, in the latter case, entirely different from the fairy tale. 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. 'Thoughts dwell together easily, but things jostle each other roughly in space.'"
There are other striking differences between "Crusoe" and the folk-lore stories, but in this contrast we are now chiefly concerned. After reaching the island, he is checked and limited at every step by the physical laws imposed by nature. Struggle and fret as he may against these limits, he becomes at last a philosopher, and quietly takes up the struggle for existence under those inexorable conditions. The child of seven or eight is vaguely acquainted with many of the simple employments of the household and of the neighborhood. Crusoe also had a vague memory of how people in society in different trades and occupations supply the necessaries and comforts of life. Even the fairy stories give many hints of this kind of knowledge, but Robinson Crusoe is face to face with the sour facts. He is cut off from help and left to his own resources. The interest in the story is in seeing how he will shift for himself and exercise his wits to insure plenty and comfort. With few tools and on a barbarous coast, he undertakes what men in society, by mutual exchange and by division of labor, have much difficulty in performing. Crusoe becomes a carpenter, a baker and cook, a hunter, a potter, a fisher, a farmer, a tailor, a boatman, a stock-raiser, a basket-maker, a shoemaker, a tanner, a fruit-grower, a mason, a physician. And not only so, but he grapples with the difficulties of each trade or occupation in a bungling manner because of inexperience and lack of skill and exact knowledge. He is an experimenter and tester along many lines. The entire absence of helpers centres the whole interest of this varied struggle in one person. It is to be remembered that Crusoe is no genius, but the ordinary boy or man. He has abundant variety of needs such as a child reared under civilized conditions has learned to feel. The whole range of activities, usually distributed to various classes and persons in society, rests now upon his single shoulders. If he were an expert in all directions, the task would be easier, but he has only vague knowledge and scarcely any skill. The child, therefore, who reads this story, by reason of the slow, toilsome, and bungling processes of Crusoe in meeting his needs, becomes aware how difficult and laborious are the efforts by which the simple, common needs of all children are supplied.
A reference to the different trades and callings that Crusoe assumes will show us that he is not dealing with rare and unusual events, but with the common, simple employments that lie at the basis of society in all parts of the world. The carpenter, the baker, the farmer, the shoemaker, etc., are at work in every village in every land. Doubtless this is one reason why the story acquires such a hold in the most diverse countries. The Arab or the Chinese boy, the German or American child, finds the story touching the ordinary facts of his own surroundings. Though the story finds its setting in a far-away, lonely island in tropical seas, Crusoe is daily trying to create the objects and conditions of his old home in England. But these are the same objects that surround every child; and therefore, in reading "Robinson Crusoe," the pupil is making an exhaustive and interesting study of his own home. The presence of a tropical vegetation and of a strange climate does not seriously impair this fact. The skill of a great literary artist appears in his power to create a situation almost devoid of common comforts and blessings and then in setting his hero to work to create them by single-handed effort.
It will hardly be questioned that the study of the home and home neighborhood by children is one of the large and prominent problems in education. Out of their social, economic, and physical environment children get the most important lessons of life. Not only does the home furnish a varied fund of information that enables them to interpret books, and people, and institutions, as they sooner or later go out into the world, but all the facts gathered by experience and reading in distant fields must flow back again to give deeper meaning to the labors and duties which surround each citizen in his own home. But society with its commerce, education, and industries, is an exceedingly complex affair. The child knows not where to begin to unravel this endless machinery of forms and institutions. In a sense he must get away from or disentangle himself from his surroundings in order to understand them. There are no complex conditions surrounding Crusoe, and he takes up the labors of the common trades in a simple and primitive manner. Physical and mental effort are demanded at every step, from Crusoe and from the children. Many of his efforts involve repeated failure, as in making pottery, in building a boat, while some things that he undertakes with painful toil never attain success. The lesson of toil and hardship connected with the simple industries is one of great moment to children. Our whole social fabric is based on these toils, and it is one of the best results of a sound education to realize the place and importance of hard work.
It scarcely needs to be pointed out that Crusoe typifies a long period of man's early history, the age when men were learning the rudiments of civilization by taking up the toils of the blacksmith, the agriculturist, the builder, the domesticator of animals and plants. Men emerged from barbarism as they slowly and painfully gained the mastery over the resources of nature. Crusoe is a sort of universal man, embodying in his single effort that upward movement of men which has steadily carried them to the higher levels of progress. It has been said with some truth that Robinson Crusoe is a philosophy of history. But we scarcely need such a high-sounding name. To the child he is a very concrete, individual man, with very simple and interesting duties.
In a second point the author of "Robinson Crusoe" shows himself a literary master. There is an intense and naive realism in his story. Even if one were so disposed, it would require a strong effort to break loose from the feeling that we are in the presence of real experiences. There is a quiet but irresistible assumption of unvarnished and even disagreeable fact in the narrative. But it is useless to describe the style of a book so familiar. Its power over youthful fancy and feeling has been too often experienced to be doubted. The vivid interest which the book awakens is certain to carry home whatever lessons it may teach with added force. So great is this influence that boys sometimes imitate the efforts of Crusoe by making caves, building ovens, and assuming a style of dress and living that approximates Crusoe's state. This supplies to teachers a hint of some value. The story of Crusoe should lead to excursions into the home neighborhood for the purpose of a closer examination of the trades and occupations there represented. An imitation of his labors may also be encouraged. The effort to mould and bake vessels from potter's clay, the platting of baskets from willow withes, the use of tools in making boxes or tables may be attempted far enough to discover how lacking in practical ability the children are. This will certainly teach them greater respect for manual skill.
From the previous discussion it might appear that we regard the story of Crusoe as technological and industrial rather than moral. But it would be a mistake to suppose that a book is not moral because it is not perpetually dispensing moral platitudes. Most men's lives are mainly industrial. The display of moral qualities is only occasional and incidental. The development of moral character is coincident with the labors and experiences of life and springs out of them, being manifested by the spirit with which one acts toward his fellow-men. But Crusoe was alone on his island, and there might seem to be no opportunity to be moral in relation to others. Society, to be sure, was conspicuous by its absence. But the intense longing with which he thought of the home and companionships lost is perhaps the strongest sentiment in the book. His loneliness brings out most vividly his true relation to home and friends.
His early life, till the shipwreck, was that of a wayward and reckless youth, disobedient to parents and seemingly without moral scruples. Even during the first months upon the island there appears little moral change or betterment. But slowly the bitter experiences of his lonely life sober him. He finds a Bible, and a fit of sickness reveals the distresses that may lie before him. When once the change has set in, it is rapid and thorough. He becomes devout, he longs to return to his parents and atone for his faults. A complete reformation of his moral disposition is effected. If one will take the pains to read the original "Robinson Crusoe" he will find it surprisingly serious and moral in its tone. He devotes much time to soliloquizing on the distresses of his condition and upon the causes which have brought him to misery. He diagnoses his case with an amount of detail that must be tedious to children. The fact that these parts of the book often leave little direct impression upon children is proof that they are chiefly engaged with the adventure and physical embarrassments of Crusoe. For the present it is sufficient to observe that the story is deeply and intensely moral both in its spirit and in the changes described in "Crusoe."
We are next led to inquire whether the industrial and moral lessons contained in this story are likely to be extracted from it by a boy or girl who reads it alone, without the aid of a teacher. Most young readers of "Crusoe" are carried along by the interesting adventure. It is a very surprising and entertaining story. But children even less than adults are inclined to go deeper than the surface and draw up hidden treasures. De Foe's work is a piece of classic literature. But few people are inclined to get at the deeper meaning and spirit of a classical masterpiece unless they go through it in companionship with a teacher who is gifted to disclose its better meaning. This is true of any classical product we might mention. It should be the peculiar function of the school to cultivate a taste, and an appreciative taste, for the best literature; not by leaving it to the haphazard home reading of pupils, but by selecting the best things adapted to the minds of children and then employing true teaching skill to bring these treasures close to the hearts and sympathies of children. Many young people do not read "Robinson Crusoe" at all; many others do not appreciate its better phases. The school will much improve its work by taking for its own this best of children's stories, and by extending and deepening the children's appreciation of a classic.
The story of Robinson Crusoe is made by the Herbartians the nucleus for the concentration of studies in the second year. This importance is given to it on account of its strong moral tone and because of its universal typical character in man's development. Without attempting a solution of the problem of concentration at this juncture, we should at least observe the relations of this story to the other studies. Wilmann says: "The everywhere and nowhere of the fairy tale gives place to the first geographical limitations. The continents, the chief countries of Europe, come up, besides a series of geographical concepts such as island, coast, bay, river, hill, mountain, sea, etc. The difference in climate is surprising. Crusoe fears the winter and prepares for it, but his fear is needless, for no winter reaches his island." We have already observed its instructive treatment of the common occupations which prepare for later geographical study, as well as for natural science.
Many plants and animals are brought to notice which would furnish a good beginning for natural science lessons. It is advisable, however, to study rather those home animals and plants which correspond best to the tropical products or animals in the lessons. Tropical fruits, the parrot, and the goat we often meet at home, but in addition, the sheep, the ox, the mocking-bird, the woodpecker, our native fruits and grains, and the fish, turtles, and minerals of the home, may well be suggested and studied in science lessons parallel with the life of Crusoe.
Following upon the oral treatment and discussion of "Robinson Crusoe" the children are easily led to like efforts at construction, as, for instance, the making of a raft, the building of the cave and stockade, the making of chairs and tables, the moulding of jars and kettles out of clay, the weaving of baskets, the preparation and cooking of foods, the planting of grains, the construction of an oven or house, boat building, and other labors of Crusoe in providing for his wants.
It is quite customary now in second grade to set the children to work in these efforts to solve Crusoe's problems, so that they, by working with actual materials, may realize more fully the difficulties and trials to which he was subjected. In close connection with these constructive efforts are the drawings of the scenes of the story, such as the shipwreck, the stockade, the boat, the map of the island, and some of the later events of the story. A still further means of giving reality to the events is to dramatize some of the scenes between Friday and Crusoe, and to dress and equip these and other persons in the story in fitting manner. The children gladly enter into such dramatic action. These various forms of drawing, action, and constructive work are in close connection with the home studies of industries and occupations,—farming, gardening, carpenter and blacksmith shops, weaving, cooking, bakeries, and excursions to shops—which follow the Crusoe story in the study of home geography in the third grade.
Although the story should be given and discussed orally, the children should also read it later as a part of the regular reading exercise of the course. Instead of suffering from this repetition, their interest will only be increased. Classical products usually gain by repetition. The facts are brought out more clearly and the deeper meaning is perceived. To have the oral treatment of a story precede its reading by some weeks or months produces an excellent effect upon the style of the reading. The thought being familiar, and the interest strong, the expression will be vigorous and natural. Children take a pride in reading a story which they at first must receive orally for lack of reading power.
The same advantageous drill in the use of good English accrues to the Crusoe story that was observed in the fairy tales. There is abundant opportunity for oral narrative and description.
The use of the pencil and chalk in graphic representation should be encouraged both in teacher and in pupils. Thus the eye becomes more accurate in observation and the hand more free and facile in tracing the outlines of the interesting forms studied. The use of tools and materials in construction gives ideas an anchorage, not only in the brain, but even in the nerves and muscles.
In thus glancing over the field we discover the same many-sided and intimate relation with other school studies, as in the previous grade. In fact, "Crusoe" is the first extended classical masterpiece which is presented to the children as a whole. Such parts of the story as are of most pedagogical value should be simplified and woven together into a continuous narrative. That part of the story which precedes the shipwreck may be reduced to a few paragraphs which bring out clearly his early home surroundings, his disobedience and the desertion of his parents, and the voyage which led to his lonely life upon the island. The period embraced in his companionless labors and experiences constitutes the important part for school uses. A few of the more important episodes following the capture of Friday and his return home may be briefly told. We deem it a long step forward to get some of our great classical masterpieces firmly embedded in the early years of our school course. It will contribute almost as much to the culture and stimulation of teachers as of pupils.
The method of handling this narrative before the class will be similar to that of the fairy tales. A simple and vivid recital of the facts, with frequent questions and discussions, so as to draw the story closer to the child's own thought and experience, should be made by the teacher. Much skill in illustrative device, in graphic description, in diagram or drawing, in the appeal to the sense experiences of the pupils, is in demand. The excursion to places of interest in the neighborhood suggested by the story begins to be an important factor of the school exercises. As children grow older they acquire skill and confidence in oral narrative, and should be held to greater independence in oral reproductions.
One of the best school editions of "Robinson Crusoe" is published by Ginn & Co.
A simple edition for second grade is published by the Public School Publishing Co.
The teacher should be supplied with one of the larger, fuller editions of "Robinson Crusoe," like that of Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., in the Riverside Literature Series. It furnishes a much fuller detail of knowledge for the teacher's use. It will also be of great advantage for classroom use to possess an illustrated edition like that of George Routledge & Sons.
The full treatment of this story, first in simple, oral narrative, later by its use as a reading book, and later still by the child reading the complete edition for himself in private, illustrates the intensive concentration of thought and constructive activity upon a great piece of literature as opposed to a loose and superficial treatment. Such a piece of work should remain for life a source of deeper thought, feeling, and experience.
OTHER EDITIONS
Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. American Book Co.
Robinson Crusoe. Lee and Shepard.
Robinson Crusoe for Youngest Readers. Educational Pub. Co.
Robinson Crusoe. University Publishing Co.
De Foe's Robinson Crusoe (Hale). Ginn & Co.
De Foe's Robinson Crusoe. Maynard, Merrill, & Co.