Educating by story-telling

CHAPTER FOUR
The Story Interests of Childhood (Continued)

C. HEROIC PERIOD

When the child leaves the imaginative period, he enters another realm of realism. The fairy world is no longer a place of enchantment to him. He is now in a condition corresponding to that of primitive man when he was not satisfied to sit by the tribal fire and listen to stories about creatures who personified the elements, but fared forth on the path of adventure, eager to know what lay beyond the lodge place of his people, feverish with desire to conquer and remove whatever obstructed his way. The barbaric, fighting instinct manifests itself, and in many children a destructive curiosity is apparent. They long to repeat the experiences of their ancestors in this same period. They want to live through nights of danger and days of daring, and since the juvenile court and probation officers hover Argus-eyed about them, ready to swoop down upon every lad who would go pirating or pathfinding, the nearest approach to the experience consists in listening to and in reading tales of adventure. This age is usually from about eight to twelve, although there are no tightly drawn lines of demarcation. Individual cases differ, and some children of ten are still delighted by fairy tales, while other lads of seven are well into the heroic period. Broadly speaking, however, this period begins about the age of eight.

There is no time in the child life during which the story-teller has a finer opportunity of sowing seeds that shall come into splendid fruition by and by than in the heroic period, and because parents and teachers do not realize this fact clearly enough, boys read stories whose tendency is to brutalize and lead them into trouble. It does not follow, because they are drawn as steel to steel to such literature, that the boys are depraved. They crave action, danger, daring. It is a cry of nature that cannot be silenced, and because the hunger is not satisfied in a wholesome way, they go where they can find the food they must have, for numerous doors are open to them.

Dozens of writers are doing pernicious work for the youth of the country by pouring forth a flood of adventure stories, perhaps not with malicious intent, but with the little knowledge that often brings dire results. Knowing the demand for the heroic, they write yarns whose only claim to recognition is a clever, spectacular plot. These books embody no ideals, and the aspirations they arouse had better be left to slumber. Sometimes, as a result of such reading, boys run away from home to fight Indians or turn pirate, and many a lad has begun a career of lawlessness ending in crime, who with a little direction might have been an individual of value to the world. Such cases are so common that they have come under the notice of almost every child worker, and the pity of it is that literature is rich in tales that satisfy the adventure craving, yet arouse high ideals and inspire to worth-while deeds. Instead of originating in the brain of some modern craftsman who is actuated by a desire for money-making, they grew out of the life of the race and perpetuate the noblest traditions of the race.

Human nature is much the same in all climes and in all ages. Until man reaches a very high state of enlightenment he is more thrilled by manifestations of physical bravery than by mental and moral courage, and he who possesses muscular strength is the hero in his eyes. A Hercules or Samson is mightier to him than a Savonarola facing persecution with sublime tenacity of purpose and dying steadfast to his ideal, because he can understand the brute strength of the one, while the spiritual fortitude of the other is beyond his comprehension. He is thrilled by action, physical action, and he craves and will have literature every page of which is colored by feats of prowess.

It is useless to try to substitute something else for children in this period. When we hunger for bread and meat, after-dinner mints will not satisfy, even though they be very delectable confections. This ravenous appetite of boys and girls must be satisfied, and if they are to grow into well-balanced men and women we must feed it with wholesome food instead of allowing them to roam unguided and eat of that which poisons.

There is no finer adventure tale in any literature than that of Robin Hood, none more satisfying to children in the early heroic period. This statement often brings a cry of remonstrance, and the objection is made that there is danger in portraying an outlaw as a hero, or in picturing the allurement of a brigandish career. But Robin Hood an outlaw? He lived in an age of injustice when might made right. The man of the people was but the chattel of a king, with no rights his lord was bound to respect. Bold Robin, in the depths of Sherwood Forest, devoted his life to redressing wrongs. He took from the oppressor and gave to the oppressed. He strove to stamp out injustice and tyranny, and his spirit is the foundation of the democracy that underlies every just government today. He was an outlaw, not because he was a criminal, but because he rebelled against the monstrous injustice of his age and strove to ameliorate the condition of the poor and downtrodden. In the time of Henry the Second he was hunted like a deer, but in the twentieth century he would be honored as a great reformer.

