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:
1. THE PERIOD OF BABYHOOD
This period is from birth to three years. The story interest begins with lullabies, rhymes, and jingles. Every thoughtful mother must notice that even before the little one can speak it responds to rhymes repeated over and over. Half of the baby’s pleasure is in the frequent hearing of a familiar strain. The baby enjoys also, largely for rhythm’s sake, the shortest and simplest stories with refrains and repetitions; also cumulative stories like the “Three Bears,” “This Little Pig Went to Market,” “The House that Jack Built,” and many others to be found in Mother Goose, Æsop, Grimms, and Jacobs. Mothers should begin singing and repeating rhymes, rhythms, and nursery ditties from the child’s very earliest days. The child’s delight in rhyme and rhythm will be satisfied, the ear will be trained to listen, the power of concentration will be cultivated, and, best of all, a preparation for a love of poetry, a most valuable asset in education and in life, will be begun. A keen interest and enjoyment in rhythm is found in almost every normal infant. It is the rudiment or germ of a sense of balance and harmony, and as such should be carefully nurtured. The Greeks laid great stress on this sense of harmony through music and poetry.
2. THE PERIOD OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
This period is from three to six years. It begins in an interest in live things, in domestic animals, and later in flowers, wind, rain, stars, and other expressions of nature. The child now finds delight in picture-books, short stories of animals, birds, and flowers. When a little older he enjoys fables, short fairy stories, and folk and wonder-tales, short moral stories and imaginative stories of home, play, and humor. Historic tales of the nation and Bible stories, well adapted and simplified in language, will prove of the greatest interest to children of this early period. No hard and fast lines can be drawn in ages. Allowance must always be made for temperament, disposition, heredity, and family environment. I have found little children, under three years of age, reproducing to me, without having previously seen me, or hearing them from me, several of the fairy stories and fables in this volume; and I have found boys and girls nine and ten years old still enjoying them. But with the average child such short fairy and folk-tales are keenly enjoyed between the ages of three and six years.
3. THE PERIOD OF LATER CHILDHOOD
This period is from six to nine years. It differs from the preceding period only in the fact that its normal interests are wider, its vocabulary larger, and its whole outlook enlarged by reason of attendance upon the public school. Fairies and Santa Claus are naturally the favorite characters of children from three to six, but as they pass out of early childhood they discern that “the cow did not jump over the moon,” and that Santa Claus is, as one of my little friends expressed it, “only the spirit of love.” The child then wants true stories. He is apt to inquire earnestly, “Is it true?” or his request may bluntly be, “Tell me a true story.” This is the period for repeating in larger and more descriptive form the grand old Bible stories that children of this age love so much. It is the time for the realistic and historic tales of the nation that kindle imagination and patriotism. It is the time for the lives of the pioneers, explorers, or missionaries like Columbus, Capt. John Smith, Washington, Lincoln, and Livingstone. This is the golden period of such stories from the Bible (especially the Old Testament), from general history and from national history, as are given in this volume.
4. THE PERIOD OF BOYHOOD AND GIRLHOOD
This stage, from nine to twelve, is possibly the most impressionable period of life. It is not a time of marked internal changes, but one in which the external, social, and regulative influences are very prominent. Life is unique. The boy and girl are unlike the children that were, or the youth and maiden that will be. The transition from childhood to boyhood and girlhood comes very imperceptibly. But the average child enters it when he begins to read easily and naturally; and this ability may well mark the change. When a boy or girl has this new power to understand and enjoy books, life acquires a new range. The whole wide world of literature lies open. Life begins to be full of meaning. These plastic years are the habit-forming period. As the twig is bent the tree will be inclined. A pebble may turn the stream of life. It is the great memory period. It is the golden age to mold character after the Pattern in the Gospels, if the work is done naturally. Give the boy and girl realistic stories—those from the Old Testament, and the Gospels, and Acts; those from the history of all nations, and from our own national life. Give the choicest idealistic stories—those legends, strong fables, romances, tales of chivalry, and poetic interpretations of ethical truth, such as “Favorites,” in Chapter IV of this volume; Ruskin’s “King of the Golden River”; Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face”; and “The Story of Midas,” which so strongly appeal to this age. In this pre-adolescent, this habit-forming and golden-memory period, imagination, curiosity, action, impressionableness, trust, loyalty, and many other instincts of child-nature are all present ready to combine with every efficient element of environment, education, example, and experience to build up the foundation-stones of a wholesome character and useful life. Feed the minds of these growing boys and girls on the great Bible stories, the great classic, realistic, and idealistic stories of the world, such as are found in this volume, or suggested by them, and your young men and women will not care for trashy stories as they cross the bridge of the teens.
5. THE PERIOD OF EARLY YOUTH
This period is from twelve or thirteen to seventeen or eighteen. This adolescent period is the time of marked changes no less in mind than in body. Like the former period, it is critical and determinative. Self-consciousness, memory, honor, heroism, idealism, moodiness, partisanship, are among the prominent characteristics. Fairy tales do not interest. Stories of romance, heroism, and adventure make the strongest appeal. Stories of egoism, triumph over difficulties, self-mastery, loyalty to friends, are most keenly enjoyed. Stories of altruism come later, in the next period. If they have not been given in the previous period, the great romances of the world should come early in this stage—Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”; Virgil’s “Æneid”; the stories of King Arthur and the Round Table; the stories of “Beowulf” and “Siegfried”; the legends of the red Indian “Hiawatha,” and the great romances from the story-books of the world. The epics, hero tales, romances, and great purpose-stories of the Old Testament, as well as the scenes of the New Testament, find a ready response in every normal youth’s heart, and should be given at this period. In addition to these, stories from history, adventure, modern biography, missionary life, well written or well told, will interest and impress the character of all those older boys and girls who are so fortunate as to have the mirror of life held up to them in this way as an aid to them in the realization of those highest and best instincts and impulses which are so naturally and abundantly surging within their breasts during these critical early adolescent years.
6. THE PERIOD OF LATER YOUTH—YOUNG PEOPLE
This period is from seventeen to twenty-one or twenty-five. It is the period of altruism, love, and vocation. The period of early adolescence is egoistic; this period is ego-social, and strongly altruistic. This change in the unfolding nature of youth opens the interest to stories of self-sacrifice, heroic service and love even for enemies. These stories could not be appreciated in so keen a way before. This altruistic interest normally awakens several years earlier in girls than in boys. (See Altruistic Stories, page 33.) At the beginning of this period, and sometimes a little before, a natural interest in romantic love leads to the keen enjoyment of such stories. Love is so important and normal a factor in human life that such interest ought never to be suppressed, but it should always be directed by the most tactful and sympathetic guidance in the selection of such love stories as are referred to on page 33 of this volume.
Another normal interest of this period is that of vocation, choosing one’s life-calling. If the young man or young woman has not already started to work to support himself, the question of his life-work begins to press hard for an answer. And the ideals that shall shape the choice or spirit of that life-work are already being formed. This is the great time of appeal of such vocational stories as are indicated on page 34.