Chapter IV: Introduction (2)

So after we have gathered what we can from the world's store for children of this seven-to-eight-year old period I think we shall find many unfilled gaps. Most attempts at humor, for instance, are on the level of the comic sheet of the Sunday supplement or the circus. There is little except a few of the "drolls" which give the child pure fun unmixed with excitement or confusion. Even "Alice in Wonderland" when first read to a six-year-old who was used to rational thinking and talking was pronounced "Too funny!" This same boy, however, went back to Alice again and again. He always relished such bits as:

"Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes,
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases."

No child's world is complete without humor. And children have a sense of the preposterous, the inappropriate all their own. Lewis Carroll and a few others have occasionally found it. Still, I think much remains to be done in the way of studying the things that children themselves find amusing. This is true for the younger ones as well. I give several younger children's stories which appeared both to the tellers and their audiences to be convulsing. The humor is strangely physical and amazingly simple. And it is all fresh.

STORIES BY FOUR-YEAR-OLDS

I dreamed I was asleep in a tomato and just scrambled around until
I'd eaten it up.

* * *

Once there was a cow and he was in a wagon and he jumped over the
wagon's edge.

* * *

Sesame the Cat

She lived with a nice man, a candy man, and she was at the gate
watching the cattle go by and the men were digging under some
caramel bricks and he called Sesame the Cat and she came banging
and almost jumped on the man's head. She jumped like a merry
balloon. Oh, he got angry!

* * *

STORY BY FIVE-YEAR-OLD

Once there was a fly. And he went out walking on a little boy's
face. He came to a kind of a soft hump. "What is this?" thought the
fly. "Oh, I guess it's the little boy's eye!" Then he came to a lot
of kind of wiggly things that went down with him. "What is this?"
thought the fly. "Oh, I guess it's the little boy's hair!" Then he
slipped and fell into a deep hole. It was the little boy's ear. And
he couldn't get out. He tried and he tried. But he staid there
until the little boy's ear got all sore!

* * *

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 prickly 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 prickly 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 shell 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 shell 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 multitudinous 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 æsthetic 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 preëminently 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 analysis 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 seashore. 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.

When we look at the forms which have been presented to children with these their spontaneous patterns fresh in mind, we can see, I think, why Mother Goose has been taken as a child's own and Eugene Field and even Stevenson rejected as unintelligible. I do not believe there is anything in the content of Mother Goose to win the child. I believe it is the form that makes the appeal. Vachel Lindsay, whose daring play with words has made him an object of suspicion to the reluctant of mind, has given us one poem in pattern singularly like the children's own and in content full of interest and charm. Again I give examples as the quickest of arguments. And I give them in verse where the form is more obvious and can be shown in briefer space than in stories.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

TIME TO RISE

A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you shamed, you sleepy head?"

--_Stevenson._

THE LITTLE TURTLE

(A recitation for Martha Wakefield, three years old)

There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a musquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the musquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me.

--_Vachel Lindsay._

From THE DINKEY-BIRD

So when the children shout and scamper
And make merry all the day,
When there's naught to put a damper
To the ardor of their play;
When I hear their laughter ringing,
Then I'm sure as sure can be
That the Dinkey-bird is singing
In the amfalula tree.

--_Eugene Field._

Of the two "Jack and Jill" and "Birdie with the Yellow Bill," surely Stevenson's is the more charming to the adult ear. But when I have read it to three-year-olds, I have felt that they were lost. They could not sustain the long grammatical suspense, could not carry over "A birdie" from the first line to the conclusion and so actually did not know who was saying "Ain't you shamed, you sleepy-head!" Mother Goose repeats her subject. The span to carry is two phrases in Mother Goose as against four in Stevenson. The Vachel Lindsay I have found is as easily remembered and as much enjoyed as Mother Goose, though it is a pity it is about an unfamiliar animal. As for the Dinkey-bird even a seven-year-old can hardly _hear_ the rhyme even if intellectually he could follow the adult vocabulary and the complicated sentence with its long postponed subject.

