CHAPTER SIXTEEN

STORY-TELLING TO INTENSIFY INTEREST IN NATURE STUDY

Nature study, as a formal subject in the elementary schools, is often uninteresting to the child, because many teachers think that there the bare truth should prevail, and present information concerning the sciences as a series of dry, emasculated facts. The result is indifference toward what might be a keen pleasure, and sometimes even distaste for it. But if the nature lesson is presented in a manner that brings vivid pictures to the mind of the child, if he is given some vision of what cannot be understood by mere description, it becomes a living reality, and not only fixes information that is the foundation for scientific study later, but enlarges the emotional life and quickens the imagination. It gives him a feeling of close contact with nature and makes him so responsive to its varied life, moods, and aspects, that he comes to love it.

Those who understand nature love it more than those who do not. The man who knows the elm, the beech, the hemlock, and various other forest brethren, finds a pleasure in the woods that is impossible to him to whom a tree is just a tree. The latter is like Peter Bell, of whom Wordsworth wrote:

A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.

He goes on his way thinking that trees are good for lumber, to produce shade and break the force of winds that might otherwise blight his crops, but he has little conception of how they affect human happiness and human life. When tired and nerve worn, he does not yearn for the peace of the redwoods, but for some artificial stimulus in a city distant from the one in which he has his cares. Why? Because he was not born with a love of nature that is as rare as genius, and was not fortunate enough to be led along the path on which it is acquired. That there are many men and women of this type is proved by the ruthless way in which our forests have been destroyed, by the abuse of privileges in public parks and gardens, by the way in which trees are slaughtered in city streets. It is certain that love of nature is not born with every one, and that what is the fortunate heritage of the few must be instilled into the many. This can be done, and it can be done through story-telling. The careless child, the unobservant child, to whom a flower is just a flower or a bird a bunch of feathers, can be led to open his eyes and see what he did not see before, while the one who has already found joy in the life of field and stream will respond with intense pleasure because a new and roseate light is flashed upon what is already familiar.

Children learn to love nature just as they learn to love a picture, a dog, or a swimming hole, through experience with it that gives joyous results. The country lad, whose Saturdays and vacation days are associated with cowslips, dragon flies, and quiet hours beside a trout stream casting a line for the elusive catch, is not likely to find schoolroom nature study a dull subject, because, through hours of enjoyment, he is equipped with an emotional and imaginative background that gives color to every fact presented. But he who has not had this opportunity, who knows as little of wild life as a cormorant knows of the Colorado crags, will not respond eagerly to a series of facts, because experience has not previously aroused his imagination concerning them, and he cannot comprehend their mystery and wonder. If these facts are presented through the medium of the story, if they depict the life of the open as vividly as some painting that meets the eye, they will give pleasure and furnish incentive for further investigation. They will not only awaken the uninformed child to a realization of the wonders and delights nature holds for him, but they will give the other, more fortunate child additional pleasure, just as a favorite fairy tale does when told again and again by one who loves it and can make its moods his own.

This does not mean that all information should be presented through the medium of the story. The story should be used only to give such information as is natural to the story form. But nature study can be wonderfully illuminated by the story, because many of the truths of science do lend themselves to plot, and where they have been put in parallel literary form, they are as replete with beauty and imagery as the fairy tale, and afford the fancy as free play as do the adventures of sprites and goblins. The marvel of the brown bulb or seed metamorphosing into the brilliant-hued blossom, of the homely caterpillar evolving into a bit of flying color, of the majestic movements of stars and planets through worlds remote but as exquisitely constructed as our own, fascinates the child and furnishes wide, untrammeled avenues along which his imagination may roam. There is almost no branch of science that is not rich in material for the story-teller. Dr. Carrel, the great French specialist, once said that some day an artist will arise who will weave the facts concerning the circulation of the blood into a tale as fascinating as any _conte_ from the _Arabian Nights_.

It is not likely that physiology will ever be the nucleus of stories to give to children in the early years of school life, but Dr. Carrel’s words hold a valuable hint for the narrator, who should not fail to draw from truth as freely as he draws from myth and fable. An overdose of one kind of food, no matter how wholesome, disarranges the digestive apparatus, and an overdose of one kind of literature makes a one-sided man. There are some facts to show that a too free feeding on fairy tales has led to crooked thinking and susceptibility to superstition, and the story-teller should balance his work in improbable tales with those of fact that fire the imagination because of the marvels related in them.

This is not so difficult as it may seem, for many of the truths of science have been put into simple language by men who were poet enough to bring to children something of their mystery and beauty, and there is no dearth of books that can be used with gratifying results by workers among children as young as those of six to nine years. Part of the story of evolution is enjoyed in this period. The boy in the age of fancy is fascinated by listening to an account of early man’s struggle with nature, and tales of the tree dwellers, of cave and cliff dwellers, of the discovery of fire and the adventures of the first wanderers, mean as much to him as any fairy tale, because they have the very characteristic that makes the fairy tale delightful—an element of mystery that permits the fancy to roam unchecked.

Older children revel in the truths of science, if they are presented in story form. Take, for instance, David Starr Jordan’s “Story of a Stone.” Where is there a fairy tale more fascinating than this narrative of “a bit of petrified honeycomb,” plowed up by a Wisconsin husbandman as he made ready to sow his winter wheat? The style and language have the charm of Andersen, the plot is as well sustained as that of any Thuringian folk tale collected by Grimm, and it begins as fairy tales have begun since the beginning of time:

Once upon a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years that one grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and quartz and bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette harbor opened out toward Baffin’s Bay, and the northern ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name on the pictured rocks; when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the northern peninsula of Michigan, swept over Plymouth Rock, and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography, because there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the towns were seaports,—in fact, an immensely long time ago, there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of Wisconsin a little jellyfish.

Dr. Jordan has also woven into story form information concerning the animal life of sea and stream, of a mother and baby seal, in the delightful tale of “Matka and Kotik,” and there is not a boy or a girl in the heroic period who does not listen eagerly to the adventures of a salmon, “a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes which made almost half his length, and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow.” The account of the battle of the fish there under the ripples of the Cowlitz, the beginning of the eventful journey down the river, the merry conflict with the herring and the terrible one with the sea lions, swimming always and always, growing larger and more daring, and having in his watery realm as many adventures as bold Robin had in his greenwood, hold the children from the beginning to the end of the story. They sympathize as he struggles up the stream again, “growing poor and ragged and tired,” and through his life and adventures they come to have an interest in the world of fishes that they will not have without the tale. Such stories demonstrate the fact that information concerning the sciences can be put into fascinating story form, and every worker with young folk should endeavor to present some of it through this delightful medium.

The child will find such tales far more appealing than the so-called nature stories in which animals are over-personified and in which they meet man in situations that every intelligent boy or girl knows are impossible. A lad is not brought into harmony with nature by being given yarns that caricature nature, and many of the modern nature stories do this very thing. Children know that a wild bear does not walk into a little girl’s flower garden, and then politely say “I am sorry” and back out because the small mistress of the garden is kind and instead of throwing stones at him explains in elegant English that it is rude to go into another’s property unbidden. They know that animals and children do not converse together in the same language, and that bears do not have courses in ethics. The nature story that fascinates the child must be true to nature’s laws. He may listen to some of the sugary, impossible yarns written to point a moral, but they do not give him keen pleasure, and because they are ridiculous in his eyes, he draws no lesson from them. One of the aims of story-telling is to give ethical instruction, but there is a wealth of tales that reflect nature and life correctly that should be used for this purpose, and the facts of science should not be distorted in an attempt to emphasize a lesson.

Tales pervaded by over-sentimentalism will not stir deep response in children. This is why the nature story that is true to the facts of science is the one that interests the boy or girl. It is like the racial tale, full of conflict, of temporary defeat and final triumph. The young salmon grown old, struggling up Snake River to the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains, was sore of muscle and unsightly of skin, and his tail was frayed and torn, but the desire of his nature was fulfilled at last. He scooped out a nest and covered the eggs of his companion, and then, because the work of his life was done, was free to drift downstream. Such stories give insight into nature and engender a love of nature; and besides quickening the imagination and enriching the emotional life, they help to give stability to the child character, because through them he learns the workings of certain inexorable laws.

There is such a vast amount of material to use in teaching nature study, that the suggestions and bibliography given in this chapter can by no means be comprehensive. In the realm of geology there is the story of limestone, of slate, of quartz and granite, of rock salt and sandstone, and particularly interesting to the child is the story of coal. For him it abounds in color, and beautiful indeed are the pictures that he sees as he listens to this narrative of the carboniferous forests that grew in the beginning of time, of the lush, dank swamps of the Permian or Triassic or Miocene Period, and the strange animal life that peopled them. From astronomy and botany one may glean as much as from geology, while entomology, zoölogy, and ichthyology hold untold delights for the child.

A wonderful science story is that of the coral polyp, building from some submerged cliff or crag until a little island rises above the blue water. In my own childhood it meant as much as ever a fairy tale meant, and I can still feel the pleasure I experienced the first time I heard it. It is full of mystery and wonder, and a story of rare beauty for the child. I have used it often in story-telling, and it never fails to bring enthusiastic response; and very popular with the children is this song of the insect builders, of which I do not know the authorship, but which is one of the fragrant memories of my childhood:

Far down in the depths of the deep blue sea, An insect train works ceaselessly; Moment by moment and day by day, Never stopping to rest or play, Rock upon rock they are rearing high, Till the top looks out on the sunny sky: The gentle winds and the balmy air Little by little bring verdure there, Till the summer sunbeams gayly smile On the birds and flowers of the little isle.

Older children enjoy hearing about the different forms of coral, of the characteristics of that of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. They enjoy, too, hearing about the coral industry, of the fishing for it along the shores of Africa, of the departure of the seekers from Sicily, of the Feast of the Coral Fishers that is such a picturesque feature of the island life, of the polishing and carving and preparing the product for trade; they like the legend the southern Italians tell of how the first medallion in Sicily was made as an offering of gratitude by a fisher lad to the young Princess of Naples. From beginning to end the coral story is a narrative that charms the child, and it is but one of the forms of sea life, which holds rich opportunities for the narrator, while sea life is but one of the fields of science from which he can glean with splendid results. In fact, the possibilities for story work in the teaching of science are almost beyond imagining until one begins to survey the field and enumerate sources of material, and the story-teller will be restricted in it only by her ability to organize material and present it to the children in story form.

Sometimes writers, thinking they will make nature stories more enjoyable to boys and girls, people them with supernatural folk who are supposed to be responsible for the marvels that occur in them. It is a practice that scientists decry, and it is condemned by all who believe that a story fit to give to children must be worthy of the name of literature, and consequently, whether fact or fiction, must be true in spirit. The tale that portrays a fairy up in the sky keeping the planets in motion like so many checkers on a board, or one in which enchanted creatures bury their beads in the ground, causing them to send up roses and lilies and other beautiful blossoms, is not a nature story. It may be a charming fanciful tale, but it should not be given to teach the truths of science. Science stories, like Bible stories, need no sugar coating to make them attractive. When given as stories, and not as a string of facts, they are full of suspense, and accounts of actual happenings in star land, under the waves, or deep in the earth are as fascinating to the child as the fancied ones of nature’s forces were to primitive man in the forest, when he crept close to the tribal story-teller and in big-eyed, wondering awe sought to know the meaning of the great globule that gleamed in the sky by day and the numberless tiny ones that gleamed there by night. The primitive animal tale, which gives early man’s belief as to how certain creatures came by their characteristics, is very interesting to the child, and while in a broader sense it belongs to the field of geography, my own experience has been that if told in connection with animals or flowers studied, it is received with enthusiasm by boys and girls. But the child should understand that these narratives are primitive man’s conception, and that the science stories are the real “why” and “how” stories.

THE WONDERFUL BUILDERS

Out in the heart of the Pacific, far out where the blue waves roll their shining masses between Samoa and the Australian mainland, where the brown-skinned islanders and the white-winged sea birds seem always happy, a little animal floated around one day, floated from among the shoals of Tutuila toward the open sea. It was a tiny creature, and as curious as it was tiny, for it looked more like a spot of clear jelly than anything else, and its name was Polyp.

Quite lazily it floated about in the water, now under a stretch of seaweed, all purple and opalescent like ropes of wonderful colors, now through the clear, bright current past the gaping mouth of a shark. But the shark, although always on the watch for something to devour, did not get the little polyp, and soon it came to a submerged rock deep under the waves. This seemed a very good resting place, and there the polyp stayed.

Days passed, weeks lengthened into months, and still the polyp kept to its place on the under-sea rock. But it was not drowsing and sleeping like a lazy creature. It was busily at work, for the very minute it landed on the rock it decided to make a house.

