A Study of Fairy Tales Part 10

(1) From _The Prince who wanted a real Princess_ ... to _his return home_.

(2) From _The storm, one dark evening_ ... to _what the old Queen thought_.

(3) From _What the Queen did next morning_ ... to _the end of the story_.

In the a.n.a.lysis of the story into parts, telling exactly what happened gave the framework of the story, gave its basis of meaning. Telling it in three steps gave a strong sense of sequence and a vivid conception of climax.--If the division into parts for re-telling corresponds with the natural divisions of the plot into its main episodes, this telling in steps impresses the structure of the tale and is in harmony with the real literary mastery of the story.--The re-telling of each part drew attention to the visualization of that part. Each hesitation on behalf of a student telling a part, led the cla.s.s to fill in the details for themselves, and impressed the remembrance of the exact words of the author. This resulted in the mastery of each part through a visualization of it. Hand in hand with the visualization came the feeling aroused by the realization. This was more easily mastered because changes of feeling were noticeable in pa.s.sing from one part of the story to another.

After a mastery of the structure of the story through a.n.a.lysis, after a mastery of the thought, imagination, and feeling of the story, after a mastery of the form, and the exact words of the author in the description of details embodied in that form, the story is possessed as the teller's own, ready to be given, not only to bestow pleasure, as in this case, but often to transmit a message of worth and to preserve a cla.s.sic form.

_The Foolish Timid Rabbit_, a Jataka tale, might be prepared for telling by this same re-creative method of story-telling. It must be remembered--and because of its importance it will bear repet.i.tion,--that the separation of the story-structure into parts for separate telling should always be in harmony with the divisions of the plot so that there may be no departure from the author's original mode of thinking, and no break in the natural movement of sequence. A separation of the tale into parts for re-telling would result in the following a.n.a.lysis:--

(1) _Rabbit asleep under a palm tree_ ... to _his meeting hundreds of Rabbits_.

(2) _Rabbits met a Deer_ ... to _when the Elephant joined them_.

(3) _Lion saw the animals running_ ... to _when he came to the Rabbit who first had said the earth was all breaking up_.

(4) _Lion asked the Foolish Rabbit, 'Is it true the earth is all breaking up_,' ... to _end of the story, 'And they all stopped running_.'

After the re-telling of these parts, each part should be filled in with the exact details so that in the final re-telling practically the whole tale is reproduced. This is a very good tale to tell by this method because the theme is attractive, the plot is simple, the sequence a very evident movement, the characters distinctive, the setting pleasing and rather prominent, and the details sufficiently few and separate to be grasped completely. The final re-telling therefore may be accomplished readily as a perfected result of this method of telling a tale.

During the telling, the charm here is in preserving the typical bits of dialogue, giving to the Lion's words that force and strength and sagacity which rank him the King of the Beasts. One must feel clearly the message and make this message enter into every part of the telling: That the Lion showed his superior wisdom by making a stand and asking for facts, by accepting only what he tested; while the Rabbit showed his credulity by foolishly accepting what he heard without testing it.

Adaptation of the fairy tale. Sometimes, in telling a story one cannot tell it exactly as it is. This may be the case when the story is too long for a purpose, or if it contains matter which had better be omitted, or if it needs to be amplified. In any case one must follow these general rules:--

(1) Preserve the essential story from a single point of view.

(2) Preserve a clear sequence with a distinct climax.

(3) Preserve a simplicity of plot and simple language.

In shortening a long story one may:

(1) Eliminate secondary themes.

(2) Eliminate extra personages.

(3) Eliminate pa.s.sages of description.

(4) Eliminate irrelevant events.

It has been the practice to adapt such stories as Andersen's _Ugly Duckling_ and Ruskin's _King of the Golden River_. In the _King of the Golden River_ the description of Treasure Valley could be condensed into a few sentences and the character of South West Wind omitted; and in _The Ugly Duckling_, pa.s.sages of description and bits of philosophy might be left out. But there is no reason why literature in the elementary school should be treated with mutilation. These stories are not suited to the kindergarten or first grade and may be reserved for the third and fourth grades where they may be used and enjoyed by the children as they are. Andersen's _Thumbelina_ might be adapted for kindergarten children because it is suitable for them yet it is very long. It could easily be a.n.a.lyzed into its leading episodes, each episode making a complete tale, and one or more episodes be told at one time. This would have the added attraction for the child of having one day's story follow naturally the preceding story. Adapted thus, the episodes would be:--

(1) Thumbelina in her Cradle.

