STORIES AND READING
If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most stimulating methods of teaching.
§ 1. STORY-TELLING
So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or particular statement which you may make. The moral or lesson must be clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and manner of the story.
Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it is worth telling well.
Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive stories and short selections which are to be found in general literature.[18]
Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in reading.
Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it repeated a few times from his mother's lips.
Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19]
§ 2. BOOKS AND READING
A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be few, their world narrow and confined.
If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere. Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed. Fiction, biography, travel, and adventure soon pass from the merely exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character.
§ 3. DANGERS OF READING
Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the shelves and open them with an eager mind.
§ 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE
What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children? Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age, that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later. But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy shelves and fit to be used as common food.
Do you know what your children read? Do you watch as carefully the food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones?
§ 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST
The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting and reading good books. Children often come home from day school clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board. Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction, romance, song, and story.[20] Parents could do the same sort of thing. Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books, we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, not by saying, "We should like you to read Sandford and Merton," but rather, "There is a capital story in Captains Courageous; have any of you read it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to stimulate interest.
I. References for Study
St. John, Stories and Story Telling, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains, $0.50.
Forbush, The Coming Generation, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50
Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in The Bible in Practical Life, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50.
II. Further Reading
Partridge, Story Telling in School and Home. Sturgis & Walton, $1.25.
H. W. Mabie, Books and Culture. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25.
III. Methods and Materials
ON STORY-TELLING
E. P. St. John, Stories and Story Telling. Eaton & Mains, $0.50.
Wyche, Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them. Newson & Co., $1.00.
L. S. Houghton, Telling Bible Stories. Scribner, $1.25.
Bryant, How to Tell Stories for Children. Houghton Mifflin Co., $1.00.
E. M. and G. E. Partridge, Story Telling in School and Home. Sturgis & Walton, $1.25.
DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME
Macy, A Children's Guide to Reading. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25.
Field, Finger Posts to Children's Reading. McClurg, $1.00.
Arnold, A Mother's List of Books for Children. McClurg, $1.00.
For a short practical list see the different lists classified under Sunday-School Departments in W. S. Athearn, The Church School, particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their narration?
2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children?
3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so, what are the reasons?
4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's selection of books? toward promoting book reading?
5. How many families co-operate with the library?
6. How might the church co-operate?
7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general habits of reading? In what ways?
8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of a borrowed book and of one the child owns?
[17] Laura E. Cragin, Kindergarten Bible Stories. Fifty-six of the Old Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New Testament stories.
James Baldwin, Old Stories of the East. Fresh and interesting versions of the familiar Old Testament stories.
Kate Douglas Wiggin, The Story Hour. Good stories and a suggestive introduction on story-telling.
Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People, by various authors.
[18] A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of Age, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16 fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving stories, etc.
[19] Such as O'Shea, Old World Wonder Stories; George Hodges, The Garden of Eden; Cragin, Old Testament Stories; Mary Stewart, Tell Me a True Story.
[20] The H. W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a list of Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries.