One of the best effects of such an experiment would be to show a child how difficult it is to give the impression he wishes to record, and which would enable him later on to appreciate the beauty of such work in the hands of a finished artist.
I can anticipate the jeers with which such remarks would be received by the Futurist School, but, according to their own theory, I ought to be allowed to express the matter as I see it, however faulty the vision may appear to them.[53]
Question IX. In what way can the dramatic method of story-telling be used in ordinary class teaching?
This is too large a question to answer fully in so general a survey as this work, but I should like to give one or two concrete examples as to how the element of story-telling could be introduced.
I have always thought that the only way in which we could make either a history or literature lesson live, so that it should take a real hold on the mind of the pupil at any age, would be that, instead of offering lists of events, crowded into the fictitious area of one reign, one should take a single event, say in one lesson out of five, and give it in the most splendid language and in the most dramatic (not to be confused with “melodramatic”) manner.
To come to a concrete example: Supposing that you are talking to the class of Greece, either in connection with its history, its geography or its literature, could any mere accumulation of facts give a clearer idea of the life of the people than a dramatically told story from Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles or Euripides?
What in the history of Iceland could give a more graphic idea of the whole character of the life and customs of the inhabitants than one of the famous sagas, such as “The Burning of Njal” or “The Death of Gunnar”?
In teaching the history of Spain, what could make the pupils understand better the spirit of knight-errantry, its faults and its qualities, than a recital from “Don Quixote” or from the tale of “The Cid”?
In a word, the stories must appeal so vividly to the imagination that they will light up the whole period of history which we wish them to illustrate, and keep it in the memory for all time.
But apart from the dramatic presentation of history, there are great possibilities for introducing the short story into the portrait of some great personage: a story which, though it may be insignificant in itself, throws a sudden sidelight on his character, and reveals the mind behind the actual deeds; this is what I mean by using the dramatic method.