Robin’s sense of justice appeals to boys and girls, and his fearlessness and kindliness awaken their admiration. They respond sympathetically to the story from the opening chapter, when he enters the forest and Little John joins his band, through the closing one where the hero of the greenwood goes to his final rest. If the tale is told with emphasis upon the true spirit of Robin Hood instead of with a half apology, it will prove wholesome food for the children and will help to make them juster, kinder, and more democratic men and women.

The national epics are splendid sources of story material for children in the heroic period, especially those originating in Teutonic lands and those formalized among nations not yet in a high state of civilization. Their characters are elemental, and their incidents appeal to boys and girls. Some of the stories of King Arthur and his knights, of Beowulf, of Sigurd the Volsung, of Frithjof, of Pwyll, hero of the Welsh Mabinogion, as well as many from the Nibelungenlied, the Iliad, and the Odyssey, can also be used with excellent results. Naturally the tales of an elemental type should be chosen first rather than those that are more highly refined and poetic. It has been my experience that the Mabinogion is enjoyed before the Arthuriad. Boys, especially, delight in hearing of Pwyll, lord of the Seven Countries of Dyved, and the adventures that befell him as he hunted in the forests of his dominions. These stories are of very ancient origin and are simple, strong, and dramatic. They were sung by harpers (mabinogs) in the castle halls of Wales, and finally were gathered into the Mabinogion, which was done into English by Lady Charlotte Gest. The story-teller will find The Boy’s Mabinogion, by Sidney Lanier, an excellent handbook for this period, as it embodies the most desirable of this ancient Gaelic material, and is put into modern form by an artist.

Follow the Mabinogion with the less poetic of the King Arthur stories. The account of how Arthur won his sword and became king, of Percival and the Red Knight, and of Arthur fighting the giant mean more to the ten-year-old than does Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail. The Greek myths too should be drawn from during this period—not the highly poetic, finished tales of the Hellenes, but the elemental ones whose heroes are rugged characters that awaken child admiration. Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, and several other demigods vie for honors with King Arthur and Beowulf in the mind of the fourth-grade boy, and the story-teller should not fail to draw from the rich field of southern literature as well as from that of the north. But let her exercise care in selection and keep to the realm of heroism instead of entering that of romance. Such stories as “Cupid and Psyche,” “Pygmalion and Galatea,” and “Apollo and Daphne” mean little to boys and girls of ten, yet teachers and librarians often use them and wonder why their audiences respond with so little enthusiasm. There are those who contend that all the epical stories should be given in simplified form during this period, but why spoil the romantic, poetic ones which are so much more enjoyed a little later and so much better understood, when there are hundreds that can be given without pruning them to the heart? Certain investigations and statistics show that the telling of the highly refined Greek myths to boys and girls in the early heroic period gives an erroneous idea of Greek standards, and dulls an interest in mythology later on. The story-teller should bear this fact in mind, and remember that literature rich in symbolism and formulated among people refined to a degree of æstheticism is not the literature to give to adventure-craving children, no matter to what simple language it may be reduced.

Splendidly dramatic is the tale of Roland and Oliver, which every boy loves, of Ogier the Dane, and of some of the other heroes of the time of Charlemagne. Children listen spellbound to the account of the first meeting and disagreement of the two lads whose friendship makes such a sweet and colorful story, and of Charles the Great in council with his peers and knights, and delight in the swinging lines of the old ballad:

The story of Bayard is an admirable one for this period, as well as that of the Spanish hero, the Cid; and “St. George and the Dragon” is always a favorite.

I plead, too, that more of the narrator’s time be devoted to the telling of our own American epic of Hiawatha. The answer comes, “That is read in school.” To be sure it is, and one reason why it is read so badly and appreciated so little is that it was not given in story form first. The German child uses the Nibelungenlied as a classroom text, but before he studies the epic he knows its tales. Gunther, Hagen, Siegfried, and Dankwart are familiar characters to him, and consequently he enjoys the poem.

The same principle applies to Hiawatha. If boys and girls are acquainted with Hiawatha himself, if they know Nokomis and Chibiabos and Kwasind and Iagoo before they are given the poem to study, it means something to them that it cannot mean otherwise. Perhaps one reason why Longfellow’s masterpiece has been so little used by story-tellers is that the work of putting it into story form is a task with which the non-professional is unable to cope. Now, however, an excellent retold work is on the market—Winston’s Story of Hiawatha—which makes it possible for every narrator to have her children know the American epic as well as German young people know the Nibelungenlied.

In considering stories for the heroic period of childhood, let us not forget the biographical and historical narratives that fulfill every requirement of hero tales. Boys and girls love the epical stories because they are true in spirit, but they love also those that are true in fact. It is a mistake to think that biography is dull and uninteresting to them, because stories of the boyhood of great men, great rulers, great discoverers and path-finders, great lawgivers, painters, musicians, and writers, are hero tales of the highest type. Many of them have been told admirably for young people, and the narrator does no more valuable work than when he uses them freely. Sir Walter Raleigh, De Soto, Coronado, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Garibaldi, Solyman the Magnificent, Robert the Bruce, Kosciusko, William Wallace, William Tell, and dozens of others are as fascinating as Beowulf or Hercules and have an influence even more powerful, because children know that these heroes have actually lived. Never mind what some authorities say about the man of Switzerland being a mythical personage. Let American young people know him as those of the Alpine land know him, as the defender of his ancient rights and native mountains, the embodiment of the spirit of Helvetia. They will be finer men and women because of it, and that, more than anything else, concerns the story-teller.

Then, too, there are history tales, hundreds of them, from every age and every land. There are brave deeds done by children that every child should know. The little girl on the St. Lawrence, holding the blockhouse of Vercheres against the Iroquois, the boy whose courage and presence of mind saved Lucerne, the event through which William of Orange came to be known as William the Silent, and many other similar narratives are intensely interesting to boys and girls. Some of the Old Testament tales belong in this period; for a detailed account of them see Chapter Twelve, on “Bible Stories.”

At this age, when the adventure spirit runs high, when pathfinding and Indian fighting are desired above all other things, how are we to keep boys and girls from running away to lead such lives themselves? One way is by letting them live the lives of the heroes who thrill them—in other words, by dramatizing. It is the hunger for experience that causes boys to turn vagabond, and juvenile-court records show that many of the ten- and twelve-year-olds who are lured by the call of adventure come from homes that offer nothing to feed the adventure craving, whereas those who have some of the desired experiences at home are less likely to start out seeking them. It is a wise mother who encourages her boys to make pirate caves in their own back yards, to be youthful Crusoes, Kit Carsons, Daniel Boones, and Robin Hoods for a Saturday morning, and the school or public playground that provides for much out-of-door acting is doing something that will prevent many evils. In some children this desire is so strong that it is almost a fever, and if not satisfied in a wholesome manner is likely to lead to lamentable ends. I remember how much it meant to me in my own childhood, when I burned to lead the lives of some of the heroes of whom I had read or heard, to be permitted to participate in the Indian warfare of the neighborhood boys and be the maiden who was carried away into captivity. It was such a blissful experience that I joyfully contributed my small allowance to buy red ink for war paint and to help costume the braves, and when a Sioux band came to town, I ecstatically trudged after the wagon and lived for a day in a realm far removed from my accustomed one. The boys had feeling to even a greater degree, and who knows but that without this Indian play some of them might have gone forth in search of adventure and become criminals, whereas every one is now a law-abiding, useful citizen.

