(3) To hear other children tell a story is a better model for a child than the criticism of an older person who cannot tell a story.
(4) Reciting a story is not telling a story.
Last December Miss Anna C. Tyler formed a “Junior Story-Tellers’ League” in the children’s room of Pratt Institute Library, in Brooklyn. Out of an audience of from forty to sixty children, two Junior Leagues were formed. They all assemble regularly to hear the evening story, and the leagues meet afterward.
Each league elects its own officers and conducts its own meetings. The president takes the names of seven or eight of the children present, most of whom volunteer to have a story ready for the next meeting, and of those so chosen there have only been a few who have not been ready with a story when called upon. They know they can call upon Miss Tyler for help, but seldom require her services.
There has been but little attempt to dictate to them the kind of story that they shall tell, the director’s only request being that they shall not tell silly stories. Some of the best Norse, Greek, and Indian myths; animal and nature stories by Kipling, Seton-Thompson, Charles Dudley Warner, and John Burroughs; “Macbeth,” “Evangeline,” “The Lady of the Lake,” “A Yankee at King Arthur’s Court;” stories of adventure, and some of the most famous of the fairy-tales have been told—and nearly always well told—by boys and girls from ten to fifteen years old. The children are learning to read—the careful search through book after book for the story they think will be the best to tell. The final selection is always their own.
“After the cycle of eighteen stories from King Arthur had been finished,” says Miss Tyler, “the children asked me to tell them Indian, detective, and ghost stories, and tales from ‘Arabian Nights’—to be told in that order, and I was not to tell stories that they would read for themselves. The Indian myths were not so difficult to find, but good detective and ghost stories were another matter; at last I remembered the delicious thrill of those wondrous tales of Poe. I began with ‘The Purloined Letter,’ telling it, as it is written, in the first person, but ‘skipping’ the parts that I knew would weary. Then followed ‘The Black Cat;’ then Stephenson’s ‘The Bottle Imp.’ So fascinated were they that they voted to change the evening of fairy-tales for another story by Poe, and the story they chose was ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’ By the children’s urgent request these stories were told with the lights turned low, as the best substitute for fire-light, and it is hard to say whether the absorbed young listeners or the story-teller enjoyed those hours most.”
The leagues have voted that their story-teller shall tell them Indian stories next winter, and she hopes, therefore, by beginning with the Indian myths and folk-lore, then telling of their life, warfare, and famous battles, to bring her boys and girls to a vivid interest in reading history as told by Francis Parkman.
The writer recalls with so much pleasure a visit to a young people’s story tellers’ league. He happened once upon a time to visit one of our smaller towns, and was invited to a meeting of the Junior Story Tellers’ League that met on the day of his visit. He had never heard of the organization among children before, and was of course interested in seeing what the children were doing with such an organization. The meeting was held out of doors on the lawn. It was in the month of May when the weather permitted such a meeting. The League was composed of children of the fifth grade, who sat in a circle on the grass. The teacher of the grade was present, but the children conducted their own meeting—a program of stories, songs and games in which all joined. The stories told by the children were their own selections, and were told in a creative way. One was especially impressive, being loudly applauded by the children. It was told by a twelve year old girl and was one of her own creation. Since then she has written enough stories to make a small volume, and so popular is she as a story-teller that the children in her neighborhood flock to her home to hear her tell stories. Several years after that the writer saw this same girl, now passing into young womanhood, stand before a thousand teachers and tell in the same easy, natural way some of her stories. Not seeking this opportunity to appear in public, [only in rare instances would the author allow children to appear in public], it came to her because she had something to give; something that she had for several years given every week to her playmates and friends, as naturally as she would give herself to them in games and play; something too, that had made her life a radiant one.
Miss Elizabeth J. Black, teacher of the sixth grade in one of the public schools of Greensboro, N.C., has been very successful with a League among her pupils. Through the League she got hold of the children as never before, and is enthusiastic over the results.
We give below a program of one League meeting. Miss Black has laid special emphasis on Norse stories.