But what had I done for those children most of all? I had fed their souls,—given them a masterpiece of literature. Starting with the childhood of Hiawatha we had followed him and admired him. We had roamed through that fairy land of dark green forest; heard the whispering pines, saw Hiawatha when he caught the King of Fishers, “Slew the Pearl Feather,” prayed and fasted for his people, punished “Pau-puk-kee-wis,” wooed and won Minnehaha, and when his task was done, sailed away into the fiery sunset.
That something inexpressibly sweet and beautiful that I felt in the vision hour, and longed to impart to the children and heretofore had not been able to, I had at last found incarnate in a hero, while the music, meter, and imagery of poetry had awakened the sense of the beautiful and revealed a new world to the children. New life had come into the school. It had been born again and born from above.
Two months had passed. I had tried an experiment. It had succeeded. Grammar, language, composition, spelling, drawing, story-telling had been taught by that method. Formal language had become linked to literature and thereby to life. The formal had become an expression of the spiritual.
Where could I find another such story? The little goody-goody sissy-prissy stories could not interest us. They all seemed tame in comparison to the sustained effort of a story like Hiawatha. I had discovered that the children could fully appreciate a great story told to them in a living, creative way, and that interest grew each day as we told the long story in sections to the end. The only other hero in literature that I knew in these first years of my experience in teaching was revealed in the story of King Arthur which I had recently studied in a university; but, were the Idyls of the King suited to the children? That was the only source of the story available to me at that time and it was more modern, more complicated in every way, and far more difficult to tell than the one we had just finished. After hearing a number of the Hiawatha stories the children could and did read Longfellow’s versions, but not so with the Idyls of the King. While the children fully enjoyed the stories of the Idyl, the style of Tennyson was not suited nor intended for children. All the imagery, heroic deeds and idealism of Hiawatha were there, but in telling this story much must be omitted. Involved plots must be made direct, and the story simplified. This required much more preparation on the part of the teacher, but we must have another story. It would not do to let the school fall back into the dead rut of lesson hearing, and though I feared they could not appreciate the Arthurian story yet I would try. I began with the finding of a naked babe on the beach, the childhood of Arthur, Merlin’s work, the sword Excalibur, and Arthur’s coronation.
At first the children were not so much interested. Their minds were still on Hiawatha and his deeds; they were loath to leave him. But gradually as I told of Arthur and his deeds, Gareth and Lynette, Geraint and Enid, Lancelot and Elaine, the Quest of the Holy Grail, The Flight of Guinevere, the Passing of Arthur, the interest grew, and at times became intense, especially among the larger boys and girls. The story was coming home to them. King Arthur was a man like ourselves, of our own race. The whole story had brought the children face to face with a great ideal, Arthur, the blameless man. Pure himself, he demanded it in his knights, and bound them by vows of obedience to their conscience and their king. He defended the weak against the wicked; broke up the robbers’ dens and cleansed the land; led his knights in brave deeds, for it is said that when the fire of God filled him none could stand against him in battle. He enjoyed the athletic sports and the tourneys, yet was so gentle, they said his ways were sweet.
As with Hiawatha the story was reproduced, illustrated, correlated with English history and geography, and at the same time it furnished the most excellent material for ethical and æsthetic culture. After the last story was told, the Passing of Arthur, and the children saw with Sir Bedivere, the King pass with the three tall queens in a barge over the sea, they stood in wonder gazing on the splendor of his passing. Defeated in the last weird battle in the West, yet he was victorious in his ideals for he became the spiritual king of his race.
“From the great deep to the great deep he goes,” the children heard but did not quite understand. It was the better for that because it awakened in the child something of the mystery of life and death. In that it served the highest purpose. It helped the child to realize that there are things in life that eye has not seen nor ear heard. Let it not be forgotten that while we use these great stories for formal work, the formal was always the result of the creative. “The letter killeth; the spirit giveth life.” Thus it was that children and teacher left the low plains of the “lesson hearer” and hand in hand walked the upland pastures of the soul.
This is not offered as a model method for teaching, but it is given to reveal the writer’s view-point and the source of his inspiration for these chapters.
THE STORY IN FORMAL WORK
The formal must be an expression of the spiritual else it is not art. This is true whether the idea is expressed in words, wood or iron. To do formal work whether it be oral retelling, composition, illustrating or dramatization of a story apart from the spirit is deadening to the child. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life is true in language and literature as well as religion. Herein is the great possibility for the development of individuality,—letting the child’s life develop after the laws of its nature and not after arbitrary laws forced upon him from above. This is the pivotal point in all our work.