STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR INSTINCTIVE INTEREST

RHYTHMIC STORIES:
The House That Jack Built Mother Goose
The Kid That Would Not Go Folk Tale
The Story of Lambikin In Firelight Stories
The Teeny Tiny Lady In Firelight Stories
The Story of Epaminondas and His Auntie Sara Cone Bryant, in Best Stories to Tell to Children
ANIMAL STORIES AND MYTHS:
Nights with Uncle Remus Joel Chandler Harris
The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling
The Just-So-Stories Rudyard Kipling
The Talking Beasts Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith
The Little Red Hen In For the Children’s Hour
Myths Every Child Should Know Hamilton Mabie
STORIES TO INHIBIT THE SELFISH INSTINCT:
The Little Red Hen In For the Children’s Hour
The Coming of the King Laura E. Richards, in The Golden Windows
The Cooky Laura E. Richards, in The Golden Windows
The Story of Babouscka In For the Children’s Hour
The Legend of the Woodpecker In For the Children’s Hour
Picciola Celia Thaxter, in Stories and Poems for Children

CHAPTER VIII
THE DRAMATIC STORY

IN the previous chapter we analyzed certain primitive phases of mental life as manifested in the instinctive acts of children. These manifestations of instinct form a basis for our story selection, guiding us toward a final and certain goal of child interest.

One phase of instinct was left out of our discussion except as it was touched upon primarily in the analysis of a child’s instinctive interest in rhythm. This is the instinct to express through bodily movements the ideas that have found a permanent place for themselves in the mind.

Little E, three years old, was told by her nurse the folk tale of “The Old Woman and Her Pig.” She had heard very few stories, and this one seemed to delight her beyond words. She laughed and clapped her hands over it, and begged to have it repeated and retold even a third time. She made no comment upon the text of the story, however. A week later, she was left alone in her nursery for a short period during the morning and her mother, busy with household duties upon the floor below, thought that she heard E’s voice. Going, quietly, to the door of the nursery she saw E standing, dramatically, in the center of the room, holding a toy broom under her arm, and shaking her finger at a small china pig that stood on the floor in front of her. As she did this, she said in the exact words of the story that had been told her:

“Piggy won’t get over the stile, and I shall not get home to-night.”