Realizing that the two absolute essentials in a successful story teller are, on the one hand, a sympathetic knowledge of the best in literature, and on the other, real understanding of the child, we read together as much of the best literature about children as time permits.
Our first approach to the story for the child is through a discussion of favorite fairy tales, remembered from the student’s own childhood. Comparison shows that there are many common favorites, further study reveals these same stories as favorites of generations of children.
Re-telling and enjoying these we gradually search out the secret of their universal appeal and come to formulate a standard embodying the essential characteristics which all stories for children should contain.
This knowledge of type stories is further developed by a brief study of Norse Myths and Folk Tales. No other literature gives quite so well the fundamental characteristics of action, simplicity and embodiment of ideals as does the Norse. The student who has read Mabie’s Norse Myths, Dasent’s Popular Tales from the Norse, Stories from Bjornstern and Selma Lagerlof, absorbs the essential characteristics of the best story and can scarcely help telling a story with vigor, simplicity, directness and imaginative appeal.
Sympathetic attitude toward child and story and basis for selection of stories in the light of fundamental principles of literature having been developed, we next formulate the requisites of a good story teller and methods of story telling. This is done through story telling in class under criticism and a study of such books as: Voice and Spiritual Education, by Corson; How to Tell Stories to Children, by Sara Cone Bryant; Stories and Story Telling, by Porter St. John. We study, re-tell, adapt, and collect in a manuscript story book such stories as are particularly suitable for use in the kindergarten.
The demand for story tellers in the schools, in playground and library work, in social centers and Sunday schools, led to the establishing of a course in story telling and children’s literature at George Washington University. This course is credited both in the teacher’s department and in the English department of the University.
The work consists of lectures, required readings and reports. The history of the story, its relation to literature, its relation to the child, the story as a moral force, methods of story telling, including adaptation, preparation, and presentation are a few of the topics discussed. Studies of groups of animal stories, folk and fairy tales, hero tales, Bible stories, Christmas and Thanksgiving stories, spring stories and humorous stories constitute the content of the course.
Every student of children’s stories not only gains a deeper appreciation of the best in literature and an added sympathy with and understanding of the child, but also discovers an inexhaustible source of usefulness and joy.