An important question is, who shall tell these stories? The large municipal playgrounds provide for special teachers in the gymnastic work, in swimming, and in the different branches of physical development for girls and boys. Why not also engage professional story tellers to go to the playground at certain hours of the day? Librarians, kindergartners, and social workers are now having excellent training in children’s literature. From these sources story tellers can be secured to meet the growing demand for story-telling as an integral feature of the playground.
Another development of the story will be the dramatization of the great hero tales. The cheap theaters of the day are doing an untold amount of harm by giving to children false ideals of life. The best way to overcome this evil is to recognize the need for dramatic expression and allow children to set out their favorite stories. For instance, if archery grounds are provided, the children will naturally gravitate toward them after listening to the Robin Hood Ballads. On a summer afternoon a beautiful out-of-door pageant could be enacted by Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The stories of King Arthur, with proper training on the physical side, might lead to a tournament as the most interesting event of the playground season. This close relation between impression and expression finds a unifying centre in dramatization which appeals alike to young and old. Properly developed and directed, it will eventually create an appreciation for the good, the true, and the beautiful in music, art and literature.
The playground is the key to the Democracy of art. Let us hope that those interested in the playground movement will have that diffused, imaginative ardor of the Prophets of old, when young men saw visions and old men dreamed dreams.
WINTER AND THE PINE TREE[1]
[1] This story is freely translated from the German as told in Alues und Neues, a book of easy German stories by Karl Seeligman, published by Ginn and Co. (Ed.)
When God the Lord had created the world, when the trees, fresh and beautiful, stood in the forest and the flowers in the field, he called the seasons and said: “You may divide the trees and flowers among yourselves, but you must love and care for them.” This made the seasons very happy and they played with the children of nature early and late.
All went very well for a time, but soon discord began to appear. Bold, restless Spring could not get along with plodding thoughtful Winter; the glowing Summer found Autumn phlegmatic; Autumn scolded Spring because she spoiled the flowers. The quarrel grew worse from day to day and all joy was at an end.
Thereupon Autumn said: “Things can go on this way no longer; we cannot get along together. Come let us divide the earth among ourselves.” And this is what happened. The seasons divided the earth among themselves. Winter built himself two houses at the two poles; Summer encircled the earth at the middle, and Spring and Autumn took the realm in between. The earth was now apportioned and each season had a realm of his own.