A Study of Fairy Tales

by Laura Fry Kready

Your name, sir, is Pond
And my name is Crow,
Please give me some water,
For if you do so
I can wash and be neat,
And the nice soup can eat,
Though I really don't know
What the sparrow can mean,
I'm quite sure, as crows go,
I'm remarkably clean.

As the Crow must go to the Deer, the Cow, the Grass, and the Blacksmith, and each time varies the beginning of his speech, four other children could represent the Crow successively, thus bringing in a social element which would relieve any one child's timidity. By that time any group of children would realize the fun they could get by playing out the simple tale; and there would be petitions to be the Deer, the Cow, etc. If the teacher sees that the characters place themselves as they should, carry out the parts naturally, and that the Crow begs with the correct rhyme, she is performing her legitimate task of suggestion and criticism that works toward developing from the first attempts of children, a good form in harmony with the story. Here, while there is free play, the emphasis is on the speeches of rhyme, so that the reaction is largely a language expression. The language expression is intimately related to all varieties of expression of which the child is capable, and may be made to dominate and use any of them, or be subordinated to them.

A most delightful form of creative reaction possible to the child in language expression, is the formation of original little stories similar to the "Toy Stories" written by Carolyn Bailey for the Kindergarten Review during 1915. A story similar to "The Little Woolly Dog" might be originated by the little child about any one of his toys. This would be related to his work with fairy tales because in such a story the child would be imitating his accumulative tales; and the adventures given the toy would be patterned after the familiar adventures of his tales.

A form of creative reaction, which will be a part of the language return given by the first-grade child from the telling of the tale, will be his reading of the tale. When the child re-experiences the life of the story as has been described, his mental realization of it will be re-creative, and his reading the tale aloud afterwards will be just as much a form of re-creative activity as his re-telling of the tale. The only difference is, that in one case the re-creative activity is exercised by thinking through symbols, while in the other case it is employed without the use of a book. This concentration on the reality brings about the proper relation of reading to literature. It frees literature from the slavery to reading which it has been made to serve, yet it makes literature contribute more effectively toward good reading than it has done in the past.

(2) The instinct of inquiry. No more predominating trait proclaims itself in the child than the instinct of inquiry. Every grown-up realizes his habit of asking questions, which trait Kipling has idealized delightfully in The Elephant's Child. We know also that the folk-tale in its earliest beginnings was the result of primitive man's curiosity toward the actual physical world about him, its sun and sky, its mountain and its sea. The folk-tale therefore is the living embodiment of the child's instinct of inquiry permanently recorded in the adventures and surprises of the folk-tale characters. And because the folk-tale is so pervaded with this quest of the ages in search of truth, and because the child by nature is so deeply imitative, the folk-tale inherently possesses an educational value to stir and feed original impulses of investigation and experiment. This is a value which is above and beyond its more apparent uses.

In the creative reaction to be expected from the child's use of fairy tales the expression of this instinct of investigation unites with the instinct of conversation, the instinct of construction, and the instinct of artistic expression. In fact, it is the essence of creative reaction in any form, whether in the domain of the Industrial Shop, the Domestic Science Kitchen, the Household Arts' Sewing-Room, or the Fine Arts' Studio. To do things and then see what happens, is both the expression of this instinct and the basis of any creative return the child makes through his handling of the fairy tale. In the formation of a little play such as is given on page 149, the instinct of conversation is expressed in the talk of the Trees to the little Bird. But this talk of the Trees also expresses doing things to see what happens; each happening to the Bird, each reply of a Tree to the Bird, influences each successive doing of the Bird. After the Story of Medio Pollito all the child's efforts of making Little Half-Chick into a weathervane and of fixing the directions to his upright shaft, will be expressions of the search for the unknown, of the instinct of experiment. After the story of The Little Elves, the dance of the Elves to the accompaniment of music will represent an expression of the artistic instinct; but it also represents expression of the instinct for the new and the untried. After the dance is finished the child has seen himself do something he had not done before. This union of the instinct of inquiry with that of artistic expression shows itself most completely in the entire dramatization of a fairy tale.

(3) The instinct of construction. In his industrial work the very youngest child is daily exercising his active tendency to make things. In the kindergarten he may make the toy with which he plays, the doll-house and its furnishings, small clay dishes, etc. In the first grade he may make small toy animals, baskets, paper hats, card-board doll-furniture, little houses, book-covers, toys, etc. Self-expression, self-activity, and constructive activity would all be utilized, and the work would have more meaning to the child, if it expressed some idea, if after the story of Three Bears the child would make the Bears' kitchen, the table of wood, and the three porridge bowls of clay, or the Bears' hall with the three chairs. In the Grimm tale, Sweet Rice Porridge, after the story has been told and before the re-telling, children would like to make a clay porridge-pot, which could be there before them in the re-telling. Perhaps they would make the rice porridge also, and put some in the pot, for little children are very fond of making things to eat, and domestic science has descended even into the kindergarten. After the story of Chanticleer and Partlet, children would enjoy making a little wagon and harnessing to it a Duck, and putting in it the Cock and the Hen, little animals they have made. In the first grade, after the story of Sleeping Beauty, children would naturally take great pleasure in making things needed to play the story: the paper silver and gold crowns of the maids and Princess and the Prince's sword. After the story of Medio Pollito, we have noted with what special interest children might make a weathervane, with Little Half-Chick upon it!

(4) The instinct of artistic expression. This is the instinct of drawing, painting, paper-cutting, and crayon-sketching, the instinct of song, rhythm, dance, and game, of free play and dramatization.

(a) One form of artistic creative reaction will be the cutting of free silhouette pictures. The child should attempt this with the simplest of the stories which are suited for drawing, painting, or crayon-sketching. He loves to represent the animals he sees every day; and the art work should direct this impulse and show him how to do it so that he may draw or cut out a dog, a cat, a sheep, or a goat; or simple objects, as a broom, a barrel, a box, a table, and a chair. The Bremen Town Musicians, while offering a fine opportunity for dramatization, also might stimulate the child to cut out the silhouettes of the Donkey, the Dog, the Cat, and the Cock, to draw the window of the cottage and to place the animals one on top of another, looking in the window. The beautiful picture-books illustrating his fairy tales, which the child may see, will give him many ideas of drawing and sketching, and help him to arrange his silhouettes. A recent primer, The Pantomime Primer, will give the child new ideas in silhouettes. Recent articles in the Kindergarten Review will give the teacher many helpful suggestions along the line of expression. In the May number, 1915, in Illustrated Stories, the story of "Ludwig and Marleen," by Jane Hoxie, is shown as a child might illustrate it with paper-cutting.—A class of children were seen very pleasantly intent on cutting out of paper a basket filled with lovely tinted flowers. But how attractive that same work would have become if the basket had been Red Riding Hood's basket and they were being helped by an art-teacher to show peeping out of her basket the cake and pot of butter, with the nosegay tucked in one end. A very practical problem in paper-cutting would arise in any room when children desire to make a frieze to decorate the front wall. The Old Woman and her Pig, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, The Little Red Hen, The Story of Three Pigs, The Story of Three Bears, and Little Top-Knot, would be admirably adapted for simple work.

(b) The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean is most likely to stir the child's impulse to draw. Leslie Brooke's illustration in The House in the Wood might aid a child who wanted to put some fun into his representation. Birdie and Lena or Fundevogel, is a story that naturally would seek illustration. Three crayon-sketches, one of a rosebush and a rose, a second of a church and a steeple, and a third of a pond and a duck, would be enough to suggest the tale.