I must emphasize the fact, however, that it is only the excess of this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement is necessary, but this question belongs to the positive side of the subject, and I shall deal with it later on.
5. Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of a child's interests, unless they are wrapped in mystery. Experience with children ought to teach us to avoid stories which contain too much allusion to matters of which the hearers are entirely ignorant. But judging from the written stories of today, supposed to be for children, it is still a matter of difficulty to realize that this form of allusion to "foreign" matters, or making a joke, the appreciation of which depends solely on a special and "inside" knowledge, is always bewildering and fatal to sustained dramatic interest.
It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to understand the taste and point of view of the normal child. There is a passage in the "Brownies," by Mrs. Ewing, which illustrates the confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment. When the nursery toys have all gone astray, one little child exclaims joyfully:
"Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!"
"It couldn't," remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious to be funny than to sympathized with the child, "it was the purest Grecian, modeled from the Elgin marbles."
Now, for grownup people this is an excellent joke, but for a child has not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the whole remark is pointless and hampering.[16]
6. Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness. This is a class of story which scarcely counts today and against which the teacher does not need a warning, but I wish to make a passing allusion to these stories, partly to round off my subject and partly to show that we have made some improvement in choice of subject.
When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that, though our progress may be slow, it is real and sure. One has only to take some examples from the Chaps Books of the beginning of last century to realize the difference of appeal. Everything offered then was either an appeal to fear or to priggishness, and one wonders how it is that our grandparents and their parents every recovered from the effects of such stories as were offered to them. But there is the consoling thought that no lasting impression was made upon them, such as I believe may be possible by the right kind of story.
I offer a few examples of the old type of story:
Here is an encouraging address offered to children by a certain Mr. Janeway about the year 1828: