Children in settlement districts in our large cities are not different from other children in their love of stories. The story-teller is the saint of the settlement. Few settlement workers to-day would venture on their mission without the necessary equipment of this art.
STORIES IN BOYS’ CAMPS
Stories told to boys around the camp-fire at night leave little to be desired in a boy’s imagination. They charm him as they did the weary hunters in the boyhood of the race when the story-tellers beguiled the silence of the desert or forest with the mirth and wonders of the same tales that delight to-day. One of the finest collections of stories for boy camps is “Around the Fire Stories of Beginnings,” by Hanford M. Burr.
II
THE PERIODS OF INTEREST IN STORIES
It is a great mistake to suppose that any kind of story will do for any age of childhood. Nothing could be more erroneous. There are well-marked periods or epochs for different kinds of stories, as for any graded instruction, and care should be taken to give each kind of story “in its season” in the unfolding life. A study of the normal characteristics and interests of child life underlies the selection of suitable stories. A boy of twelve is a very different personality from what he was at three and seven, and will be at seventeen and twenty-one. Your boy or girl at twelve will reject, with scorn, a fairy tale that lights up the wondering eyes of the young child. It is necessary, therefore, for the parent or the child-lover to know at just what age a particular type of story is adaptable, or when the particular ethical truth intended to be impressed can best be assimilated.
There is perhaps less harm done by giving boys and girls what is beyond them than is done by talking down to them. They will be bored by the too mature. They may permanently scorn the babyish or sentimental. Moral nuts are not for babes; nor predigested food for young athletes. Studies of children’s characteristics and interests at different periods may be found in such excellent books as the following: “Aspects of Child Life and Education,” G. Stanley Hall; “A Study of Child-Nature,” Elizabeth Harrison; “The Pedagogical Bible School,” S. B. Haslett; “The Individual in the Making,” Kirkpatrick; “The Psychology of Thinking,” Irving E. Miller; “The Unfolding of Personality,” H. T. Mark; “Childhood,” Mrs. Theodore Birney.
Such books are well worth consulting. They should lead to a first-hand study of the different epochs of child life by every parent, teacher, and minister who wishes to be “a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Roughly sketched, the various periods of child life, with their story interests, are as follows: