Froebel is the father of the kindergarten and the great modern inspirer of short story-telling for the young. His method was to create an atmosphere in which the child-nature could best bud and blossom in its unfolding life. For this reason he believed to have the children sit in a circle is far more conducive to good results in story-telling than the plan of the school with its bench and book. As disciples of Froebel kindergarteners have been pioneers in story-telling, leaders and inspirers of others and, until recently, as a class did more story-telling than any other educators. The kindergarten age is from three to six years normally, but with immature children may continue a year or two longer. In this period the child is in a transition from nursery rhymes and Mother Goose jingles to fairy tales, folk-lore, and nature stories. If the mother is the teacher in the kindergarten of her own home, as must be the case most generally, let her be sure to give her children, in addition to Mother Goose jingles, the Fairy and Folk Tales in Chapters I and III, such as “The Runaway Pancake,” “Red Ridinghood,” and many of the Fables in Chapter II. In the kindergarten proper let the teacher add to these world stories for this period such others as these may suggest. And if she has a creative imagination let her invent new stories from familiar objects, and let the children have an opportunity to vote which stories they like best—the “made-up” ones or these old classics.
STORIES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
No longer are school-teachers content to have kindergarteners hold a monopoly of story-telling. Richard T. Wyche, in his excellent work, “Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them,” says: “In the grades the child is occupied largely with reading and writing, the mastering of form, the book, and the desk—things that for the moment deaden rather than inspire, but are means to things of primary interest to him. So much time is necessarily put on form and learning to read the story that the pleasure and inspiration of the story itself is given a secondary place.” While this is recognized, the oral story, well told, is finding an ever-widening acceptance in the grades as the most popular and successful method in education. Good story-telling is being utilized in many subjects of the curriculum, for many purposes and in many departments, within and without the classes, because its artistic and educational possibilities are so great.
Richard T. Wyche gives his experience as a teacher in a little school in the South. The teacher who preceded him “heard lessons”—and the children “said lessons”—an easy way, he says, “for the questions were in the book, and the children could memorize and say the answers without interest or profit. They were bored by this mechanical process as was the teacher.” One day he told the class the story of “Hiawatha’s Fishing,” and every child listened with rapt attention, full of interest. Many of the children wrote out the story for their lessons the next day. One little fellow who did not write it told it in such a vivid and realistic way that the class applauded. Two stories a week followed until the whole story of Hiawatha was told. All the children were interested, and within two months, grammar, language, composition, spelling, drawing, had all been taught by the story-telling method.
The story is now seen to be so important a method in education that we may expect to see this art become a part of the equipment of all teachers, and the story literature of the world become more and more accessible and adaptable to the unfolding life of childhood and youth in our public schools.
STORIES AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
It is a poor public library to-day where there is no provision for a story-teller and a “story-hour,” as a means of introducing boys and girls to the best books. Books on the shelves are of no value. They are for reading, but they are not likely to be read unless they are known. A story, well told, from a book, will often prove the most successful way of leading the children to desire to read the book. A friend of mine, a teacher in the high school in a small town in Colorado, has influenced the whole community for good by introducing a “children’s story-hour” one afternoon a week into a library which, before her effort, was scarcely patronized at all, and which now is the center of interest and “the liveliest place in town.”
Of course the primary use of the story-hour in the library is different from that in other places. In the public school the purpose of the story is to teach language, literature, geography, history, and such subjects; in the Sunday-school, church services, and the home, the spiritual and ethical aim of the story is necessarily prominent. In the public library, the story is told for the purpose of bringing the best books to the attention of the public that they may thereby be benefited.
As each of these agencies in the educative process of the child life differs in its task, so it follows that there must be in each institution a different use of the story. But as elsewhere, so in the library there are many “by-products” of oral story-telling. Miss Frances J. Olcott, of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa., the prime mover and leader in this popular work, calls attention to the by-products of the story-hour. She says: “Besides guiding his reading, a carefully prepared, well-told story enriches a child’s imagination, stocks his mind with poetic images and literary allusions, develops his power of concentration, helps the unfolding of his ideas of right and wrong, and develops his sympathetic feelings, all of which ‘by-products’ have a powerful influence on character. Thus the library hour becomes, if properly utilized, an educational force as well as a literary guide.”