Sources of Story Material for the Heroic Period

CHAPTER FIVE
The Story Interests of Childhood (Continued)

D. ROMANTIC PERIOD

At about the age of twelve or thirteen the child’s rougher instincts begin to soften. Romance and sentiment develop. He becomes particular about his appearance. It is less of a task than formerly to get the boy to wash his face and hands, and he has not the antipathy toward civilized attire that he had in the days when Robinson Crusoe was the hero. Instead, he manifests a liking for being dressed according to prevailing modes, sometimes changing so suddenly from a dirty cave dweller into a dandy that it is like the metamorphosis from grub to butterfly. He craves socks and ties of bright colors and clothes that attract attention. If fashion prescribes peg-topped or straight, spare trousers, he wants them extremely wide or extremely narrow, and is willing to have his chin sawed unmercifully if high collars are the vogue, not because of a fit of hysteria, but because he has entered the period when sex awakens. He is becoming interested in the girls and wishes to be dressed in a manner that will cause them to be interested in him; and very often his taste for literature changes as completely as his personal habits. He desires stories of a higher type of heroism than those he craved in an earlier period, stories of romance and chivalry, and now is the time to give him the epic in its entirety, because of the deep racial emotions therein expressed.

He has had many of the adventure tales from the epics during the earlier period. Now he is ready for those tinged with romance, those pervaded by a spirit of fiery idealism in which knights risk limb and life in loyalty to principle, for fealty to king, or in defense of some fair lady. Percival seeking the Grail is a finer hero to him than Percival battling with the Red Knight, and the vow of the men of the Round Table means something because he can understand it. In a vague, indefinite way romance is touching his own life, and his noblest emotions are awakened by the noble words:

Boys and girls in the heroic period enjoyed only the Arthurian stories that glorify physical bravery, those of jousting and conflict into which women do not enter. But now they delight in such tales as those of Geraint and Enid, of Launcelot and Elaine, and some of the adventures of Tristram.

Here a word of caution is necessary. Like the Old Testament stories, these romantic tales will arouse the noblest emotions and highest ideals if given with wisdom, but if told thoughtlessly may create an almost morbid desire for the vulgar. Therefore the non-professional narrator should use for his work some retold version of the King Arthur tales instead of adapting from Le Morte d’Arthur, because there is much in the original that should be eliminated in presenting it to those in the adolescent period. The Pyle or Radford editions are excellent, likewise The Boy’s King Arthur, by Sidney Lanier, each of which keeps the spirit of the poem, but omits everything objectionable.

The story of King Arthur, embracing as it does the Grail legend, should be followed by the German tale of “Parsifal,”—not the Wagner opera version, but the original medieval legend, “The Knightly Song of Songs” of Wolfram von Eschenbach. This has been retold beautifully by Anna Alice Chapin in The Story of Parsifal, a book with which every child in the romantic period should be familiar. Miss Guerber, in her Legends of the Middle Ages, relates the tale of Titurel and the Holy Grail, which will be helpful to the narrator because of the light it throws on the origin of the legend. But for a telling version there is none equal to that of Miss Chapin, none in which the lofty chivalric spirit of the medieval poem is portrayed so faithfully.

The romantic portion of all the national epics, as well as that of Le Morte d’Arthur, is excellent material for the story-teller in the early adolescent period. The Nibelungenlied, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and parts of Jerusalem Delivered feed boys and girls in the early teens as pure adventure stories fed them a year or two before. And if the narrator would have his young listeners enjoy the epical tales to the uttermost, let him quote freely from the epic itself as he tells them. During this age, when romance and sentiment run high and life is beheld through a rainbow-hued glamour, poetry is a serious and beautiful thing. The frequent interpolation of it into a story heightens the pleasure in that story, and young people listen with the gleaming eyes of intense feeling to words like these of Siegfried:

Moreover, young people should understand that the epics were first given to the race in poetic form, and in leading them to that knowledge we can lead them also to an appreciation of the majestic, sweeping measures of the Iliad or Odyssey or Nibelungenlied, which is in itself worth thought and labor on the part of the story-teller.