It is the same with stories. The classic tales which have held small children,--"The Gingerbread Man," "The Three Little Pigs," "Goldylocks,"--have patterns so obvious and so simple that they cannot be missed. In "The Gingerbread Man" the pattern is one of increasing additions. It belongs to the aptly called "cumulative" tales. The refrains act like sign-posts to help the child to mark the progress. This is simply a skilful way of making the continuity close, of showing the ladder rungs for the child's feet. I venture to say that any good story-teller consciously or unconsciously puts up sign-posts to help the children. If he is skilful, he makes a pattern of them so that they are not merely intellectually helpful but charming as well. So Kipling in his "Just So Stories" uses his sign-posts,--which are sometimes words, sometimes phrases, sometimes situations,--in such a way that they ring musically and give a pleasant sense of pattern even to children too young to find them intellectually helpful.

In other words, the little child is not equipped psychologically to hear complicated units. I wish some one could determine how the average four-year-old hears the harmony of a chord on the piano. Is it much except confusion? In the same way, he is not equipped to leap a span between units. I wish some one would determine the four-year-old's memory span for rhymes, for instance. The involutions, the suggestiveness so attractive to adult ears, he cannot hear. Even an adult ear, untutored, can scarcely hear the intermingling rhythms and overlapping rhymes which blend like overtones of a chord in such verse as Patmore's Ode "The Toys." I feel sure the small child cannot hear complexities; he cannot leap gaps. And so he cannot understand when even simple ideas are given in complex and discontinuous form. This explains his notorious love of repetition. Repetition is the simplest of patterns, simple enough to be enjoyed as pattern. I have found that almost any simple phrase of music or words repeated slowly and with a kind of ceremonious attention, enthralls a year-old child. If the unit is simple enough to be remembered he will inevitably enjoy recognizing it as it recurs and recurs. This is the embryonic pattern sense.

This pattern enjoyment too is motor in its basis. His early repetitions of sounds are probably largely pleasure in muscle patterns. We all know that a child uses first his large muscles,--arm, leg and back,--and that he early enjoys any regular recurrent use of these muscles. So at the time when the vocal muscles tend to become his means of expression, he enjoys repeating the same sounds over and over. And soon he gets enjoyment from listening to repetitions or rhythmic language,--a vicarious motor enjoyment. Surely it is important that stories should furnish him this exercise and pleasure. Three- and four-year-olds will enjoy a positively astounding amount of repetition. In the Arabella and Araminta stories a large proportion of the sentences are given in duplicate by the simple device of having twins who do and say the same things and by telling the remarks and actions of each. The selection quoted is repeated entire four times, the variation being only in the flower picked:

And Arabella picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and
Arabella picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella
picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella picked a
poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella picked a poppy,
and Araminta picked a poppy, until they each had a great big bunch
(I should say a very large bunch), and then they ran back to the
house.

Arabella got a glass and put her poppies in it, and Araminta got a
glass and put her poppies in it.

And Arabella clapped her hands and danced around the table. And
Araminta clapped her hands and danced around the table.

Adult ears repudiate anything as obvious as this; they still, however, enjoy a ballad refrain.

Just as small children cannot hear complications, so they cannot grasp details if the movement is swift. We must give time for a child's slow reactions. We usually fail to do this in ordinary social situations and are often surprised to hear our three-year-old say "good-bye" long after the front door is closed and our guest well on his way down the street. In stories we must take a leisurely pace. We must also read very slowly allowing ample time for a child to give the full motor expression to his thought for the art of abbreviation he has not yet learned.

