CHAPTER III

FIRST GRADE STORIES

FAIRY TALES

Young children, as we all know, are delighted with stories, and in the first grade they are still in this story-loving period. A good story is the best medium through which to convey ideas and also to approach the difficulties of learning to read. Such a story, Wilmann says, is a pedagogical treasure. By many thinkers and primary teachers the fairy stories have been adopted as best suited to the wants of the little folk just emerging from the home. A series of fairy tales was selected by Ziller, one of the leading Herbartians, as a centre for the school work of the first year. These stories have long held a large place in the home culture of children, especially of the more cultivated class. Now it is claimed that what is good for the few whose parents may be cultured and sympathetic, may be good enough for the children of the common people and of the poor. Moreover, stories that have made the fireside more joyous and blessed may perchance bring vivacity and happiness into schoolrooms. The home and the school are coming closer together. It is even said that well-trained, sympathetic primary teachers may better tell and impress these stories than overworked mothers and busy fathers. If these literary treasures are left for the homes to discover and use, the majority of children will know little or nothing of them. Many schools in this country have been using them in the first grade in recent years with a pleasing effect.

But what virtue lies concealed in these fairy myths for the children of our practical and sensible age? Why should we draw from fountains whose sources are back in the prehistoric and even barbarous past? To many people it appears as a curious anachronism to nourish little children in the first decade of this new century upon food that was prepared in the tents of wandering tribes in early European history. What are the merits of these stories for children just entering upon scholastic pursuits? They are known to be generally attractive to children of this age, but many sober-minded people distrust them. Are they really meat and drink for the little ones? And not only so, but the choicest meat and drink, the best food upon which to nourish their unfolding minds?

Fairy tales are charged with misleading children by falsifying the truth of things. And, indeed, they pay little heed to certain natural laws that practical people of good sense always respect. A child, however, is not so humdrum practical as these serious truth-lovers. A little girl talks to her doll as if it had real ears. She and her little brother make teacups and saucers out of acorns with no apparent compunctions of conscience. They follow Cinderella to the ball in a pumpkin chariot, transformed by magic wand, with even greater interest than we read of a presidential ball. A child may turn the common laws of physical nature inside out and not be a whit the worse for it. Its imagination can people a pea-pod with little heroes aching for a chance in the big world, or it can put tender personality into the trunk and branches of the little pine tree in the forest. There are no space limits that a child's fancy will not spring over in a twinkling. It can ride from star to star on a broomstick, or glide over peaceful waters in a fairy boat drawn by graceful swans. Without suggestion from mother or teacher, children put life and personality into their playthings. Their spontaneous delights are in this playful exercise of the fancy, in masquerading under the guise of a soldier, bear, horse, or bird. The fairy tale is the poetry of children's inner impulse and feeling; their sparkling eyes and absorbed interest show how fitting is the contact between these childlike creations of the poet and their own budding thoughts.

In discussing the qualities requisite in a fairy story to make it a pedagogical treasure, Wilmann says:[1] "When it is laid down as a first and indispensable requirement that a story be genuinely childlike, the demand sounds less rigorous than it really is. It is easier to feel than to describe the qualities which lend to a story the true childlike spirit. It is not simplicity alone. A simple story that can be understood by a child is not on that account childlike. The simplicity must be the ingenuousness of the child. Close to this lies the abyss of silliness into which so many children's stories tumble. A simple story may be manufactured, but the quality of true simplicity will not be breathed into it unless one can draw from the deeper springs of poetic invention. It is not enough that the externals of the story, such as situation and action, have this character, but the sensibilities and motives of the actors must be ingenuous and childlike; they should reflect the child's own feeling, wish, and effort. But it is not necessary on this account that the persons of the story be children. Indeed the king, prince, and princess, if they only speak and act like children, are much nearer the child's comprehension than any of the children paraded in a manufactured story, designed for the 'industrious youth.' For just as real poetry so the real child's story lies beyond reality in the field of fancy. With all its plainness of thought and action, the genuine child's story knows how to take hold of the child's fancy and set its wings in motion. And what a meaning has fancy for the soul of the child as compared with that of the adult. For us the activity of fancy only sketches arabesques, as it were, around the sharply defined pictures of reality. The child thinks and lives in such arabesques, and it is only gradually that increasing experience writes among these arabesques the firmer outlines of things. The child's thoughts float about playfully and unsteadily, but the fairy tale is even lighter winged than they. It overtakes these fleeting summer birds and wafts them together without brushing the dust from their wings.

[1] Wilmann, _Paedagogische Vortraege_.

"But fostering the activity of fancy in children is a means, not an end. It is necessary to enter the field of fancy because the way to the child's heart leads through the fancy. The effect upon the heart of the child is the second mark and proof of the genuine child's story. We are not advocates of the so-called moral stories which are so short-winded as to stop frequently and rest upon some moral commonplace. Platitudes and moral maxims are not designed to develop a moral taste in the minds of young children, for they appeal to the understanding and will of the pupil and presuppose what must be first built up and established. True moral training is rather calculated to awaken in the child judgments of right and wrong, of good and evil (on simple illustrative examples). Not the impression left by a moralizing discourse is the germ of a love of the good and right, but rather the child's judgment springing from its own conviction. 'That was good.' 'What a mean thing!'

"Those narratives have a moral force which introduce persons and acts that are simple and transparent enough to let the moral light shine through, that possess sufficient life to lend warmth and vigor to moral judgments. No attempt to cover up or pass over what is bad, nor to paint it in extravagant colors. For the bad develops the judgment no less than the good. It remains only to have a care that a child's interest inclines toward the good, the just, and the right."

Wilmann summarizes the essentials of a good story, and then discusses the fairy tales as follows:--

"There are then five requirements to be made of a real child's story: Let it be truly childlike, that is, both simple and full of fancy; let it form morals in the sense that it introduces persons and matters which, while simple and lively, call out a moral judgment of approval or disapproval; let it be instructive and lead to thoughtful discussions of society and nature; let it be of permanent value, inviting perpetually to a reperusal; let it be a connected whole, so as to work a deeper influence and become the source of a many-sided interest.

"The child's story which, on the basis of the aforenamed principles, can be made the starting-point for all others, is Grimm's fairy tale of folk lore. We are now called upon to show that the folk-lore fairy tale answers to the foregoing requirements, and in this we shall see many a ray of light cast back upon these requirements themselves.

"Is the German fairy tale childlike? full of simplicity as well as of fancy? A deeply poetic saying of Jacob Grimm may teach us the answer. 'There runs through these poetic fairy tales the same deep vein of purity by reason of which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed. They have, as it were, the same pale-blue, clear, and lustrous eyes which can grow no more although the other members are still delicate and weak and unserviceable to the uses of earth.' Klaiber quotes this passage in his 'Das Maerchen und die Kindliche Phantasie,' and says with truth and beauty, 'Yes; when we look into the trusting eyes of a child, in which none of the world's deceit is to be read as yet, when we see how these eyes brighten and gleam at a beautiful fairy tale, as if they were looking out into a great, wide, beautiful wonder-world, then we feel something of the deep connection of the fairy story with the childish soul.' We will bring forward one more passage from a little treatise, showing depth and warmth of feeling, which stealthily takes away from the doubters their scruples about the justification of the fairy tale. 'It is strange how well the fairy tale and the child's soul mutually understand each other. It is as if they had been together from the very beginning and had grown up together. As a rule the child only deals with that part of real life which concerns itself and children of its age. Whatever lies beyond this is distant, strange, unintelligible. Under the leading of the fairy tale, however, it permits itself to be borne over hill and valley, over land and sea, through sun and moon and stars, even to the end of the world, and everything is so near, so familiar, so close to its reach, as if they had been everywhere before, just as if obscure pictures within had all at once become wonderfully distinct. And the fairies all, and the king's sons, and the other distinguished personages, whom it learns to know through the fairy tale,--they are as natural and intelligible as if the child had moved its life long in the highest circles, and had had princes and princesses for its daily playmates. In a word, the world of the fairy tale is the child's world, for it is the world of fancy.'

"For this reason children live and move in fairyland, whether the story be told by the mother or by the teacher in the primary school. What attention as the story proceeds! What anxiousness when any danger threatens the hero, be he king's son or a wheat-straw! What grief, even to tears, when a wrong is practised upon some innocent creature! And far from it that the joy in the fairy tale decrease when it is told or discussed over again. Then comes the pleasure of representation--bringing the story upon the stage. Though a child has but to represent a flower in the meadow, the little face is transfigured with the highest joy.

"But the childish joy of fairy tales passes away; not so the inner experiences which it has brought with it. I am not affirming too much when I say that he who, as a child, has never listened with joy to the murmuring and rustling of the fresh fountain of fairyland, will have no ear and no understanding for many a deep stream of German poetry. It is, after all, the modest fountain of fairy song which, flowing and uniting with the now noisy, now soft and gently flowing, current of folk song, and with the deep and earnest stream of tradition, which has poured such a refreshing current over German poetry, out of which our most excellent Uhland has drawn so many a heart-strengthening draught.

"The spirit of the people finds expression in fairy tale as in tradition and song, and if we were only working to lift and strengthen the national impulse, a moral-educative instruction would have to turn again and again to these creations of the people. What was asserted as a general truth in regard to classical products, that they are a bond between large and small, old and young, is true of national stories and songs more than of anything else. They are at once a bond between the different classes, a national treasure, which belongs alike to rich and poor, high and low. The common school then has the least right of all to put the fairy tale aside, now that few women versed in fairy lore, such as those to whom Grimm listened, are left.

"But does the fairy tale come of noble blood? Does it possess what we called in the case of classics an old title of nobility? If we keep to this figure of speech, we shall find that the fairy tale is not only noble, but a very royal child among stories. It has ruled from olden times, far and wide, over many a land. Hundreds of years gone, Grimm's fairy stories lived in the people's heart, and not in Germany alone. If our little ones listen intently to Aschenputtel, French children delighted in Cindrillon, the Italian in Cenerentola, the Polish in Kopcinszic. The fact that mediaeval story-books contain Grimm's tales is not remarkable, when we reflect that traits and characteristics of the fairy tale reach back beyond the Christian period; that Frau Holle is Hulda, or Frigg, the heathen goddess; that 'Wishing-cap,' 'Little Lame-leg,' and 'Table Cover Thyself,' etc., are made up out of the attributes of German gods. Finally, such things as 'The Sleeping Beauty,' which is the earth in winter sleep, that the prince of summer wakes with kisses in springtime, point back to the period of primitive Indo-German myth.

"But in addition to the requirement of classical nobility, has the fairy story also the moral tone which we required of the genuine child's story? Does the fairy story make for morals? To be sure it introduces to an ideal realm of simple moral relations. The good and bad are sharply separated. The wrong holds for a time its supremacy, but the final victory is with the good. And with what vigor the judgment of good and evil, of right and wrong, is produced. We meet touching pictures, especially of good-will, of faithfulness, characteristic and full of life. Think only of the typical interchange of words between Lenchen and Fundevogel. Said Lenchen, 'Leave me not and I will never leave thee.' Said Fundevogel, 'Now and nevermore.' We are reminded of the Bible words of the faithful Ruth, 'Whither thou goest I will go; where thou lodgest I will lodge; where thou diest I will die and there will I be buried.'

"Important for the life of children is the rigor with which the fairy tale punishes disobedience and falsehood. Think of the suggestive legendary story of the child which was visited again and again with misfortune because of its obstinacy, till its final confession of guilt brings full pardon. It is everywhere a Christian thread which runs through so many fairy stories. It is love for the rejected, oppressed, and abandoned. Whatever is loaded with burdens and troubles receives the palm, and the first becomes the last.

"The fairy story fulfils the first three requirements for a true child's story. It is childlike, of lasting value, and fosters moral ideas. As to unity it will suffice for children of six years (for this is, in our opinion, the age at which it exerts its moral force) that the stories be told in the same spirit, although they do not form one connected narrative. If a good selection of fairy tales according to their inner connection is made, so that frequent references and connections can be found, the requirement of unity will be satisfied.

"The fairy tale seems to satisfy least of all the demand that the true child's story must be instructive, and serve as a starting-point for interesting practical discussion. The fairy story seems too airy and dreamy for this, and it might appear pedantry to load it with instruction. But one will not be guilty of this mistake if one simply follows up the ideas which the story suggests. When the story of a chicken, a fox, or a swan is told it is fully in harmony with the childish thought to inquire into the habits of these animals. When the king is mentioned it is natural to say that we have a king, to ask where he lives, etc. Just because the fairy tale sinks deep and holds a firm and undivided attention, it is possible to direct the suggested thoughts hither or thither without losing the pleasure they create. If one keeps this aim in mind, instructive material is abundant. The fairy tale introduces various employments and callings, from the king to the farmer, tailor, and shoemaker. Many passages in life, such as betrothal, marriage, and burial, are presented. Labors in the house, yard, and field, and numerous animals, plants, and inanimate things are touched upon. For the observation of animals and for the relation between them and children, it is fortunate that the fairy tale presents them as talking and feeling. Thereby the interest in real animals is increased and heartlessness banished. How could a child put to the torture an animal which is an old friend in fairy story?

"I need only suggest in this place how the fairy story furnishes material for exercises in oral language, for the division of words into syllables and letters, and how the beginnings of writing, drawing, number, and manual exercises may be drawn from the same source.

"From the suggestions just made the following conclusions at least may be reasonably drawn. A sufficient counterpoise to the fantastical nature of the fairy tale can be given in a manner simple and childlike, if the objects and relations involved in the narratives are brought clearly before the senses and discussed so that instruction about common objects and home surroundings is begun."

In speaking of Shakespeare's early training in literature, Charles Kingsley says:--

"I said there was a literary art before Shakespeare--an art more simple, more childlike, more girlish, as it were, and therefore all the more adapted for young minds, but also an art most vigorous and pure in point of style: thoroughly fitted to give its readers the first elements of taste, which must lie at the root of even the most complex aesthetics.

"The old fairy superstition, the old legends and ballads, the old chronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities and mysteries and tragicomic attempts--these were the roots of his poetic tree--they must be the roots of any literary education which can teach us to appreciate him. These fed Shakespeare's youth; why should they not feed our children's? Why indeed? That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellous and fantastic--has that a merely evil root? No surely! It is a most pure part of their spiritual nature; a part of 'the heaven which lies about us in our infancy'; angel-wings with which the free child leaps the prison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life."

Felix Adler says:[2] "But how shall we handle these _Maerchen_ and what method shall we employ in putting them to account for our special purpose? I have a few thoughts on this subject, which I shall venture to submit in the form of counsels.

[2] _Moral Instruction of Children._ D. Appleton & Co.

"My _first counsel_ is: Tell the story; do not give it to the child to read. There is an obvious practical reason for this. Children are able to benefit by hearing fairy tales before they can read. But that is not the only reason. It is the childhood of the race, as we have seen, that speaks in the fairy story of the child of to-day. It is the voice of an ancient far-off past that echoes from the lips of the storyteller. The words 'once upon a time' open up a vague retrospect into the past, and the child gets its first indistinct notions of history in this way. The stories embody the tradition of the childhood of mankind. They have on this account an authority all their own, not, indeed, that of literal truth, but one derived from their being types of certain feelings and longings which belong to childhood as such. The child, as it listens to the _Maerchen_, looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive as the touch of the earlier life of the race thus falls upon its own. Such an effect, of course, cannot be produced by cold type. Tradition is a living thing and should use the living voice for its vehicle.

"My _second counsel_ is also of a practical nature, and I make bold to say quite essential to the successful use of the stories. Do not take the moral plum out of the fairy-tale pudding, but let the child enjoy it as a whole. Do not make the story taper toward a single point, the moral point. You will squeeze all the juice out of it if you try. Do not subordinate the purely fanciful and naturalistic elements of the story, such as the love of mystery, the passion for roving, the sense of fellowship with the animal world, in order to fix attention solely on the moral element. On the contrary, you will gain the best moral effect by proceeding in exactly the opposite way. Treat the moral element as an incident, emphasize it indeed, but incidentally. Pluck it as a wayside flower. How often does it happen that, having set out on a journey with a distinct object in mind, something occurs on the way which we had not foreseen, but which in the end leaves the deepest impression on the mind....

"The value of the fairy tales is that they stimulate the imagination; that they reflect the unbroken communion of human life with the life universal, as in beasts, fishes, trees, flowers, and stars; and that incidentally, but all the more powerfully on that account, they quicken the moral sentiments.

"Let us avail ourselves freely of the treasures which are thus placed at our disposal. Let us welcome _das Maerchen_ into our primary course of moral training, that with its gentle bands, woven of 'morning mist and morning glory,' it may help to lead our children into bright realms of the ideal."

