Story telling for teachers of beginners and primary children

Front matter

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TEACHERS OF BEGINNERS AND PRIMARY CHILDREN

KATHERINE DUNLAP CATHER

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. What Stories Really Are 11

II. The Story-Teller's General Preparation 27

Chapter I What Stories Really Are

The story and the child. — Not since the days of the minstrels has story-telling held so honored a place as it holds to-day, for with the advance of psychology has come a realization of its power as an educational factor, and consequently every program that has for its aim the mental, moral, or spiritual training of the child includes the art of the narrator. In the church and secular school, in the library and on the public playground, in fact, wherever the hosts of childhood are marshaled, the story has come to be regarded as a mighty ethical force, as potent as the wand of Merlin to transform good little boy and bad little boy alike into reverent and wondering listeners. By its skillful use we can create moods and call into play every response we desire to arouse. We can lead the child to love that which is beautiful and good and to dislike the baneful and malignant as certainly as we can teach him arithmetical combinations and the multiplication table. If it is true that the story has the power to mold character, to build up new standards and tear down established ones, the question naturally arises, What are stories?

The dictionary defines a story as a narration or recital of that which has occurred; a description of past

ii events. This is a correct definition as far as it goes, but the story that sways childhood is very much more than this. To say that the wind blew yesterday and tore the roof off an abandoned barn is a recital of something which has occurred. But this bare statement of a fact would not send a group of children into a quiver of expectancy.

A story is a picture that arouses intense interest and feeling. — A story, as we use the term in literature, must have an emotional appeal. In the words of Sidney Hartland, one of the greatest authorities on fairy tales and the power of the story, it is a picture presented to the mind's eye that arouses intense interest and feeling.

That this is a more nearly adequate definition than the one of the dictionary will not be doubted by anyone who has observed the effect of a good, well-told story upon a group of children. They are utterly unconscious of what happens around them during the rendition of the tale. Throughout that period, and sometimes for a long time afterward, they are far away from the usual environment, in the country and atmosphere portrayed by the words of the narrator and mingling with the characters whose actions make the tale.

Those who recall vividly the impression made upon them during childhood by some favorite bit of folklore know this to be true, while those whose recollections are not so keen will experience in modified form what the child experiences by examining some genre painting. But it must be a picture that tells a story, one in which things are happening, and you see what is happening and realize what has happened.

An excellent subject for this experiment is Bendeman's "By the Waters of Babylon," a picture full of feeling, of beauty of line and color, and richly suggestive of event. As you study its haunting story of the exiled Jews you do not live in some drawing-room or in the alcove of an art gallery where it appeals to you from its frame. You are out in the plains of Babylon, suffering with Israel's suffering ones, who languish under the taunts and persecutions of their captors while their harps hang voiceless upon the willows. And exactly what happens to you as you view this or any other picture powerful in appeal happens to the child who listens to a story, for what the brush of the artist brings to the eye the words of the narrator bring to the ear and the inner vision. He lives the experiences of the characters portrayed as for the moment you were one with the persecuted Jews. But he lives them more intensely, because the emotional harp of the child nature is more delicately strung than that of the adult.

A story is a series of connected scenes or pictures that make a plot. — A story is made up of several scenes or incidents. It is a series of pictures strung on a thread that makes a plot, each one of which contributes something to the action and interest of the succeeding one, until finally the action culminates in a moment of supreme interest and suspense that we call a climax. The hero is brought upon the scene, and immediately he embarks on a journey of adventure.

At once the interest of the listeners is aroused, and this interest accelerates with each move he makes until finally the thing happens that from the beginning one has hoped would or would not happen. Therefore it follows that all the events of the story must be connected. Each must be dependent upon the preceding one, and they must all merge finally into one of paramount interest. If the events are disconnected, it is not a good story, but merely a motley group of incidents. If any one of them does not contribute something toward the final denouement, or climax, it is a poorly constructed story. It will not hold the attention because irrelevant matter in a tale weakens concentration and tends to scatter interest. In a well-constructed story no extraneous matter appears, and the child who hears a good story well told lives through every one of the experiences of its hero as fully as you live the experiences of a dream during the time it possesses you. He suffers and enjoys, he feels and thinks with the hero.