Now you must not think that it could not work, because, although it did look like a drop of jelly and was small and curious, it was alive. It had arms, very, very tiny arms, finer than the finest silk thread in your mother’s workbasket, and so thin and delicate looking that nobody could see them. But those arms were stronger than they looked, and with them it held on to the rock tight and fast.

Then, what a queer house-making! The little, jellylike body began to swell. It raised itself up in the shape of a tube, and around the edge of the tube came a little rim. This rim was the beginning of the house of the polyp.

The waves rolled on. The sun beat down brightly and hotly as it always beats down in the South Sea country, and then came another change. A knot rose in the middle of the jelly, and out of that knot reached a mouth and feelers.

Now the work began in earnest. The polyp began to eat, to eat as greedily as a boy who has had not a bit for a whole day. It took in chalk and phosphorus from the sea food that came its way, yet it seemed never to get enough, and all the while the little feelers kept reaching out for more food and pouring it into the open mouth. As it ate, the chalk it took in piled around the little rim, which I told you was the beginning of the house, and although the polyp wanted much to hold some of that nice chalk food in its mouth long enough to get the full taste, it could not. The white substance went right down and piled up on the rim; so it is no wonder that the little creature was always hungry.

Well, it ate and it ate. The rim kept growing and growing, as of course it must with so much chalk piling up on it, and as the house grew higher and higher the polyp kept moving to the top. The part below was hard and white like stone, and still the polyp kept eating, eating, and building, building.

For a long time it kept on, until finally it died. Then one day another drop of living jelly floated that way, and finding the chalk house of the other polyp, stopped there and began building on top of it. The waves rolled on. The sun shone, and all the while the house went steadily higher. Other polyps too came and began building beside and above it, and as they died they left their hard, white homes behind them as the first polyp had done. Others and still others came, until, as many, many years passed, the chalk houses reached the top of the water and men called them an island.

The waves rolled by. Seaweed drifted that way and lodged itself on the chalk reefs. It decayed and turned to soil. Sometimes the water and sometimes the wind brought bits of plant and seed from some other older islands, until at last there were flowers and trees and birds singing in the branches.

Now the ships of the world sail by, going toward China or Australia or to the American shores far, far away, and sometimes they stop at the little island, and sometimes those on board rest there among the palms and think it so delightful a land that they wish they never had to go away, but might stay there always and always. Yet but for a wee, curious sea creature that island would not be, for it had its beginning in a tiny animal, more like a drop of jelly than anything else, that floated one day between Samoa and the Australian mainland, and made its house upon a bit of submerged rock.

SOURCES OF MATERIAL FOR SCIENCE STORIES

BEARD, JAMES CARTER: _Humor in Animals_.

BERGEN, FANNY DICKERSON: _Plant Work_.

BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers_.

COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK: _The Book of Stars_.

COMSTOCK, JOHN HENRY: _Insect Life_.

DU CHAILLU, PAUL B.: _The World of the Great Forest_.

FABRE, HENRI: _Insect Adventures_; _The Life of a Fly_; _The Hunting Wasps_; _The Mason Bees_; _The Life of a Caterpillar_.

FRYE, ALEXIS EVERETT: _Brooks and Brook Basins_.

GRINNELL, JOSEPH and ELIZABETH: _Birds of Song and Story_.

GRINNELL, MORTON: _Neighbors of Field, Wood, and Stream_.

GROOS, KARL: _The Play of Animals_.

HAWKES, CLARENCE: _Shovelhorns: The Biography of a Moose_.

HOLDER, CHARLES F.: _Stories of Animal Life_.

INGERSOLL, ERNEST: _Wild Life of Orchard and Field_.

JORDAN, DAVID STARR: _Science Sketches_.

LEA, JOHN: _The Romance of Bird Life_.

MILES, ALFRED H.: _Animal Anecdotes_.

MILLER, ELLEN R.: _Butterfly and Moth Book_.

MORLEY, MARGARET W.: _Butterflies and Bees_.

PORTER, GENE STRATTON: _Moths of the Limberlost_.

PORTER, JERMAIN G.: _Stars in Song and Legend_.

ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D.: _Earth’s Enigmas_; _Haunters of the Silences_; _Kindred of the Wild_; _Kings in Exile_.

THOMPSON, JEANETTE MAY: _Water Wonders Every Child Should Know_.