A selection of fairy stories suited to our first grade will differ from a similar selection for foreign schools. There has been a disposition among American teachers for several years to appropriate the best of these stories for use in the primary schools. In different parts of the country skilful primary teachers have been experimenting successfully with these materials. There are many schools in which both teachers and pupils have taken great delight in them. The effort has been made more particularly with first grade children, the aim of teachers being to lead captive the spontaneous interest of children from their first entrance upon school tasks. Some of the stories used at the first may seem light and farcical, but experiments with children are a better test than the preconceived notions of adults who may have forgotten their early childhood. The story of the "Four Musicians," for example, is a favorite with the children.

At the risk of repetition, and to emphasize some points of special importance, we will review briefly the method of oral treatment and the use of the stories in early primary reading.

The children have no knowledge of reading or perhaps of letters. The story is told with spirit by the teacher, no book being used in the class. Question and interchange of thought between pupil and teacher will become more frequent and suggestive as the teacher becomes more skilled and sympathetic in her treatment of the story. In the early months of school life the aim is to gain the attention and cooeperation of children by furnishing abundant food for thought. Children are required or at least encouraged to narrate the story or a part of it in the class. They tell it at school and probably at home, till they become more and more absorbed in it. Even the backward or timid child gradually acquires courage and enjoys narrating the adventures of the peas in the pod or those of the animals in the "Four Musicians."

The teacher should acquire a vivid and picturesque style of narrating, persistently weaving into the story, by query and suggestion, the previous home experiences of the children. They are only too ready to bring out these treasures at the call of the teacher. Often it is necessary to check their enthusiasm. There is a need not simply for narrative power, but for quick insight and judgment, so as to bring their thoughts into close relation to the incidents. Nowhere in all the schools is there such a call for close and motherly sympathy. The gentle compulsion of kindness is required to inspire the timid ones with confidence. For some of them are slow to open their delicate thought and sensibility, even to the sunny atmosphere of a pleasant school.

A certain amount of drill in reproduction is necessary, but fortunately the stories have something that bears repetition with a growing interest. Added to this is the desire for perfect mastery, and thus the stories become more dear with familiarity.

Incidentally, there should be emphasis of the instructive information gathered concerning animals and plants that are actors in the scenes. The commonest things of the house, field, and garden acquire a new and lasting interest. Sometimes the teacher makes provision in advance of the story for a deeper interest in the plants and animals that are to appear. In natural science lessons she may take occasion to examine the pea blossom, or the animals of the barnyard, or the squirrel or birds in their cages. When, a few days later, the story touches one of these animals, there is a quick response from the children. This relation between history and natural science strengthens both.

Many an opportunity should be given for the pupils to express a warm sympathy for gentle acts of kindness or unselfishness. The happiness that even a simple flower may bring to a home is a contagious example. Kindly treatment of the old and feeble, and sympathy for the innocent and helpless, spring into the child's own thought. The fancy, sympathy, and interest awakened by a good fairy tale make it a vehicle by which, consciously and unconsciously, many advantages are borne home to pupils.

Among other things, it opens the door to the reading lesson; that is, to the beginning efforts in mastering and using the symbols of written language. The same story which all have learned to tell, they are now about to learn to read from the board. One or two sentences are taken directly from the lips of the pupils as they recall the story, and the work of mastering symbols is begun at once with zest. First is the clear statement of some vivid thought by a child, then a quick association of this thought with its written symbols on the board. There is no readier way of bringing thought and form into firm connection, that is, of learning to read. Keep the child's fresh mental judgment and the written form clearly before his mind till the two are wedded. Let the thought run back and forth between them till they are one.

After fixing two or three sentences on the board, attention is directed more closely to the single words, and a rapid drill upon those in the sentence is followed by a discovery and naming of them in miscellaneous order. Afterward new sentences are formed by the teacher out of the same words, written on the board, and read by the children. They express different, and perhaps opposite forms of thought, and should exercise the child's sense and judgment as well as his memory of words. An energetic, lively, and successful drill of this kind upon sentences drawn from stories has been so often witnessed, that its excellence is no longer a matter of question. These exercises are a form of mental activity in which children delight if the teacher's manner is vigorous and pleasant.

When the mastery of new word-forms as wholes is fairly complete, the analysis may go a step farther. Some new word in the lesson may be taken and separated into its phonic elements, as the word _hill_, and new words formed by dropping a letter and prefixing letters or syllables, as _ill_, _till_, _until_, _mill_, _rill_, etc. The power to construct new words out of old materials should be cultivated all along the process of learning to read.

Still other school activities of children stand in close relation to the fairy tales. They are encouraged to draw the objects and incidents in which the story abounds. Though rude and uncouth, the drawings still often surprise us with their truth and suggestiveness. The sketches reveal the content of a child's mind as almost nothing else--his misconceptions, his vague or clearly defined notions. They also furnish his mental and physical activities an employment exactly suited to his needs and wishes.

The power to use good English and to express himself clearly and fittingly is cultivated from the very first. While this merit is purely incidental, it is none the less valuable. The persistence with which bad and uncouth words and phrases are employed by children in our common school, both in oral work and in composition, admonishes us to begin early to eradicate these faults. It seems often as if intermediate and grammar grades were more faulty and wretched in their use of English than primary grades. But there can be no doubt that early and persistent practice in the best forms of expression, especially in connection with interesting and appropriate thought matter, will greatly aid correctness, fluency, and confidence in speech. There is also a convincing pedagogical reason why children in the first primary should be held to the best models of spoken language. They enter the school better furnished with oral speech than with a knowledge of any school study. Their home experiences have wrought into close association and unity, word and thing. So intimate and living is the relation between word and thought or object, that a child really does not distinguish between them. This is the treasure with which he enters school, and it should not be wrapped up in a napkin. It should be unrolled at once and put to service. Oral speech is the capital with which a child enters the business of education; let him employ it.

A retrospect upon the various forms of school activity which spring, in practical work, from the use of a good fairy story, reveals how many-sided and inspiriting are its influences. Starting out with a rich content of thought peculiarly germane to childish interests, it calls for a full employment of the language resources already possessed by the children. In the effort to picture out, with pencil or chalk, his conceptions of the story, a child exercises his fanciful and creative wit, as well as the muscles of arms and eyes. A good story always finds its setting in the midst of nature or society, and touches up with a simple, homely, but poetic charm the commonest verities of human experience. The appeal to the sensibility and moral judgment of pupils is direct and spontaneous, because of the interests and sympathies that are inherent in persons, and touch directly the childish fancy. And, lastly, the irrepressible traditional demand that children shall learn to read, is fairly and honestly met and satisfied.

It is not claimed that fairy tales involve the sum total of primary instruction, but they are an illustration of how rich will be the fruitage of our educational effort if we consider first the highest needs and interests of children, and allow the formal arts to drop into their proper subordination. "The best is good enough for children," and when we select the best, the wide-reaching connections which are established between studies carry us a long step toward the now much-bruited correlation and concentration of studies.

BOOKS OF MATERIALS FOR TEACHERS

Classic Stories for the Little Ones. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Ill. Grimm's Fairy Tales (Wiltse). Ginn & Co. German Fairy Tales (Grimm). Maynard, Merrill, & Co. Grimm's German Household Tales. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Stories from Hans Andersen. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Andersen's Fairy Tales, two volumes. Part I and Part II. Ginn & Co. Fairy Stories and Fables. American Book Co. Fables and Folk Stories (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Rhymes and Jingles (Dodge). Scribner's Sons. Fairy Stories for Children (Baldwin). American Book Co. Songs and Stories. University Publishing Co. Fairy Life. University Publishing Co. Six Nursery Classics (O'Shea). D. C. Heath & Co. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Educational Publishing Co. A Book of Nursery Rhymes (Welch). D. C. Heath & Co. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Heart of Oak, No. I. D. C. Heath & Co. Heart of Oak, No. II. D. C. Heath & Co. The Eugene Field Book. Scribner's Sons. Moral Education of Children (Adler). D. Appleton & Co. Chapter VI. on Fairy Tales. Literature in Schools (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Chapter on Nursery Classics.

THE FABLES

No group of stories has a more assured place in the literature for children than the AEsop's "Fables." Some of the commonest have been expanded into little stories which are presented orally to children in the first school year, as "The Lion and the Mouse," "The Ants and the Grasshoppers," "The Dog and his Shadow," and others. They are so simple and direct that they are used alongside the fairy tales for the earliest instruction of children.

As soon as children have acquired the rudiments of reading the AEsop's "Fables" are commonly used in the second and third school year as a reading book, and all the early reading books are partly made up from this material.

