The Story in Primary Instruction

he is, with full trust that the strengthening of those powers at present active will result in his highest good. All attempts to improve on nature has been abortive.

12] to it, between which and him there is no intrinsic relation and into which he must be introduced by external

to suppose that the exercise and the development of the activities dominant in early childhood will lead away from the best interests of the individual or endanger his efficiency as a member of society. It is anomalous to assume that the impulses and interests of childh

broader basis for such selection and arrangement. It matters little to what extent such a parallelism is accepted. The principle once established makes it a matter of indifference[13] whether we proceed from the individual or from the broader s

CTIVITY IN EARL

y product of every people is the epic, whose chief elements are legends, myths and the heroic, and whose authorship is not individual but of the race itself. Such a product, not the creation of any one mind

aling with the mysteries of earth, of sky, and of life itself. They tell of the morning of history, when man was close to nature-a part of nature. The ea

ENT OF THE R

instruction. While they "enforce no moral" they tell "a story, and the moral in solution with the story." Each tale is a narration without comment. The ethical teaching involved

shes an element greatly needed in our primary schools. We have here held up for esteem and veneration these virtues of head and heart and action that lie at the base of a happy, considerate and industrious home life. Baseness, cruelty, ingratitude, and laziness are brought home to the individual in their consequences. The corres

in its origin. Some subject-matter that affords opportunity for the exercise of the ethical judgment is an imperative demand for our time. What is there more suitable than this embalmed judgment of the race as to what is valuable in conduct and character? Here are stored up in a form that appeals to the child material for generalizations as to the condition

1

E MYTHOLOGICAL THE C

thical level of thought. They are immersed in the sensuous. They refuse to be bound by the hard matter of fact. They will away and claim the world as their own through which to roam o

er creatures; and as to the ethical element, the child is not without points of contact for it. He is born with social impulses. He is not only to be a social creature, but is one at all stages of development. He is nothing if not social. The fiction of original, independent individuality which must be thrown off,

its in with his forms of thought-is in obvious relation to them. It meets the needs of activities already functioning. It discloses a world in w

IMINATE AS TO MATER

nstruction, in the immense treasury of folklore, myth and fable. It will be readily conceded that what is known as folklore has qualities rendering it of greatest value, for the first years of school life. It is simple and dire

1

CTED AND THE BA

consisting of German M?rchen, the principles

be simple, direc

el situations. Stories dealing with happy home life-emphasizin

llusion, in outdoor life, and in references

ing worth that it will bear

ue, interesting and even humorous incidents, but all subordinate to a centr

ahr, a book with which every primary teacher should be familiar. The stories here presented have the sanction of such em

rom the German of Hiemish, as found in his Das Gesinnungsunterricht. To these hav

tions of parents and brother and sister. It gradually broadens into the wider circle of companionship, and contact with the world external to the home. It culminates in Miss Harrison's fine story, Hans and the Four Big Giants, where the separation

R STORY

Dollars, Red Riding Hood, Sweet Rice Porridge, Mother Frost, and Rose-Red[20] and Snow-White. The

and Birdie and Lena. These are partly inside and partly outside t

traw, The Coal and the Bean, The Wonderful Traveler, and Cinderella.

strangers. The Fir Tree is added for use as a Christmas story for those who desire it. In fact, many of the stories could be taken out of their order and b

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