It is not enough to recognize that since a child attends to but one thing at a time the units must be simple. Here in the form as in the content, must the motor quality of a child's thinking be held constantly in mind. In trying to find the general subject matter appropriate for little children I said that they think through their muscles. This motor expression of small children has its direct application in the concrete method of telling of any happening. The story child who is experiencing, should go through the essential muscular performances which the real listening child would go through if he were actually experiencing himself. For he thinks through these muscular expressions. As an example, when a group of four-year-olds heard a story about a little boy who saw the elevated train approach and pass above him, they thought the child might have been run over. The words "up" and "above" and "overhead" had been used but the children failed to get the idea of "upness." Unquestionably they would have understood if I had made the little boy _throw back his head and look up_. Small children act with big gestures and with big muscles. And they think through the same mechanisms.

These two principles, simplicity and continuity, apply concretely to sentence and phrase structure as well. The effort to obtain continuity for the child explains the colloquial "The little boy who lived in this house, _he_ did so and so----" You help your child back to the subject, "the little boy" by the grammatically redundant "he" after his mind has gone off on "this house." This same need for continuity also explains why a child's own stories are characteristically one continuous sentence strung together with "ands" and "thens" and "buts." He sees and hears and consequently thinks in a simple, rhythmic, continuous flow. If we would have him see and hear and think with us, we must give him his stories and verse in simple units closely and obviously linked together.

But after all is said and done, why should we give children stories at all? Is it to instruct and so should we pay attention to the content? Is it to delight and so should we pay attention to the form? Both things, information and relish, have their place in justifying stories for children. But both to my mind are of minor importance compared to a third and quite different thing,--and this is to get children to create stories of their own, to play with words. "To get" is an unhappy phrase for it suggests that children must be coaxed to the task. This I do not believe though I cannot prove it. I do believe that children play with words naturally and spontaneously just as they play with any material that comes to their creative hands. And further I believe,--though this too I cannot prove,--that we adults kill this play with words just as we kill their creative play with most things. Most of us have forgotten how to play with anything, most of all with words. We are utilitarian, we are executive, we are didactic, we are earth-tied, we are hopelessly adult! Actually children use their ears and noses and fingers much more than do we adults. Our stories rely mainly upon visual recalls. We forget to listen even to birds whose message is pure melody. And how many of us _hear_ the city sounds which surround us, the characteristic whirr of revolving wheels, the vibrating rhythm of horses' feet, the crunch of footsteps in the snow? Noises we hear, the warning shriek of the fire engine or the honk! honk! of the automobile. But the subtler, finer reverberations we are not sensitive to. Yet little children love to listen and develop another method of sensing and appreciating their world by this pleasurable use of their hearing. It surely is an unused opportunity for story-tellers. I have tried to use it in "Pedro's Feet" which is an attempt to give them an ordinary story by means of sounds. And even less than to city sounds do we listen for the cadences in language. We listen only for the _meaning_ and forget the sensuous delight of sound.

But happily children are not so determined to wring a meaning out of every sight and every sound. Children play. Play is a child's own technique. Through it he seizes the strange unknown world around him and fashions it into his very own. He recreates through play. And through creating, he learns and he enjoys.

There is no better play material in the world than words. They surround us, go with us through our work-a-day tasks, their sound is always in our ears, their rhythms on our tongue. Why do we leave it to special occasions and to special people to use these common things as precious play material? Because we are grown-ups and have closed our ears and our eyes that we may not be distracted from our plodding ways! But when we turn to the children, to hearing and seeing children, to whom all the world is as play material, who think and feel through play, can we not then drop our adult utilitarian speech and listen and watch for the patterns of words and ideas? Can we not care for the _way_ we say things to them and not merely _what_ we say? Can we not speak in rhythm, in pleasing sounds, even in song for the mere sensuous delight it gives us and them, even though it adds nothing to the content of our remark? If we can, I feel sure children will not lose their native use of words: more, I think those of six and seven and eight who have lost it in part,--and their stories show they have,--will win back to their spontaneous joy in the play of words. This is the ultimate test of stories and verse,--whether they help children to retain their native gift of play with language and with thought.

In the City and Country School where my experiments in language have been carried on, we have not gone far enough to offer convincing proof along these lines. But I submit two stories told by a six-year-old class which are at least suggestive. The first is the best story told to me by any member of the class before any effort had been made to get the children to listen to the sound of their words or to think of their ideas as all pointing in one direction and giving a single impression. The second was told by the class as a whole while looking at Willebeek Le Mair's illustration of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." They said the picture made them feel sleepy and that they would say only things that made them sleepy and use only words that made them sleepy. Between the two stories I had met with them seven times. I had read them sounding and rhythmic verse. They had become interested in the sound of language apart from its meaning. They had become interested in the sound of the rain and the fire. They were thinking through their ears. Am I mistaken in believing this shows in their language and in their thought?

STORY BY A SIX-YEAR-OLD

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Peter and a little
boy named Boris. And Peter took him out for a walk and took him all
around school. Then I took him out to my house and saw all my play
things. And then I took him to Central Park and showed him sea
lions and the giraffe and the elephant and I showed how they eat
by their trunks. And he thought it was queer. And he said he was
afraid of animals and so I took him home. I told him to tell his
mother about it and his mother said, "You want to go for another
walk?" and he said, "Yes, but not where the wild animals are." I
said, "Do you want to go to Central Park?" and he said, "Yes." You
see he got fooled! He didn't know about the wild animals.

JOINT STORY BY SIX-YEAR-OLD CLASS

I like it when the boy and the girl look at the sky. They look at
the trees and they are sleepy. It is dark outside. It is night and
the sky is dark blue. And it is kind of whitish and the trees are
next to the blue sky. The bright evening star is out. The star is
so far up in the sky that you can hardly see it. The children are
looking at the sky before they go to bed and they are praying to
God. They have their nightgowns on. The bed is all nice so they
couldn't have just got up. The clothes are hanging on the bed. They
sleep in their own bed together. When they go to bed they have
their door closed.

"The Leaf Story" and "The Wind Story" I have incorporated with my stories, though they are almost entirely the work of children. In both cases the organization is beyond the children. But the content and the phraseology bear their unmistakable imprint. The same is true of "The Sea Gull."

Because of the pattern, the play aspect of language, I believe in written stories even for very little ones. If we loved our language better and played with its sound in our ordinary speech, perhaps stories for two- and three-year-olds would not be needed. But as it is, we need to present them with something more intentional, more thought out than is possible with most of us in a story told. If the patterns of our ideas or of our speech are to have charm, if they are to fit the occasion with nicety, if they are to flow easily and are to be continuous enough to be comprehended by little children, they will need careful attention,--attention that cannot be given under the emergency of telling a story, not, at least, by the uninspired of us. Inevitably, with our utilitarian tendencies, we shall be drawn off to an undue regard of the content to the neglect of the expression. And yet, for very little children, there is unquestionably something lost by the formality and fixity of a written story. A story told has more spontaneity, allows more leeway to include the chance happenings or remarks of the children; it can be more intimately personal, more adapted to the particular occasion and to the particular child. Perhaps some time we shall achieve a fortunate compromise, a stepping stone between the story told and the story read. Perhaps we shall work out happy or characteristic phrases about familiar things,--little personal things about the clothes and habits of each child, general familiar things like autos and wagons and horses on the street, coal going down the hole in the sidewalk, the squabbling of sparrows in the dirt, the drift of snow on the roofs,--perhaps we shall learn to use such thought-out phrases or refrains like blocks for building many stories. If we could work out some such technique as this, we could keep the intimacy, the flexibility, the waywardness of the spoken story and still give the children the charm of careful thinking and careful phrasing. Many such phrases have been fashioned by people sensitive to the quality of sound. Every nursery has had its rooster crow:

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

But few have given its children that delightful epitome of the songs of spring birds which has piped with irrepressible freshness now for nearly four centuries:

"Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!"

I have never known the child who did not respond to Kipling's engine song:

"With a michnai-ghignai-shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah!"

Every child creates these wonderful sound interpretations of the world. We smile a smile of indulgence when we hear them. And then we forget them! Cannot we seize some of them however imperfectly and learn to build them into the structure of our stories? It was more or less this kind of thing that I had in mind in writing Marni's stories and "The Room with the Window Looking Out Upon the Garden" which as I have said elsewhere are types to be told rather than narratives to be read. And I feel sure if we could once make a beginning that the children themselves would soon take the matter into their own hands and create their own building blocks.

For children are primarily creators. They do not willingly nor for long maintain the passive rôle. This should be reckoned with in stories and not merely as a concession to restless children but as a real aid to the story. An active rôle should be provided for the children somewhere within every story until the children are old enough to have a genuinely impersonal interest in things and events and until they do not need a motor expression of their thoughts. For as I have already said, up to that age,--and it is for psychologists to say when that age is,--children think in terms of themselves expressed through their own activities. This active rôle should be used not merely as a safety valve of expression to keep the child a patient listener, but as a tool by which he may become aware of the form of thought and language. It is interesting that the children to whom these stories have been read, have seized upon the rhyme refrains as their own and after a few readings have joined in saying them as though this were their natural portion. It is with this hope that I have tried to make the refrains not mere interludes in the story, as they usually are, but the real skeleton, the intrinsic thought pattern, the fundamental design. In "How the Singing Water Gets to the Tub" and "How Spot Found a Home," for instance, the refrains taken by themselves out of the context, tell the whole story. It is too soon to say, but I am strong in the hope that through relish for this kind of active participation in written stories, a small child may become captivated by the play side of the stories as opposed to the content and so turn to language as play material in which to fashion patterns of his own.

For the sake of analysis, I have treated content and form separately. But I am keenly aware that the divorce of the two is what has made our stories for children so unsatisfactory. We have good ideas told without charm of design; and we have meaningless patterns which tickle the ear for the moment but fade because they spring from no real thought. Literature is only achieved when the thought pattern and the language pattern exactly fit. A refrain for the mere sake of recurrent jingle, that has no genuine no essential recurrence in the thought, is a trick. If the pattern does not help the thought and the thought suggest the pattern, there is something wrong. It is an artifice, not art. This matching of content and form is nothing new. It is and always has been the basis of good literature. The task that is new is to find thought sequences, thought relations which are truly childlike and the language design which is really appropriate to them,--to make both content and form the child's.

As I said at the beginning, so must I say at the end. These stories are experiments, experiments both in content and form. To have any value they must be treated as such. The theses underlying them have been stated for brevity's sake only in didactic form. In reality, they lie in my mind as open questions urgently in need of answers. But I do not hope much from the answers of adults,--from the deaf and blind writers to the hearing and seeing children. The answers must come from the children themselves. We must listen to children's speech, to their casual everyday expressions. We must gather children's stories. Mothers and teachers everywhere should be making these precious records. We must study them not merely as showing what a child is thinking, but the _way_ he is thinking and the way he is enjoying. It is the hope that these stories may be tried out with children, the hope of reaching others who may be watching and listening and working along these lines, the hope that we may gather records of children's stories which will become a basis for a real literature, the hope that somewhere among grown-ups we may find an ear still sensitive to hear and an eye still fresh to see,--it is this hope that has given me the courage to expose these pitifully inadequate adult efforts to speak with little children in their own language. Some one must dare, if only to give courage to the better equipped. And if we dare enough, I am sure the children will come to our rescue. If we let them, they will lead us. Whatever these stories hold of merit or of suggestiveness is due to the inspiration and tolerance of the courageous group of workers in the City and Country School and in the Bureau of Educational Experiments and in particular to Caroline Pratt without whom these stories would never have been dreamed or written; and above all to the children themselves, for whom the stories were written and to whom they have been read, both in the laboratory school and in my own home. To those then, who wish to follow the lead of little children, to those who have the curiosity to know into what new paths of literature children's interest and children's spontaneous expression of those interests will lead, and to the children themselves, I send these stories.

LUCY SPRAGUE MITCHELL.

New York City July, 1921.

MARNI TAKES A RIDE
IN A WAGON

The refrains in this story were first made up during the actual ride. Later they served to recall the experience with vividness. This story is given only as a type which any one may use when helping a two-year-old to live over an experience.

MARNI TAKES A RIDE IN A WAGON

One day Marni went for a ride. Little Aa, he climbed into Sprague's wagon and Marni, she climbed in behind him. Then Mother took the handle and she began to pull the wagon with little Aa and Marni in it. And Mother she went:

Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
_And_ Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog!

And the wheels, they went, (with motion of hands):

Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
_And_ Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round!

And then Mother was tired. So she stopped. And Marni said, "Whoa, horsie!"

Then Little Aa said, "Ugh, ugh!" for he wanted to go.

But Marni said, "Get up, horsie!" for she wanted to go too. So Mother took hold of the handle and went:

Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
_And_ Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog!

And the wheels they went:

Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
_And_ Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round!

And then Mother was tired. So she stopped, and Marni said, "Whoa, horsie!"

Then Little Aa said, "Ugh, ugh!" for he wanted to go. But Marni said "Get up, horsie!" for she wanted to go too. So Mother took hold of the handle and went,

Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
_And_ Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog, jog, jog, jog,
Jog!

And the wheels they went:

Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
_And_ Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round, round, round, round,
Round!

And then Mother was very, _very_ tired. So she stopped. And Marni said, "Whoa, horsie!"

Then Little Aa said, "Ugh, ugh!" for he wanted to go again. But Marni said "Get up, horsie!" for she wanted to go too. But Mother she was very, _very_, VERY tired. She had jogged, jogged, jogged so long and made the wheels go round, round, round, round, so much! So she said, "The ride is all over!" Then Little Aa climbed down out of the wagon and Marni climbed down out of the wagon. And Marni said, "Goodbye, wagon!" and ran away!

MARNI GETS DRESSED
IN THE MORNING

This story, obviously, is for a particular little girl. It is told in the terms of her own experience, of her own environment, and of her own observations. It is nothing more or less than the living over in rhythmic form of the daily routine of her morning dressing. Her story remarks are either literal quotations or adaptations of her actual every day responses. The little verse refrains are the type of thing almost anyone can improvise. I have found that any simple statement about a familiar object or act told (or sung) with a kind of ceremonious attention and with an obvious and simple rhythm, enthralls a two-year-old. The little girl for whom this story was written began embryonic stories before her second birthday. The water-soap-sponge episode is an adaptation of one of her first narrative forms. This story is meant merely as a suggestion of the way almost anyone can make language an every day plaything to the small child she is caring for.

MARNI GETS DRESSED IN THE MORNING

Once there was a little girl and her name was Marni Moo. Marni used to sleep in a little bed in mother's room. In the morning Marni would wake up and she would say "Hello, Mother." And then in a minute she would say, "I want to get up."

And mother would say:

"Hoohoo, Marni Moo.
I'm coming, I'm coming,
I'm coming for you."

Then mother would get up and she'd come over and she'd unfasten the blanket and she'd take little Marni Moo in her arms and she'd walk into Marni's bath-room and she'd take off Marni's nightgown and Marni's shirt. And then she'd get a little basin, and she'd put some water in it, and she'd get some soap and she'd get a sponge and she'd wash little Marni Moo. She'd wash Marni's face and then she'd wash Marni's hands, and Marni would put one hand in the basin and she'd splash the water like this:-- Then she'd put another hand in the basin and she'd splash the water like this:-- Then mother would wipe both hands and she'd throw the water down the sink and she'd put away the soap and the sponge. And Marni would watch mother and then she'd say:

"Where water?
Where soap?
Where sponge?

Water gone away!
Soap gone away!
Sponge gone away!"

And after that what do you suppose Marni would say?

"Shirt, shirt." And mother would put Marni's shirt over her head and say:

"Peek-a-boo, Marni Moo,
Marni's head is coming through."

and then mother would button up Marni's shirt.