If we inquire into the qualities of these stories which have given them such a universal acceptance, we shall find that they contain in a simple, transparent form a good share of the world's wisdom. More recent researches indicate that they originated in India, and reached Europe through Persia and Arabia, being ascribed to AEsop. This indicates that like most early literature of lasting worth, they are products of the folk-mind rather than of a single writer, and it is the opinion of Adler that they express the ripened wisdom of the people under the forms of Oriental despotism. The sad and hopeless submission to a stronger power expressed by some of the fables, it is claimed, unfits them for use in our freer life to-day.

There are certain points in which their attractiveness to children is clearly manifest. The actors in the stories are usually animals, and the ready interest and sympathy of children for talking animals are at once appealed to. In all the early myths and fairy tales, human life seems to merge into that of the animals, as in "Hiawatha," and the fables likewise are a marked expression of this childlike tendency.

Adler says: "The question may be asked why fables are so popular with boys. I should say because schoolboy society reproduces in miniature, to a certain extent, the social conditions which are reflected in the fables. Among unregenerate schoolboys there often exists a kind of despotism, not the less degrading because petty. The strong are pitted against the weak--witness the fagging system in English schools--and their mutual antagonism produces in both the characteristic vices which we have noted above." A literature which clearly pictures these relations so that they can be seen objectively by the children may be of the greatest social service in education.

Adler says further: "The psychological study of schoolboy society has been only begun, but even what lies on the surface will, I think, bear out this remark. Now it has become one of the commonplaces of educational literature that the individual of to-day must pass through the same stages of evolution as the human race as a whole. But it should not be forgotten that the advance of civilization depends on two conditions: first, that the course of evolution be accelerated, that the time allowed to the successive stages be shortened; and, secondly, that the unworthy and degrading elements which entered into the process of evolution in the past, and at the time were inseparable from it, be now eliminated. Thus the fairy tales which correspond to the myth-making epoch in human history must be purged of the dross of superstition which still adheres to them, and the fables which correspond to the age of primitive despotisms must be cleansed of the immoral elements they still embody."[3]

[3] Adler, _Moral Instruction of Children_, pp. 88-89.

The peculiar form of moral teaching in the "Fables" suits them especially to children. A single trait of conduct, like greediness or selfishness, is sharply outlined in the story and its results made plain. "We have seen nothing finer in teaching than the building up of these little stories in conversational lessons--first to illustrate some mental or moral trait; then to detach the idea from its story picture, and find illustrations for it in some other act or incident. And nothing can be more gratifying as a result, than, through the transparency of childish hearts, to watch the growth of right conduct from the impulses derived from the teaching; and so laying the foundations of future rightness of character."[4]

[4] Introduction to Stickney's _AEsop's Fables_. Ginn & Co.

The moral ideas inculcated by the fables are usually of a practical, worldly-wisdom sort, not high ideals of moral quality, not virtue for its own sake, but varied examples of the results of rashness and folly. This is, perhaps, one reason why they are so well suited to the immature moral judgments of children.

Adler says: "Often when a child has committed some fault, it is useful to refer by name to the fable that fits it. As, when a boy has made room in his seat for another, and the other crowds him out, the mere mention of the fable of the porcupine is a telling rebuke; or the fable of the hawk and the pigeons may be called to mind when a boy has been guilty of mean excuses. On the same principle that angry children are sometimes taken before a mirror to show them how ugly they look, the fable is a kind of mirror for the vices of the young." Again: "The peculiar value of the fables is that they are instantaneous photographs which reproduce, as it were, in a single flash of light, some one aspect of human nature, and which, excluding everything else, permit the attention to be entirely fixed on that one."

But the value of the fable reaches far beyond childhood. The frequency with which it is cited in nearly all the forms of literature, and its aptness to express the real meaning of many episodes in real life, in politics and social events, in peace and war, show the universality of the truth it embodies. A story which engraves a truth, as it were with a diamond point, upon a child's mind, a truth which will swiftly interpret many events in his later life, deserves to take a high place among educative influences.

FABLES AND NATURE MYTHS

Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. AEsop's Fables (Stickney). Ginn & Co. Book of Legends (Scudder). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Stories for Children (Lane). The American Book Co. A Child's Garden of Verses (Stevenson). Scribner's Sons. AEsop's Fables. Educational Publishing Co. The Book of Nature Myths (Holbrook). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. The Moral Instruction of Children (Adler), Chapters VII and VIII. D. Appleton & Co.