The story appeals to the emotions. — The great ethical value of the story lies in its power to touch the human heart. Interest in its characters arouses sympathy, and through this sympathy, through approval or disapproval of the actions of those who move through the tale, right is made beautiful and appealing. Wrong doing stands out in all its angularity and ugliness, and ideals are established that come only through deep responses of the emotional nature. Story tellers in Oriental lands know this very well, and consequently they regard their work as sacredly as the

Buddhist priest regards his. A lifetime of narrating and recollections of an earlier generation of narrators have taught them that stories are as air and water to the child and to the grown-up children who hear them, and in some parts of the East each public entertainer prefaces his tales with a religious chant or prayer. Hartland gives numerous instances of. the religious attitude of story-tellers toward their work. Floating through books dealing with the customs of Bedouin tribes I have found a number of others. And I once heard a beggar narrator in Sicily ask the blessing of God on his work before attempting to give to a group of street children the account of Rinaldo's struggle with fiends from u J erusa ^ em Delivered."

The child needs to experience wholesome emotions. He must live to the uttermost now if he is to live completely and helpfully later on. He must not be regarded just as an apprentice for the adult state. One of the fallacies of the old theory of education was the belief that we must train the human plant for the future, without regard for his present enjoyment, or as to whether or not that training would permit him to live his childhood to the full. And because of this mistake many a man, having failed to experience during childhood the wholesome emotions that were rightfully his, has been unable to make the adjustment necessary for the joyful living of adult life. But twentieth-century education recognizes the fact that the child has as much right to feed his hungers and gratify his desires as has the man, and if there is any more effective means than story-telling of giving to children the experiences that make for full and buoyant childhood, it has not yet been discovered.

Men in all walks of life and of all degrees of refinement attest to the truth of this statement. A nineteenyear old bandit, mortally wounded in a fight with officers, confessed when dying that accounts of Jesse James and the Hole-in-the-Wall gang started him on the high road to crime, because they portrayed it as an iridescent path of adventure. On the other hand, Josiah Royce, one of the most renowned and beloved philosophers America has produced, whose reverent attitude toward the Bible and all sacred things made him a power for good in the world, traced his fine spiritual feeling back to an isolated childhood, when his busy but wise mother read and told Bible stories to him and his sister. Afterward, in their play, without coaching or guidance, they acted these out as reverently as the peasants of Oberammergau and the Tyrolese valleys portray the passion and miracle plays. I remember listening with delight as that sister told how much these stories meant to them, and of the sympathy she felt for boys and girls who have been defrauded of the heritage that was theirs.

England's military chief, Lord Kitchener, cherished similar memories. This silent, undemonstrative man, who was generally supposed to be cold and unfeeling, had a fine reverence for sacred things. Upon the completion of his military course, when he emerged a lieutenant of the engineers, he asked to be sent to Palestine to make a survey of that country, because it had become fascinating land to him through twilight times of his boyhood, when he and his brothers listened to Bible stories his mother told as they had been told to her by her father, who was a clergyman in Sussex. He followed the course of the wandering Isaac, moved over the desert spaces in the footprints of Ishmael, and up to where the multitude stood during the sermon on the mount. Time and again he read the Bible during those two years there, linking its great narratives with the hills along which they dragged the surveyor's chain, and finding in it never-ending satisfaction. And when one thinks of the reverence of this silent man for the old story times and the religious moods they awakened, he cannot help wondering what pictures must have come to him that night, when, embarking upon a voyage from which he was not to return, he went down on his Majesty's steamer Hampton with five hundred gallant seamen.

The story is dramatic. — The story that is a vital force in the child's process of development must be dramatic. The account of the windstorm that tore the roof off an abandoned barn is not a moving tale because it is not dramatic, although to the one who witnessed the occurrence it may have been highly spectacular. Therefore it is necessary for the teacher to understand what constitutes the dramatic in literature and life, and not confuse it with what is merely spectacular.

An event that does not affect the human soul is never dramatic though it may be destructive. The plunge of a locomotive from an open pier into a surging bay or ocean; the hiss of flame tongues along a building as fire rapidly engulfs it, or a bowlder lunging down a mountainside toward the bottom of a canon are spectacular and sometimes magnificent sights. But they do not tug at the emotions because they are not linked with any form of human or animal life, and therefore they are not dramatic. But if a man is in the cabin of the engine, if a prospector's camp lies in the path of the rock as it lunges toward the canon, or the holocaust holds in its grasp the life of woman, child, or man, they become intensely dramatic because they react upon the soul by arousing suspense, fear, anguish, and several other emotions.

