The manner or method of presenting and using the material is based largely on Herbart’s “Formal Steps.” Though an effort has been made to get away from their rigidity, no teacher can afford to become hampered by the requirements of a too rigid system or a too formal method of instruction. Yet there must always be a consciousness of what meets the demands of educative instruction. Apperception, or learning, takes place under certain conditions only. These conditions must be met.

THE TREATMENT.

It is not the intention to give a list of set questions whose form and order are to be rigidly followed. It is difficult to fix upon the precise point where such questions cease to be helpful and suggestive and begin to trench on the legitimate province of the teacher. In order to avoid this unpardonable sin, the treatment of some of the stories has been elaborated quite fully, to show the work entire as it has been given to children; while that of others has been outlined, noting only the main points to be brought out and leaving the form of presentation largely to the teacher’s individuality.

Nothing can take the place of originality and spontaneity. If a fixed program is followed, the main purpose of the work will be missed and the interest for both teacher and children will evaporate. In the treatment of the two elements, the ethical and the nature material have been separated from each other and from the other parts. This is for the purpose of emphasizing them in the teacher’s mind. The plan need not be followed in the actual work. Questions and explanations may be introduced into the narration if care be taken that the interruption does not break the thread of the story.

There has been no attempt to divide the subject into lessons. However, the preparation, the narration, and the deepening should, in most cases, be all that is undertaken in one period of fifteen minutes. This is as long as young children should be kept to one exercise. If this is done in the morning session, the reproduction and the other exercises could come in the afternoon session.

REPRODUCTION.

A child learns to talk fluently and with correctness by talking. Oral speech should come before written speech. If the pupil can talk in good English with ease there will not be much trouble with written expression. To this end there should be much time given to oral reproduction by the children. Even the most backward child should be encouraged to attempt it. There will be a strong temptation to allow the brilliant story tellers to do most of the reproducing. Each child should be thrown wholly on his own responsibility. Let him tell what he can in his own way and reserve corrections until he is done. The story itself should be kept fluid. It should not be allowed to crystallize into set phrases on the part of either teacher or children. Great liberty should be allowed in reproduction, so that freshness and spontaneity may never be lacking. The reproduction may immediately follow the deepening process or be reserved for a separate period. It should be given from the beginning frequently.

THE PREPARATION.

It is well to give the aim or purpose of the story first. This may be in the form of a brief outline giving the general direction which the story is to take. Some such hint seems a pedagogical necessity. Nothing is so tiresome to an adult, even, as to listen to a discourse whose aim and purpose are not apparent. And then the movement as a whole should be in the mind of the children from the first.

It is in accordance with sound pedagogy to bring to the foreground of consciousness the ideas already possessed by the children, and known to be related to what is to be presented. The new is learned or understood (apperceived) by the old. That which has been once assimilated enters into and modifies old concepts; these in turn classify the new material and reduce it to order and unity. It is therefore important that, before a story is told, the related ideas be brought forward ready for use by means of a few well directed questions. In many cases the proper result may be attained by suggesting a difficulty or problem for the children to solve.

THE NARRATION.

After the preparation follows the story. It should be given in short divisions. Each such division should be as far as possible a dramatic unity, subordinate of course to the main one.

The story should be told, not read. Every primary teacher should be a story teller. Anyone that has felt the deep, enthusiastic response of children to a story well told will feel amply repaid for any effort to cultivate the art of story telling. On this point few suggestions can be given. The main elements of good story telling are intrinsically connected with the emotional and spiritual endowments. A genuine appreciation of child-nature must be combined with a lively and emotional manner of expression.

THE DEEPENING.

It is wise in most cases to question on the main points of the narration. This fixes them in the children’s minds so that reproduction of the story will more readily follow. The amount of such questioning must be determined by the needs of the class. Only the main points should be dwelt upon. With young children details should be avoided.

THE NATURE-MATERIAL.

The best way to widen the experience of children is to bring them into actual contact with things. But, as organized and carried on at present, the school can do very little of this first-hand teaching. However, at school age, such is the activity of childhood, most children have a considerable body of nature experience which can be used as interpretative concepts for new and similar material. Careful teaching will always aim to discover what experience the individual members of a class have had in order that inadequate ideas may be strengthened and given greater detail. This may be done by some child’s telling his experience, by the teacher giving the information—using descriptions, pictures or drawings,—or finally by proper questioning.

Starting from what is already known, a skillful teacher can build up an idea, though of course more or less indefinite, of the object or process that is comparatively unknown. Questioning can never do more than bring into explicitness what is really in the mind in a vague way. Yet, when we consider that the possibilities of all science and, in fact, of all knowledge, are implicit in the experiences of the normal child of school age, it is seen that the use of questions as an educative means is practically unlimited and that it should not be neglected even in the primary grades.

There is in the stories an abundance of nature-material and of material bearing on industrial occupations and processes that may serve, when properly used, as an excellent basis for mental growth in these directions. In making sure that ideas along these lines are clear, a foundation is being laid for a more vital grasping of geographical instruction later on.

The old object-lesson was an effort in this direction, but its formality and isolation killed it. It is not the purpose to recommend formal object lessons. The main purpose should be to see that the allusions to natural objects and to industrial occupations and processes are understood. And if they are not, to bring them into adequate clearness by proper instruction.

THE ETHICAL MATERIAL.

There is a wide difference, so far as method is concerned, between setting forth the moral to a tale in an explicit way and allowing children to express their judgments upon concrete facts of conduct. The latter is all that should be attempted. In the reaction from formal moral instruction there is danger of going to the other extreme and neglecting it entirely.

The vital element in literature—its ultimate raison d’etre—is its ethical import. It constitutes the ethical medium. It gives each child the benefit of the experience of the race. The duty of the school to give occasion for the exercise of ethical judgments is greater than its duty to train the merely intellectual judgment. For the one determines what is good or bad, the other what is real or unreal. Right conduct is of more importance than mere knowing.

READING.

The teaching of the mechanics of reading concerns itself with affixing visual images of words to the auditory vocabulary already possessed by the child. As this is a purely formal process, having little educative value in itself, the judicious teacher will welcome any suggestion toward minimizing routine drill. Instead of attempting to fix the visual form of each word, she will limit the formal instruction to giving the child a capability of deciphering new words for himself, that is, of translating them into motor images of articulation. Instruction that does not give to the child this capability is wasting time and misdirecting energy.

In order to have facility in the mastering of new words, it is necessary that there be a knowledge of the vocal value of the letters and an acquaintance with the groups into which words may be separated according to similarity of sound. Thus daily short drills upon the purely formal side seems a necessity. This should be done in a separate exercise, however.

At the same time this formal process should not be wholly divorced from the thought side. The learner should be able to grasp quickly the meaning the sentence conveys as a whole, and to give it natural expression. To make this connection between the two elements as close as possible, the sentences to be given visual form should be taken from the children themselves. These can be written on the board, or printed in large type on Manila sheets (forming a chart),[A] or in ordinary type on slips to be given to the children.

The possession by the class of the common subject-matter which the stories supply, renders this plan feasible and always full of interest. Knowledge of the content will reinforce the recognition of words and sentences and thus make progress in acquiring a visual vocabulary rapid and, in part, unconscious. Moreover, the anticipation of the meaning of what is about to be read will result in a natural expression of it. If the child has even a provisional grasp of the meaning of the whole sentence before attempting to read it, the expression will largely take care of itself. Until the comprehension of the meaning is instantaneous, there should always be a preliminary study of the sentence to be read, so that the thought as a whole may at least be foreshadowed in the mind of the child.

In this way there is a vital relation between reading as a formal process and that which is read. This obviates the necessity of using isolated and unfamiliar topics as well as those having no value in themselves. From the first the reading matter should have value for the child—be related to his stage of thought and to his dominant interests.

DRAWING, ETC.

The stories are an excellent source from which to draw material for expression in the various aesthetic exercises—drawing, paper cutting, modeling clay, or dramatization. Whatever the form, it should be the spontaneous portrayal of the child’s own imagery. However crude the product may be, if it is a genuine attempt at such expression, it has the essential element of an aesthetic creation and should have our respect as such. With a very little instruction in putting on sky and ground, in representing distance, progress will be rapid.

Drawing should be in a color medium, and be a daily exercise. Paper-cutting is of absorbing interest to children and is a form of school art that rapidly gives definiteness to the images of natural objects. It brings out a high degree of manual dexterity and offers almost as wide a scope for individual composition as drawing.

These exercises, not needing the teacher’s immediate direction, can take the place of the many forms of meaningless “busy work” that a misdirected ingenuity has devised for the purpose of keeping children “still.”

DRAMATIZATION.

Another form to which the stories lend themselves readily is dramatization. Children take intense delight in throwing striking situations into dramatic form. This exercise also should be undirected. If the story has not become crystallized into set phrases, this form of reproduction becomes a genuine language exercise.

CONSTRUCTION.

In the foregoing we have examples of artistic creation. There is a spontaneous impulse toward embodying in a suitable form the child’s own imagery. This activity goes on for its own sake; it gives pleasure.

In construction proper, where direction is given and objects are made from dictation to serve a useful purpose, we have activity passing over into what is called work. This side should not be neglected. Children are to live in a real world, where the purpose of activity is not always in the activity itself but may lie in something external to it. Things have to be made for certain definite purposes and because of certain needs. These control the activity.

While it may be admitted that the stories do not form the ideal connection for uniting such activity with the whole, yet, under present conditions, they offer the only means practicable. Children will take a deeper interest in making Red Riding Hood’s basket than in making one that has not this ideal environment.

Attention is called to that excellent little manual, “Construction Work,” by Worst, where measurements and directions can be found for the construction of most of the familiar articles of the household.

SIXTEEN STORIES
AND
HOW TO USE THEM.

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