I realise the extreme difficulty for teachers to devote the necessary time to the perfecting of the stories they tell in school, because this is only one of the subjects they have to take in an already over-crowded curriculum. To them I would offer this practical advice: Do not be afraid to repeat your stories.[13] If you did not undertake more than seven stories a year (chosen with infinite care), and if you repeated these stories six times during the year of forty-two weeks, you would be able to do artistic (and therefore lasting) work; you would give a very great deal of pleasure to the children, who delight in hearing a story many times. You would be able to avoid the direct moral application (to which subject I shall return later on); for each time a child hears a story artistically told, a little more of the meaning underlying the simple story will come to him without any explanation on your part. The habit of doing one's best, instead of one's second-best, means, in the long run, that one has no interest except in the preparation of the best, and the stories, few in number, polished and finished in style, will have an effect of which one can scarcely over-state the importance.
In the story of the Swineherd,[14] Hans Andersen says:
“On the grave of the Prince's father there grew a rose-tree. It only bloomed once in five years, and only bore one rose. But what a rose! Its perfume was so exquisite that whoever smelt it forgot at once all his cares and sorrows.”
Lafcadio Hearn says: “Time weeds out the errors and stupidities of cheap success, and presents the Truth. It takes, like the aloe, a long time to flower, but the blossom is all the more precious when it appears.”
FOOTNOTES:
[ [11] A noted Greek gymnast struck his pupil, though he was applauded by the whole assembly. “You did it clumsily, and not as you ought, for these people would never have praised you for anything really artistic.”
[12] For further details on the question of preparation of the story, see chapter on “[Questions asked by Teachers].”
[13] Sully says that children love exact repetition because of the intense enjoyment bound up with the process of imaginative realisation.