The Langobardian myths, Dietrich von Bern, the story of Gudrun, of Charlemagne and Frastrada and Huon of Bordeaux, are intensely interesting in this period. Joan of Arc never fails to charm, while tales of the minnesingers, the troubadours, and the Crusaders open gates into lands of enchantment.

Oh, the romance in the lives of these medieval wanderers! Walther von der Vogelweide, too poor to buy him a coat, yet swaying the thought of the German lands; Bernard of Ventadour, among the flaming roses of Provence, making music at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine; Richard Cœur de Lion, riding with a singing heart toward Palestine; De Coucy, Frederick Barbarossa, and scores of others who lived and achieved in that distant, colorful time! Their lives are gleaming pages in the history of their age, and their stories are glorious ones to give to boys and girls who crave the romantic.

Wonderful, too, is the account of the Children’s Crusade, of Stephen, a happy shepherd on the hills of Cloyes, and that other lad of Cologne, who, fired with desire to restore to the Christian world places the Moslem had defiled, sailed away with their followers to shipwreck and slavery. In connection with this tale the children should hear, if possible, some of the music from Gabriel Pierne’s great cantata, The Children’s Crusade. It will give them a clearer, more vivid idea of the preaching of the boy apostle, of the gathering of the company, of the pilgrimage along the Rhine and Seine, of their rejoicing upon reaching the port of Marseilles, and of the light of noble purpose that glorified their eyes as they went singing to the ships. Perhaps historians have proved the account of this crusade to be just a myth. Tell it anyway, for whether it be fact or fiction the tale is too lovely for young folk to miss.

There is another type of biographical story, that of the man and woman of moral courage whose life was not so chromatically picturesque as that of him who fought the Saracens or sang in old Provence, but nevertheless thrills, fascinates, and influences. Florence Nightingale is a good example. Beautiful, the daughter of rich and distinguished parents, she might have reigned a social queen in England; yet she spent her young womanhood studying how to alleviate human suffering, toiling under the burning sun of the East, battling with disease at the risk of health and life, and well deserving the title given her by those she comforted, “The Angel of the Crimea.” I have seen girls of sixteen listen with tears in their eyes to the story of this noble Englishwoman, and have watched the throats of boys throb and pulsate upon hearing the account of the British Army and Navy banquet at which the question was asked, “Who, of all the workers in the Crimea, will be remembered longest?” and every voice replied in refrain, “Florence Nightingale!” Several years ago a questionnaire, distributed at a convention of nurses, revealed the fact that ten per cent of those there had been influenced toward their life career by the story of this great English nurse. Yet there are dubious souls who wonder if story-telling pays! If the narrator can have only a few books from which to draw material for the romantic period, Laura E. Richards’ Life of Florence Nightingale ought to be one of the number. It is sympathetically and beautifully told, an artist’s tribute to an immortal woman.

Workers with youths in the adolescent period are brought face to face with one of the gravest problems educators have to solve. What is to be done about lovesick boys and girls, those in whom the elemental passions have awakened yet who have not the judgment and self-control that age and experience bring? How are we to keep them, in their first emotional upheaval, from losing all sense of proportion and from pursuing a course that may lead to disaster? The freedom given in these days of coeducation, and the unrestricted circulation of novels and stories dealing with the relations of the sexes, which may be worthy creations from the standpoint of art, but which distort the ideas of unformed youth, make possible a condition that often appalls parents and high-school teachers and sets them to wondering how to meet it.

Ellen Key suggests a remedy. In this period when the world-old emotions are first aroused, she advocates the use of love stories that are pure in tone and high in ideal. We cannot change human nature and keep the boy of sixteen from being drawn as if by a magnet to the maid who is lovely in his eyes, but we can give him an ideal that will make his feeling an elevating thing instead of a debasing one. We can put into the heart of the girl a poetry and idealism that will keep her worthy of the prince, and we can do it through literature. Instead of leaving her free to roam unguided and read whatever falls into her hand, or of sitting like a board of censors beside her and goading her toward the forbidden, which always allures, we can lead her to delightful, wholesome stories, of which there are a goodly number. This does not mean confining her to writers of several generations ago. Present-day youths know that almost every one reads current books, and they intend to have them, too. Therefore let the story-teller use the best of the new, even as he uses the best of the old. Let him refer frequently to it and tell enough of it to awaken such an interest that it will be read. A good plan is for the teacher of English to devote a few minutes each week to the discussion of some recent book or books, and to give lists of those that boys and girls will enjoy. In public libraries slips should be posted, upon which are named the most desirable of recent publications, and problem novels should be excluded from shelves to which the public has access. Thus our adolescent children may be led to glean from the best of the new. But meanwhile let us not neglect the old.