This does not mean that in order to be dramatic an action must be violent, for some of the most dramatic stories the world knows have no suggestion of physical risk or danger. It does mean, however, that it must abound in conflict, in an effort of each of two forces to overcome the other; of the fireman to rescue orphans from the blaze, of the engineer in the cabin to escape the icy waters of the bay, or of the prospector to be saved from the deadly momentum of the bowlder. Without conflict there can be no suspense, and without suspense no story can be dramatic. But conflict may be a mental process as much as a physical one, and for this reason many a tale in which every character moves serenely is often so dramatic that it grips the soul.

Conflict is the beginning of suspense. It calls the sympathies into play. It fosters affection, prejudice, dislike, approval or disapproval. It makes the emotional tenseness we know as suspense, and this tenseness keeps interest pulsating at a high pitch until it culminates in the climax. As the characters come upon the scene, if they are brought vividly before the hearer as they move in life, they attract or repel; they awaken affection, dislike, or pity ; they arouse approval or disapproval, just as they do in life. This is why the story can achieve so marvelously in the spiritual life of the child. This is why, by its abundant use, we can lead him to approve or disapprove, as we would have him do.

As soon as the hero appears upon the scene, show conflict between him and some opposing force or character. But show it vividly and brightly tinged with what writers know as local color, not as a naked incident. This means that he who hears must see as he hears whether the action transpires in a glacial land, on some bare mountain or desert, or in a flowery meadow edged by the blue ripples of a summer sea. As* he visions each of the characters in its proper setting the interest begins to run high. Thereafter the holding of that interest and raising it toward the climax require only that one shall move forward in a straight line and avoid diverging into bypaths as the thread of the tale is carried to a logical conclusion.

To the young child there is a highly dramatic story in Mark lb. 13-17 provided the teacher who gives it has a well-developed sense of dramatic values and knows how to bring out all its color and beauty.

On the yellow coast of Judaea by the farther side of Jordan, when the troubled were questioning Jesus and finding solace for their troubles in his marvelous words of wisdom, mothers brought their children that he might touch them ; but the disciples rebuked and tried to send them away, because these adoring helpers believed he had a greater work to do.

Here enters a strong element of conflict in the desire of the parents to have their little ones blessed and kept, through the Master's touch, invulnerable to the blight of sin. And this element of conflict grows grippingly strong to the child as the twelve stand between the mothers and their desire. Suspense runs high as the little people hear and wonder, hoping they will not be sent away. And then comes a splendid climax in the moment when Jesus shows disapproval of the actions of the disciples and says, "Suffer little children to come unto me." But this lovely story, if recounted as a bare incident, if just the statement is made that one day some people brought their babies to Christ and he blessed them, will give children no conception of the tenderness and sweetness of the Man of Galilee. It will have no more gripping power and will make no deeper impression than to tell them that it rained last night and some little boys got their feet wet. In telling Bible stories, as in telling all perfectly constructed tales, the problem of the narrator lies in making the most of the dramatic situations in which they abound, and not detracting from their effectiveness by losing sight of the elements of conflict and suspense.

A sense of dramatic values seems to be born with some. To others it comes only through training and observation. But it can be cultivated, and some specific aids in securing suspense will be given in another chapter, under the heading, "The Story-Teller's Specific Preparation." Without a well-developed sense of dramatic values no one can be a successful story-teller; and without story-telling the Sunday-school teacher cannot do lastingly effective work, for the story is the corner stone in the cultural and religious life of the child.

Universality of the appeal of the story. — Human nature is much the same in all ages and regions. Men advanced upon the path of civilization forget the struggles of their primitive progenitors and lose sympathy for them. But the child of the most enlightened lives through every stage that characterized the childhood of the race. During his early years he is a wondering, reverent creature, craving the very same tales that fed his aboriginal ancestor when he was a houseless nomad, the wonder stories that fitted into his religious moods and portrayed omnipotence and spirituality in nature. So when he comes to Sunday school he is by instinct a worshipful being, and it rests with his teacher how long he is to remain so, whether the delicate tendrils already upspringing in the soul are nurtured into thrifty growths, or will die as frail plants die because of lack of sunshine and proper food elements in the soil.

Story for Study — Jacob's Ladder

Read the Bible story, Genesis 28. Read also the following version:

In the far-off lands of the East there was a place that men called "the country of the wells," and in that place there was a prince whose name was Jacob. He lived in a happy home with his father and mother and big, strong brother, and could think of nothing nicer than just being there with his own dear family. But one day his father said to him, "Arise, go to the house of thy mother's father, and take thee a wife of the daughters of thy mother's brother/'

Jacob knew that his father meant the Princess Rachel, for he had often heard of her sweet, beautiful face and gentle ways. She lived in "the country of the two rivers," a land many, many miles away from his loved home, and it meant that he must cross high hills and strange, lonely valleys before' he could come to it.

He did not want to go so far away. He wanted to stay with his people in the place that he knew and loved so much. But because he was a good son he did as his father bade him. So he left the fair, sweet country of the wells and set out to seek the princess.

All day long he traveled, across the fields where his father's sheep were browsing and blue and yellow wild flowers were like jewels in the grass. Then the path led up to the steep hills, over sharp stones and places where it was very hard to go. Very often he stopped and looked back for a sight of his home, until by and by, as the road curved over the hills, it was hidden in the distant valley, and he could not see even the smoke that curled up from its fires.

He grew lonely and homesick. He wished he might meet somebody who would travel along with him and bear him company. But no one came. So day after day he pushed forward alone, and at night he slept by the side of the road and dreamed of home.

One evening darkness came down very quickly. Jacob chose a spot for his bed and took a stone for his pillow. Then he wrapped his cloak about him and stretched out on the hard ground.

It grew very, very dark, and now and then a night bird called from the bushes around him. Its notes made him feel more lonely than ever, and it seemed that he never had seen a blacker night. He wondered if he would ever see his home again, it seemed so far away. He felt far away from every one, even from God.

Then suddenly the place around him grew bright and shining with light. He saw a stairway that stretched from earth to sky, and upon this stairway were angels passing up and down.

"How wonderful !" he thought. And then — more wonderful still — in a gleaming light beyond the ladder God stood, and Jacob heard his voice. "Behold, I am with thee/' the words came, "and will keep thee in all the places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land."

It was a dream, but a beautiful, wonderful dream, and when Jacob waked out of his sleep he no longer felt lonely and forsaken.

"Surely the Lord is in this place," he said, "and I knew it not."

He took the stone he had used for a pillow and poured oil upon it and he thought, "This will help me to remember the place where God taught me not to be afraid." Then he went on his journey and was happy, for he knew God was taking care of him day and night.

At last he came to the house of his mother's father in the "country of the two rivers," and there the Princess Rachel became his wife.

This story differs from the Bible narrative, but no unwarranted fictitious details are introduced. The hero comes upon the scene in his proper setting, a prince living in "the country of the wells." By supplying details that are implied the story is made as colorful for little people as is the Bible version to the scholar versed in the customs and lore of the Hebrew people and land.

An analysis of the story reveals the fact that this account of Jacob conforms to the requirements of a good story.

Does it arouse interest? Yes.

As soon as Jacob, the prince, and Rachel, the princess, are introduced the child wants to know about them.

Is it a series of connected scenes or pictures, each of which contributes something to a succeeding one, and to the final outcome of the tale? Yes. Six successive steps make up the plot, every one of which leads directly to the climax.

i. Jacob regretfully starts on his journey.

2. A feeling of loneliness and helplessness as night approaches.

3. Taking a rock for a pillow. Improvising a bed.

4. The dream and the comfort it brought.

5. Dawn and the proceeding on the journey in confidence.

6. Arrival in Padan-aram and marriage to Rachel. Has the story an emotional appeal ? Yes.

The picture of the man who loves his home and kindred but who is forced to leave them, and the feeling of loneliness and helplessness as night descends awakens sympathy.

Is it dramatic? Is there conflict? suspense?

Yes.

Jacob's feeling of helplessness, of being far from home, from God and from all protection is overcome by the vision of the ladder. A sensation of warmth, comfort, safety, and companionship supplants one of loneliness and fear.

Is there a climax? Does the thing happen one has hoped would or would not happen?

Yes.

At last he came to the house of his mother's father in the "country of the two rivers." And there the Princess Rachel became his wife.

Every other Bible story stands the test. The account of Elijah, 1 Kings 17; of Nehemiah, Nehemiah 1; of David and Jonathan, 1 Samuel 18, 19, 20; in fact, every tale in either the Old or New Testament conforms to the requirements of a well-constructed story. The Sunday school narrator is privileged to draw from the greatest storehouse of literature the world knows, and it should be her delight to make whatever preparation is necessary to enable her to present these gems to childhood so vividly that their full luster and beauty may be seen.

1. Why should story-telling be given a prominent place in the Sunday school?

2. What is the difference between a story and a chronological statement of events?

3. What constitutes a plot?

4. Are tense emotional experiences as awakened by the story of value to the child? Why?

5. What is the basis of dramatic suspense in a story?

6. Why do tales that grew among primitive peoples have an appeal to the child?

7. Why is the story ranked as one of the arts?

Read the account of Rehoboam, 2 Chronicles 10-11, to determine if it contains all the elements of a good story.

Chapter II The Story-teller's General Prepara- Tion

Need of broad preparation. — If through the medium of the story we hope to give the child ideals that will be strong enough to function in behavior, the teller must give to his narration the highest degree of artistic form, and therefore his preparation should be broad. By clear visioning of scenes and a ready flow of words with which to paint those scenes upon the canvas of the eye he must have mastery of every tale he undertakes to present. But he must have vastly more than this. He should know something of the evolution of literature if he is to understand literature in its relation to life. He should have some knowledge of the origin of races, customs, arts, and religions; and he should understand in a general way the laws of beauty and how to apply them to his work.

This may seem an exaggerated statement of needs, especially if one remembers that some of the greatest narrators the world has ever known were men and women of little education, and not infrequently they were wholly illiterate. A glance at the history of the Middle Ages reveals the fact that the strolling minstrel, the minnesinger and the troubadour could neither read nor write, yet they shaped national ideals and made and unmade kings. But how many men in those days were minstrels and tellers of tales? A survey of the population of Italy, southern France, Germany, and Ireland, where the story-telling arts reached their finest blossoming, and where lived and wrought those of the narrating brotherhood whose achievements gleam like the high lights of a picture, shows that the percentage was less than one ninetieth. These immortal but untaught teachers were men and women supremely gifted in the art of story-telling, as Goethe and Hugo and Boccaccio were gifted, and genius does instinctively what mediocre ability can accomplish only through arduous training and analytic study. Guy de Maupassant, Dickens, and Daudet never had courses in story-writing. Tintoretto untaught achieved a pinnacle of artistic greatness that has been the marvel of painters ever since he wrought with a magician's hand in Venice. And there is no record of Adrienne Lecouvreur being trained by any seventeenth-century Belasco. Their only masters were life and loneliness and sometimes a broken heart, as Schiller says. They painted, acted, or wrote as birds sing, so naturally that even had they not given their best effort to their work they would have achieved more than men ordinarily endowed, because of an overflow of artistic feeling that craved expression and an innate sense of proportion and the laws of beauty that amounted to a technique.

This is as true to-day as it was a century ago, or in the yellow noontide of the Middle Ages. Only among millions do we find a Barrie, a Lord Dunsany, a

Tagore, an Anatole France, or an Ibanez. But there are thousands of men and women who, with proper preparation, can achieve in a small way as story-tellers; who can leave an impress upon the souls of children whose lives they touch, even though their names are not embossed upon the record of the ages. And the more preparation these everyday folk give to their work, the more broadly they read and study, the richer will the background be; and only out of a rich background come that facility and fluency of expression which artistic rendition demands. It is of paramount importance that they study the laws of technique that have been deduced from the experience and performances of men and women of genius, for only through mastering these can anyone hope to come into the abandon of the artist. But above all let no Sunday-school teacher be discouraged by the thought that he is without talent for story-telling. It is written in the book of Matthew, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." These words of wisdom hold superbly true in story-telling, and anyone who loves childhood can learn to tell stories appealingly and convincingly to children.

Study the great stories. — The best beginning for this technical preparation is a study of some of the great stories in the field of general literature. With the Bible narratives the Sunday-school worker will deal continually, and ultimately the effort should be concentrated upon them. But to begin with a study of the creations of the great secular writers will help one to master the laws of story structure, and therefore this phase of preparation should not be overlooked. It will not only familiarize one with the principles of technique but will bring a finer appreciation of the perfect construction of Old- and New-Testament tales, upon which all the art of the ages has been unable to improve. Many of the pieces of literature in the general field are not suitable to give to children, but the narrator needs to know very much more than he tells. Consequently, it often happens that a tale that would have a far from salutary influence upon boys and girls because of their inability to catch its lesson stands as a model of what form in story-telling should be.