(2) Thumbelina and the Toad.

(3) Thumbelina and the Fishes.

(4) Thumbelina and the c.o.c.kchafer in the tree.

(5) Thumbelina and the Field-Mouse.

(6) Thumbelina and the Mole.

(7) Thumbelina and the Swallow.

(8) Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers.

Andersen's _Snow Man_ as adapted for the kindergarten would require the episode of the lover omitted. It is irrelevant, not essential to the story, and is an ill.u.s.tration of the sentimental, which must be omitted when we use Andersen. To omit this episode one would cut out from "'That is wonderfully beautiful,' said a young girl," to the end of "'Why, they belong to the Master,' retorted the Yard Dog."

III. THE RETURN FROM THE CHILD[2]

The telling of the fairy tale is one phase of the teacher's art. And it is maintained that fairy tales are one portion of subject-matter suited to accomplish the highest greatness of the teaching art. For teaching is an art, an art of giving suggestions, of bearing influences, of securing adjustments, an art of knowing the best and of making it known. The material the artist works upon is the living child. The medium the artist uses is subject-matter. In the process the artist must ask, "What new connections or a.s.sociations am I establis.h.i.+ng in the child?" "To what power of curiosity and of problem-solving do these connections and a.s.sociations lead?" The ideal which guides the teacher is the child's best self as she can interpret him. This ideal will be higher and larger than the child himself can know. In the manipulation of subject-matter, through the practical application of principles, the artist aims to have the child awake, inquire, plan, and act, so that under her influences he grows by what he thinks, by what he feels, by what he chooses, and by what he achieves.

Teaching will be good art when the child's growth is a perfect fit to the uses of his life, when subject-matter brings to him influences he needs and can use. Teaching will be good art when it breaks up old habits, starts new ones, strengthens good traits, and weakens bad ones; when it gives a new att.i.tude of cheerfulness in life or of thoughtfulness for others or of reason in all things. It will be good art when under it the child wants to do something and learns _how_ to do it. Teaching will be great art when under it the child continually attains self-activity, self-development, and self-consciousness, when he continually grows so that he may finally contribute his utmost portion to the highest evolution of the race. Teaching will be great art when it touches the emotions of the child,--when history calls forth a warm indignation against wrong, when mathematics strengthens a n.o.ble love of truth or literature creates a strong satisfaction in justice. This is the poetry of teaching, because mere subject-matter becomes a criticism of life. Teaching will be great art when you, the teacher, through the humble means of your presentation of subject-matter, furnish the child at the same time with ideas, perceptions, and opinions which are your personal criticism of life.

Teaching will be great art when you, the teacher, have worked up into your own character a portion of life which is of value, so that the child coming in touch with you knows an influence more powerful than anything you can do or say. Teaching will then awaken in the child a social relation of abiding confidence, of secure trust, of faith unshakable. And this relation will then create for the teacher the obligation to keep this trust inviolable, to practice daily, _n.o.blesse oblige_. Teaching will be great art when with the subject-matter the artist gives love, a great universal kindness that thinks not of itself but, being no respecter of persons, looks upon each child in the light of that child's own best realization. This penetrating sympathy, this great understanding, will call forth from the child an answering love, which grows daily into a larger humanity of soul until the child, in time too, comes to have a universal sympathy. This is the true greatness of teaching. This it is which brings the child into harmony with the Divine love which speaks in all G.o.d's handiwork and brings him into that unity with G.o.d which is the mystery of Froebel's teaching.

During the story-telling one must ask, "In all this what is the part the child has to play?" In the telling the teacher has aimed to give what there is in the tale. The child's part is to receive what there is in the tale, the emotion, the imagination, the truth, and the form embodied in the tale. The content of feeling, of portrayal, of truth, and of language he receives, he will in some way transmit before the school day is ended, even if in forms obscure and hidden. Long years afterwards, he may exhibit this same emotion, imagination, truth and form, in deeds that proclaim loudly the return from his fairy tales.

However, if the child is being surrounded by pragmatic influences through his teachers he will soon become aware that his feelings are useless unless he does something because of them; that what he sees is worthless unless he sees to some purpose; that it is somewhat fruitless to know the truth and not use it; and if words have in their form expressed the life of the tale, he is more dead than words not to express the life that teems within his own soul. The little child grows gradually into the responsibility for action, for expression, into a consciousness of purpose and a knowledge of his own problems.

But each opportunity he is given to announce his own initiative breaks down the inhibition of inaction and aids him to become a free achieving spirit. As the child listens to the tale he is a thinking human creature; but in the return which he makes to his tale he becomes a quickened creator. The use which he makes of the ideas he has gained through his fairy tales, will be the work of his creative imagination.

Fairy tales, though perfectly ordinary subject-matter, may become the means of the greatest end in education, the development in the child of the power of consciousness. The special appeal to the various powers and capacities of the child mind, such as emotion, imagination, memory, and reason, here have been viewed separately. But in life action the mind is a unit. Thinking is therefore best developed through subject-matter which focuses the various powers of the child.

The one element which makes the child manipulate his emotion, imagination, memory, and reason, is the presence of a problem. The problem is the best chance for the child to secure the adjustment of means to ends. This adjustment of means to ends in a problem situation, is real thinking and is the use of the highest power of which man is capable, that of functional consciousness. The real need of doing things is the best element essential to the problem. Through a problem which expresses such a genuine need, to learn to know himself, to realize his capacities and his limitations, and to secure for himself the evolution of his own character until it adapts, not itself to its environment, but its environment to its own uses and masters circ.u.mstances for its own purposes--this is the high hill to which education must look, "from which cometh its strength." The little child, in listening to a fairy tale, in seeing in it a problem of real need, and in working it out, may win some of this strength. We have previously seen that fairy tales, because of their universal elements, are subject-matter rich in possible problems.

During the story-telling what is the part the child has to play? The part of the child in all this may be to listen to the story because he has some problem of his own to work out through the literature, because he has some purpose of his own in listening, because he enjoys the story and wishes to find out what there is in it, or because he expects it to show him what he may afterwards wish to do with it. In any case the child's part is to see the characters and what they do, to follow the sequence of the tale, and to realize the life of the story through the telling. He may have something to say about the story at the close of the telling, he may wish to compare its motifs with similar motifs in other tales, or he may wish to talk about the life exhibited by the story. The various studies of the curriculum every day are following more closely the Greek ideal and giving the child daily exercise to keep the channels of expression free and open.

And when the well-selected fairy tale which is art is told, through imitation and invention it awakens in the child the art-impulse and tends to carry him from appreciation to expression. If before the telling the story-teller has asked herself, "What variety of creative reaction will this tale arouse in the child?" and if she has told the story in the way to bring forward the best possibility for creative reaction the nature of the tale affords, she will help to make clear to the child what he himself will want to do with the story. She will help him to see a way to use the story to enter into his everyday life. The return of creative reaction possible to the child will be that in harmony with his natural instincts or large general interests.

These instincts, as indicated by Professor John Dewey, in _The School and Society_, are:--

(1) the instinct of conversation or communication;

(2) the instinct of inquiry or finding out things;

(3) the instinct of construction or making things; and

(4) the instinct of artistic expression or [of imitating and combining things].

(1) The instinct of conversation. The little child likes to talk. If you have ever listened to a little girl of five artlessly proceeding to tell a story, such as _Little Black Sambo_, which she had gathered from looking at a neighbor's book, but which she had not yet mastered sufficiently to grasp its central theme, reiterating the particular incidents with the enthusiasm and joy and narrative tone of the story-teller, you realized how the child likes to talk. For there appeared the charm of the story-telling mode distinct from the story it told.

Because of this instinct of conversation one form of creative reaction may be _language expression_. The oral reproduction of the story re-experiences the story anew. The teacher may help here by creating a situation for the re-telling. A teacher might put a little foreign boy through rapid paces in learning English by selecting a story like _The Sparrow and the Crow_ and by managing that in the re-telling the little foreigner would be the Crow who makes the repet.i.tive speeches, who must go to the Pond and say:--

Your name, sir, is Pond And my name is Crow, Please give me some water, For if you do so I can wash and be neat, And the nice soup can eat, Though I really don't know What the sparrow can mean, I'm quite sure, as crows go, I'm remarkably clean.

As the Crow must go to the Deer, the Cow, the Gra.s.s, and the Blacksmith, and each time varies the beginning of his speech, four other children could represent the Crow successively, thus bringing in a social element which would relieve any one child's timidity. By that time any group of children would realize the fun they could get by playing out the simple tale; and there would be pet.i.tions to be the Deer, the Cow, etc. If the teacher sees that the characters place themselves as they should, carry out the parts naturally, and that the Crow begs with the correct rhyme, she is performing her legitimate task of suggestion and criticism that works toward developing from the first attempts of children, a good form in harmony with the story.