One of the lovely works with which to familiarize high-school pupils is Ekkehard, by Joseph Victor von Scheffel, which, aside from its value as a historical novel, is one of the noblest love stories ever written. It is a charming picture of life in the tenth century, when the Hunnic hordes swept like a devastating flame into the peaceful Bodensee region. Hadwig, proud duchess of Suabia, Ekkehard, the dreaming, handsome monk who goes from the monastery of St. Gall to become Latin instructor at Castle Hohentwiel and learns far more than he teaches, Praxedis, the winsome Greek maid, Hadumoth the goose girl, and the goat boy Audifax, all are fascinating, appealing characters. From beginning to end the book is intensely interesting, and as Nathan Haskell Dole says, “full of undying beauty.”

Another charming work of a German writer is Moni the Goat Boy, by Johanna Spyri. The novels of Eugénie Marlitt are wholesome and well written, and give vivid pictures of life in the smaller courts of Europe. Those of Louisa Mühlbach portray in a remarkable manner the lives of some of the notable figures of history, and the intimate glimpses they give of such characters as Frederick the Great, Schiller, Goethe, Marie Antoinette, and Maria Theresa, with their reflection of the color and ceremony of a bygone day, cause them to mean in this period what adventure tales mean to boys and girls of ten.

In drawing from Germany, let us not forget Georg Ebers, who lifts the cloud of mystery that veils old Egypt and permits us to share the romance, the loves, the joys and sorrows of men and women of the Pharaohs’ time. His works are not dull inscriptions gathered from sepulchers and mummies, but moving pictures of living, breathing men and women, filmed by the genius of a master; and the triumphs of the Princess Bent-Anat, the sufferings of the captive Uarda, and the spectacular victory of the royal charioteer are so real that they seem to be in the here and now instead of in the early morning of the world.

From France we may glean without limit. Georges Ohnet, Jacques Vincent, Ludovic Halévy, and dozens of other writers have produced works that are not only a part of the education of every one who aspires to become a cultured man or woman, but are as fascinating as fairy tales to a child. Then there is the great treasure house of English and American literature, as rich in priceless things of pen and brain as the gallery of the Vatican is rich in paintings and sculpture. Boys and girls will not draw from this wealth unguided, because they do not know where it is stored. But if we give them frequent glimpses of its brightness, if we half open the door of the repository and let them peep inside, they will follow, seeking it, as the miner follows the half-revealed ore vein, or as Ortnit of old pursued the Fata Morgana. They need not drift into pools that breed disease, when by enough story-telling to awaken their interest in the beautiful and fine they may sail into open streams where the water is clear, and where there are no submerged reefs to wreck their fragile crafts.

Sources of Story Material for the Romantic Period

CHAPTER SIX
Building the Story

Story-telling is a creative art, and therefore a knowledge of underlying principles is as indispensable to the narrator as to the sculptor or painter. Without this knowledge he cannot hope to adapt material to his needs, but must be limited in his choice to what is already in form to give to children; with it he can avail himself of many opportunities to bring to his charges treasures of which they could know nothing but for his ability to dig them from the profound tomes in which they are hidden, polish and clarify them, and put them in a setting within the understanding of the child. For this reason a course in story-writing is a part of the training of the professional story-teller, and while the mother or teacher cannot make such extensive preparation, she may to advantage master and apply a few cardinal principles of construction.

