The Child under Eight

es and I care not who

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of Froebel as an old man at Keilhau. "He was never seen crossing the courtyard without a group of the younger pupils hanging to his coat tails and clasping his arms. Usually they were pers

elcome the genuine story-teller"; he had a right to pronounce that "the child's desire and craving fo

healthy of appetites. Most of us will agree that there is something wrong with the child who does not like stories, but it may be that the something wrong belonged to the mother. One su

ly from listening to stories, but it is difficult to imagine that any one could rise to real heights in story-telling with this as an aim or end. That the narrator should clothe his li

wn experience, not only in childhood, but all through life how the story reaches our feelings as no sermon or moralising ever does, and we have learned that "out of the heart are the issues of life." Unguided feelings may be a danger, but the story does more than rouse feelings-it gives opportunity for the exercise of moral judgement, for the exercise of judgement upon questions of right and wrong. Feeling is aroused, but it i

t to think of his own wife and children first." She was satisfied, however, when it was explained to her that Horatius might be able to save many fathers to many wives and children. In my earliest teaching days, having found certain history stories successful with children of seven, I tried the same with children of six, but only once. Edmund of East Anglia dying

other, "Mother, I've been reading 'The Little Merchants' and I know now how horrid it is to cheat and tell lies." "I have been telling you that ever since you could speak," said his mother, to which the boy answered, "Yes, I know, but that didn't interest me." Our children had been told the story of how the Countess of Buchan crowned the Bruce, a duty which should have been performed by her brother the Earl of Fife, who, howe

ly strengthening spirit-bath, it gives opportunity for the exercise of all menta

is expressed in this craving, why is this desire so deeply implanted by Nature? So far, no one seems to have given a better answer than Froebel has done, when he says that the desire for stories comes out of the need to understand life, that it is in fact rooted in the instinct of inves

he physical but to the human environment in which he lives. In stories of all kinds, children study human life in all kinds of ci

eals with really interesting things, porridge, basins, chairs and beds. The strong contrast of the bears' voices fascinates children, and just when retribution might descend upon her, the heroine escapes and gets safe home. Children revel in the familiar details, but these alone would not suffice, there must be adventure, excitement, romance. One feels that

shown by the following stories made by children. The first two are by a little girl of two-and-

ite her, and the little girl climbed right on his back and she jumped right down the stairs and the bear came walki

f, and (told as a tremendous secret) he touched a fire with his handie. 'What a naughty piggy,' said Auntie, 'and w

tain slowness of speech, but the pauses are "lit by the lightning fl

st the pony and the pony put his back against a stack and bited towards the lion, and the lion

on?" she asked. "Which won!" he repeated and afte

mulation" stories seem to give most pleasure. "Henny Penny" and "Billy Bobtail"-told by Jacobs as "How Jack went to seek his Fortune"-are prime favourites. Repetition of rhythmic phrases has a great attraction

ren are ready for the time-ho

? Wonderful things do happen and they must have a wonderful cause, and, as one child said, if there never had been any fairies, how could people have written stories about them? Goodness is rewarded and wickedness is punished, a

anything to do with the religious sense, saying that "faith and fable are as the poles apart." She does not understand that it is for their truth that we value fairy-tales. The truths they teach are such as that courage and intelligence can conquer brute strength, that love can brave and can overcome all dangers and always finds the lost, that kindness begets kindness and always wins in the end. The good and the faithful marries the princess-or the prince-and lives happy ever after. And assuredly if he does not marry his princess, he will not live happy, and if she does not marry the prince, she will live

of the versions of Perrault and Grimm but Mother

ller" or "Puss in Boots," while "Bluebeard" cannot be told. It seems to me that children can often safely read for themselves stories the adult cannot well tell. The child's notion of justice is crude, bad is bad, and whether embodied in an ogre or in Pharaoh of Egypt, it must be got rid of, put out of the story. No child is sorry for the giant when Jack's axe cleaves the beanstalk, and as

res, though the writer, Frances Brown, was born blind. Mrs. Ewing's stories for children, The Brownies, with Amelia and the Dwarfs and Timothy's Shoes, are inimitable,

that they are beautiful allegories. Before she ventures to tell them, the beginner should ponder well what the poet-for these are prose poems-means, and who is represented by the beautiful Great-great-grandmother always old and

too, is full of meaning. If the teacher has gained this, the children will not lag behind. It was a child of backward develo

hat, though for quite young children the stories do require to be short and simple, and often re

ind of mental meat lozenge, most unsatisfying and probably not even fulfilling their task of supplying nourishment in form of facts. Fabl

d stories for little children, "The Three Pigs," "Hop o' my Thumb," "Beauty and the Beast," etc. They are illustrated by H.M. Brock

ile Perseus or Moses may differ little from the child's own father or brothers. Again, town children cannot visualise hill and valley, forest and moor, brook and river, not to mention jungles and snowfields and the trackless ocean. It is not easy to find pictures to give any idea of such scenes, but it is worth whil

uty of expression, high and noble deeds must be told in noble language. A teacher who wishes to be a really good teller of stories must herself read good literature, and she will do well not only to prepare her stories with care, but to consider the language she uses in daily life. There is a happy medium between pedantry and the latest variety of slang, and if daily speech is careless and slipshod, it is difficult to change it for

side, that they shrink from all that is mean, selfish, cruel and cowardly, and sympathise with