This mind capital of instinct with which the child comes into the world may be divided into the instinct to express ideas in bodily movements, instinctive interest in animals and nature, the instinct in rhythm, and the instinct for self-preservation (less highly developed in children than in animals.) There are other and finer divisions into which the different phases and manifestations of instinct fall but for purposes of our discussion these more elastic divisions will serve. The first division, the motor instinct, involves so much in the matter of a child’s dramatizing of stories that it needs a chapter devoted wholly to a study of a child’s bodily expression as stimulated by the images which he has in his mind. The instinct in rhythm, instinctive love of animals and nature, the self-preservation and curiosity instincts may be briefly considered in order of their appearance in the child’s development, having in mind their influence upon the stories we select for a child’s hearing. A financier makes it his special study to discover the best uses to which he can put his capital in order to make it produce for him appreciable dividends. The story teller, using the child mind capital, instinct, as a basis for her selection of stories will find that there are certain instinct stories that she may select for her use, each one of which gives back good returns to her along the measure of child interest.
Instinctive interest in rhythmic movements and rhythmic sounds is found in the very young child. He likes to be trotted, sung to in a monotonous, sing-song fashion; he enjoys clapping his hands in time to some nursery jingle or ditty. Long after this rhythmic period of babyhood is past children like to hear stories that have the rhythmic, repetitional quality, or some jingle introduced that stimulates rhythm. Predominantly is this rhythmic quality found in Mother Goose and folk lore. Children, even of kindergarten age, take the greatest delight in repeating and singing over and over again such rhythmic ditties as:
“Pitty, patty polt; shoe the wild colt.
Here a nail, there a nail, pitty, patty polt.”
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can,
Pat it and prick it, and mark it with T,
And put it in the oven for Tommy and me.”
“Intry, mintry, cutry corn,