Here and Now Story Book Part 2

STORIES BY SIX-YEAR-OLDS

Once upon a time there was a fox and a skunk, and the fox was walking down the path with a lot of p.r.i.c.kly bushes on the side of the path. Then he saw a skunk coming along. He said, "Will you let me throw my little bag of perfume on you?" And then she (it was a lady fox) she backed and backed and backed and backed and backed and backed, and she backed so far she backed into the bushes, and she got her skirt torn on the p.r.i.c.kly bushes.

Once upon a time there was a boy and the boy was awfully funny. And one day the boy went to the store to buy some eggs and he got the eggs and ran so fast with the eggs home,--he stumbled and broke the eggs. So he took the eggs, and took the sh.e.l.l and fixed it like the same egg. And he walked off slowly to his home. And his mother was going to beat the eggs and she just opened the sh.e.l.l and no egg was there, and she couldn't make no cake that night.

There is still another kind of story which I believe children of this transition period and a little older seek and for the most part seek in vain. These children are beginning to generalize, to marshal their facts and experiences along lines which in their later developments we call "laws." They like these wide-spreading conceptions which order the world for them. But they cannot always take them as bald scientific statements. Moreover there are certain general truths which tie together isolated familiar facts which can be most simply pictured through some device such as personification,--for at this age personification is recognized and enjoyed as a device and not, as in earlier years, as a necessary expression of thought. This uniting bond, this underlying relation may be a physical law like the dependence of life on life; it may be a social law like the division of labor in modern industry. Any dramatic statement of these laws is a simplification as is a diagram or map. And like a diagram or map, it is in a way artificial since it gives weight to one element at the expense of the others. But again like the diagram or map, the thing it shows is a fact, a fact which is more readily grasped by this artificial device than by bald statement. Maps do not take the place of photographs, nevertheless they have their own peculiar place in making intelligible the make-up of the physical world.

In the same way, personification does not take the place of science.

Nevertheless it has its own peculiar place in making clear to the child some simplifying principle,--physical or social,--which unifies his mult.i.tudinous experiences. So long as personification elucidates a true, a scientific principle, so long as it is not pressed to tortuous lengths which actually give false impressions, so long as it is kept within the bounds of aesthetic decency, so long as it is recognized as a play device and does not confuse a child's thinking,--so long as it is justified. No more. It is a useful intellectual tool and a charming device for play. Kipling is preeminently the master here. It is a dangerous tool in lesser hands. Yet I have dared to use it and without scruple in "Speed," in "Once the Barn was Full of Hay" and in "Silly Will." Here again I feel sure that study of children's questions and stories would bring rich suggestions as to how to fill this large gap in their present literature.

Gaps there are, and many and large ones. Still, taken all in all, the field for the seven- to eight-year-old transition period is not as completely barren as the field for the earlier years. For these children are evolving from the stage where they need "Here and Now" stories. They are beginning to take on adult modes of thought and to appreciate and understand the peculiar language which adults use no matter how young a child they address! So much for the content of children's stories. And at best the content is but half.

FORM

If content is but half, form is the other half of stories and not the easier half, either. Every story, to be worthy of the name, must have a pattern, a pattern which is both pleasing and comprehensible. This design, this composition, this pattern, whether it be of a story as a whole or of a sentence or a phrase, is as essential to a piece of writing as is the design or composition to a picture. It satisfies the emotional need of the child which is as essential in real education as is the intellectual. Without this design, language remains on the utilitarian level,--where, to be sure, we usually find it in modern days.

Now what kind of pattern is adapted to a small child,--say a three-year-old? What kind does he like? More, what kind can he perceive?

Herein the expression as fatally as in the content has the adult shaped the mould to his own liking. Or rather, the case is even worse. The adult more often than not has presented his stories and verse to children in forms which the children could not like because they literally could not hear them! The pattern, as such, did not exist for them. But what have we to guide us in creating suitable patterns for these little children who can help us neither by a.n.a.lysis nor by articulate remonstrance? We have two sources of help and both of them come straight from the children. The first are the children's own spontaneous art forms; the second are the story and verse patterns which make an almost universal appeal to little children. Even a superficial study of these two sources,--and where shall we find a thorough study?--suggests two fundamental principles. They sound obvious and perhaps they are. But how often is the obvious ignored in the treatment of children! The first is that the individual units whether ideas, sentences or phrases must be simple. The second is that these simple units must be put close together.