The beginning of the oral story should never be an introduction, because from the first word the child expects something to happen, and if nothing does happen his attention scatters and interest is lost. Therefore the narrator must bring his actors on the stage and get them to work at once; he must not let them stand around waiting while he gives a detailed description of their hair and eyes and of the clothes they wear, but must have them do something. It is often necessary to make some explanatory remarks in the beginning, but it should be done in such a way that the hearer has no time to wonder when the story is going to begin. For instance, if your tale is about a boy in Holland, do not delay bringing the boy in while you tell about the country. Let him enter at the beginning, and then, by a sentence here and a clause or phrase there, give the setting with the action. The story must bristle with human interest; for while the child knows nothing about the meaning of that term, he nevertheless demands that something happen, and if nothing does happen you lose his attention. The written story may depend for its charm upon character drawing and local color, but the oral story demands plot, and if this plot is badly hung together the story fails in its aim, for it does not make a deep impression.

The narrative style is better adapted to beginning the oral story than dialogue, because it is more easily handled by the novice. Of course the professional story-teller is not restricted to one field, and genius is privileged to range at large and ignore rules with no dire results. But it is safe for the amateur to keep to the narrative style. In the depths of dialogue, his little craft may founder, but the much-loved words “Once upon a time” or “Long, long ago” arrest the attention immediately, even though the teller be not an artist; and having made a good beginning, he is reasonably sure of holding his hearers to the end. On the other hand, if he does not get them at the start, his story-telling time is apt to end in failure.

There are no set phrases or clauses with which one must begin a story, and it would be a mistake to say that dialogue can never be used safely in opening the oral story, for the professional often uses it with fine effect; but it is easier and safer for the amateur to use the narrative beginning, and introduce dialogue as the plot develops.

Dr. Berg Esenwein, whose excellent work, Writing the Short Story, will be of value to the story-teller as well as to the story-writer, lays down these rules:

“Do not strike one note in the beginning and another in the body of the story.

“Do not touch anything that is not a live wire leading direct to the heart of the story.

“Do not describe where you can suggest.”

An examination of some of the perfect stories of the world shows that these rules hold good in every case. The tales of Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, and Bechstein are flawless in construction, and each plunges directly into the thread of the story. Take, for instance, “The Three Tasks” of Grimm:

“The Pea Blossom,” of Hans Christian Andersen:

“Red Riding Hood,” as written by Perrault, begins thus:

“The Twin Brothers” by Grimm:

It is the same in Ruskin’s “King of the Golden River,” in Robert Southey’s “Three Bears,” in all the tales of De Maupassant that are suitable for telling, and in those of Alphonse Daudet. Note the beginning of Daudet’s “Last Lesson”:

Every one of these stories begins with narrative, and every one is a perfect tale for telling.

Next in consideration comes the body of the story, which our rhetoric teachers taught us is a succession of events moving toward the climax. Until the climax is reached the oral story must be full of suspense. In other words, the hearer must be kept guessing about what is going to happen. The child does not care about a story in which he sees the end. He does enjoy hearing the same story told over and over again if it thrilled him at the first telling, because he likes to re-experience that thrill. But if a new tale holds no suspense, it falls flat. Stevenson says: “The one rule is to be infinitely various—to interest, to disappoint, to surprise, yet still to gratify. To be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, yet still to give the effect of an ingenious neatness.” In other words, the succession of events must follow one another in a regular sequence, and each must contribute something to the one following it.

As a rather homely illustration of the meaning of this, we may say that plot centers around a hole, and in a well-constructed story the steps by which the hero gets into the hole are traced, and then those by which he gets out. The getting out is the climax or, as Dr. Barrett says, “the apex of interest and emotion.” In other words, it is the top of a ladder, and the story must move in an unbroken line toward that topmost rung. If it does not do this, if the thread of the tale is broken to interpolate something that should have been told in the beginning, the narrator loses his audience.

The climax must be a surprise to the child. This holds good in all the great oral stories. Take as an example “The Ugly Duckling”: