The story of “The Three Bears” is an obviously interesting one to children upon entering school. It has its basis of interest in its apperceptive quality, and it illustrates better than almost any other story for children those qualities which bring about quick mental interpretation on the part of the listener. The unusual, strange, hazardous characters in the story, the three bears, are introduced to the child in old, comfortably familiar terms which catch his interest from the first sentence of the story. It is extremely doubtful if the story of three bears set in a polar or forest environment would ever have been popular so long or made so many children happy as has the story of the historical three bears who lived in a house, ate porridge from bowls, sat in chairs and slept in beds. Nor are these the only apperceptive links between the life of the bears and that of the child. There is a tiny bear in the story, the size, one may presuppose, of the child who is listening to the story. The to-be-classified idea, bear, is presented to children in this old folk tale in terms of already known ideas, house, porridge, chair, bed and tiny. Very few story tellers have appreciated the underlying psychologic appeal of the story of “The Three Bears,” but it illustrates a quality in stories that we must look for if we wish to make the story we select a permanency in the child’s mental life.
The apperceptive basis of story telling consists in study on the part of the story teller to discover what is the store of ideas in the minds of the children who will listen to the story.
Has the story too many new ideas for the child to be able to classify them in terms of his old ideas? On the other hand, has it one or two new thoughts so carefully presented through association with already familiar concepts that the child will be able to make them his own and give them a permanent place in his mind with the old ones?
A child’s mind is an eery place for an adult to try and enter. Teachers, kindergartners and story tellers are a little prone to think that a knowledge of one child’s mental content gives them the power to know the mind of the child-at-large. Our psychologists have given us studies of child mind, not child minds. This mind hypothesis is, perhaps, sufficient for the general working out of systems of teaching, but success in the delicate art of story telling means a most critical study and observation of the minds of the special group of children who will hear the story. The story teller must ask herself these questions:
“What do these children know?”
“Have they any experience other than that of the home on which to bank?”
“Do they come from homes of leisure or homes of industry?”
“Have they had a country or a city experience?”
“Have they passed from the stage of development when toys formed their play interest to the game stage in which chance and hazard interest them more deeply?”
“Are they American children, familiar with American institutions, or are they little aliens in our land, unfamiliar with and confused by our ways?”