As the quickest and most eloquent exemplification of both these principles I give four stories. The first was told by a little girl of twenty-two months, a singularly articulate little person,--as she looked at the blank wall where had hung a picture of a baby (she supposed her little brother), a cow and a donkey. The second was a story told by a little girl of two and a half after a summer on the seash.o.r.e. The third was achieved by a boy of three,--a child, in general, unsensitive to music. The fourth was told in school by a four-year-old girl.

STORY BY TWENTY-TWO-MONTHS-OLD CHILD

Where cow?

Where donk?

Where little Aa?

Cow gone away!

Donk gone away!

Little Aa gone away!

Like cow!

Like donk!

Like little Aa!

Come back cow!

Come back donk!

Come back little Aa!

STORY BY TWO-AND-A-HALF-YEAR-OLD

I fell in water.

Man fell in water.

John fell in water.

For' fell in water.

Aunt Carrie fell in water.

I pull boat out.

Man pull boat out.

John pull boat out.

For' pull boat out.

Aunt Carrie pull boat out.

I go in that boat.

Man go in that boat.

John go in that boat.

For' go in that boat.

Aunt Carrie go in that boat.

STORY BY THREE-YEAR-OLD

And father went down, down, down into the hole And the bull-frog, he went up, up, up into the sky!

And then the bull-frog, he went down, down, down into the hole And then father, he went up, up, up, way into the sky!

And then the bull-frog he went down, down, down into the hole And up, up into the sky!

And then he went down into the hole And up into the sky!

And he went down and up and down and up And down and up and down and up And down and up and down and up And down and up And down and up And down and up Down and up---- (to wordless song.)

STORY BY A FOUR-YEAR-OLD

Baby Bye, Baby Bye Here's a fly You'd better be careful Else he will sting you And here's a spider too.

And if you hurt him he will sting you And don't you hurt him And his pattern on the wall.

Certainly all have form,--spontaneous native art form. Indeed they strongly suggest that to the child, the pleasure lay in the form rather than in the content. The patterns of the first two are somewhat alike,--variations of a simple statement. In content the younger child keeps her attention on one point, so to speak, while the older child allows a slight movement like an embryonic narrative. The pattern of the three-year-old's is considerably more complex. The phrases shorten, the tempo quickens, until the whole swings off into wordless melody. The fourth probably started from some remembered lullaby but quickly became the child's own. I give two more examples of stories. In the first, does not this five-year-old girl give us her vivid impressions in marvelously simple sense and motor terms? And does not the six-year-old boy in the second show that imagination can spring from real experiences?

STORIES BY FIVE-YEAR-OLDS

I am going to tell you a story about when I went to Falmouth with my mother. We had to go all night on the train and this is the way it sounded, (moving her hand on the table and intoning in different keys) thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, _NEW ARK!_ thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, FALMOUTH! And then we got off and we took a trolley car and the trolley car went clipperty, clipperty, clipperty, zip, zip. And another trolley car came in the other direction (again with hands) and one came along saying clipperty, clipperty, clipperty, zip, zip and the other came along saying clipperty, clipperty, clipperty, zip, zip, zip, BANG! And they hit in the middle and they got stuck and they tried to pull them apart and they stuck and they stuck and they stuck and finally they got them apart and then we went again.

And when we got off we had to take a subway and the subway went rockety-rockety-rockety-rock. You know a subway makes a terrible noise! It made a _terrible_ noise it sounded like rockety-rockety-rockety-rockety-rock.

And at last we got there and when we came up in the streets of Falmouth it was so still that I didn't know what to do. You know the streets of Falmouth are just so terribly quiet and then we had to walk millions and millions of miles almost to get to our little cottage. And when we got there I put on my bathing suit and I went in bathing and I shivered just like this because it was a rainy day, the day I went to Falmouth with my mother.

The Talk of the Brook

O brook, O brook, that sings so loud, O brook, O brook, that goes all day, O brook, O brook, that goes all night And forever.

Splashes and waves, girls and boys are playing with You and in you.

Some with shoes off and some with shoes on, And some are crying because they fell in you.

O brook, O brook, have you an end ever?

Or do you go forever?

Technically in all these stories the child exemplifies the two rules. He attends to but one thing at a time. And his steps from one point to the next are short and clear.