And then Marni would say "Waist, waist." Then while mother put on Marni's waist she would say:

"Here's one hand
And here's another.
Marni's a sister
And Robin's a brother."

And then Marni would say, "Drawers, drawers." And while mother put on Marni's drawers she would say:

"Here's one foot
And here's another.
Marni's a sister
And Peter's a brother."

And then Marni would say, "Stockings, stockings." And mother would put on one stocking on her left foot, and then she'd put on another stocking on her right foot. And then she'd fasten the garters on one stocking, and then she'd fasten the garters on the other stocking. And all the time mother would keep saying:

"Here's one leg
And here's another.
Marni's a sister
And Jack-o's a brother."

Then Marni would say, "Shoe, shoe." And mother would put one shoe on her left foot and then she'd put on the other shoe on her right foot. And then she'd say again:

"Here's one foot
And here's another.
Marni's a sister
And Robin's a brother."

And then Marni would say, "Hook, hook." And mother would get the button-hook and then she'd button up the left shoe and then she'd button up the right shoe. And all the time she was buttoning up first one shoe and then the other shoe Marni would say:

"Look, look,
Hook, hook."

And when the shoes were all buttoned up, mother would hit first one little sole and then the other little sole, and say:

"Now we're through
Tit, tat, too.
Here a nail, there a nail,
Now we're through."

Then Marni would run and get her romper and bring it to mother calling, "Romper, romper." And mother would put on her romper, singing:

"Romper, romper
Who's got a romper?
Little Marni Moo
She's got two.
One is a yellow one
And one is blue.
Romper, romper
Who's got a romper?"

And then Marni would say, "Button, button." And mother would button up her romper all down the back. First one button and then another button and then another button and then another button, and then another button and then another button until they were buttoned all down the back.

And then Marni would say, "Sweater." And mother would put on her little blue sweater saying:

"Sweater, sweater
Who's got a sweater?
Little Marni Moo
She's got two.
One is a yellow one
And one is blue.
Sweater, sweater,
Who's got a sweater?"

And then Marni would say, "Hair." And mother would get the brush and comb and brush Marni's hair. And all the time she was brushing it she would say:

"Brush it so
And brush it slow.
Brush it here
And brush it there.
Brush it so
And brush it slow.
And brush it here
And brush it there
And brush it all over your dear little head."

And then Marni would say, "All ready." And mother would put her down on the floor.

Then Marni would say:

"Where my little pail?
My little pail gone away.
I want my little pail
Come, little pail."

And mother would give her her little pail. And Marni would put one nut in her pail, and then she'd put another nut in her pail, and then she'd put another nut in her pail. And then she'd put a marble in her pail, and then she'd put another marble in her pail, and then she'd put another marble in her pail. And then she'd put her quack-quack in her pail, and then she'd put her fish in her pail, and then she'd put her frog in her pail. Then she would shake her pail with all of the nuts and the marbles and the quack-quack and the frog and the fish, and they would all go bingety-bang, crickety-crack, bingety-bang, crickety-crack.

And Marni would say, "Bingety-bang, crickety-crack. Where Jack-o?" And Marni would run to find Jack-o, and she would say, "Jack-o, hear bingety-bang, crickety-crack." And she would rattle her little pail with all the nuts and the marbles and the quack-quack and the fish and the frog. Then she'd say, "Where Peter?" And Marni would run to find Peter, and she would say, "Peter, hear bingety-bang, crickety-crack." And she would rattle her little pail with all the nuts and the marbles and the quack-quack and the fish and the frog.

Then mother would call, "Breakfast, breakfast. Anyone ready for breakfast?"

And Jack-o would call back, "I am, I am, I am ready for breakfast."

And Peter would run as fast as he could calling, "I am, I am, I am ready for breakfast."

And last of all would come little Marni Moo calling, "Breakfast, breakfast."

Then the two boys would chase Marni to the breakfast table saying:

"Marni Mitchell,
Marni Moo,
Run like a mousie
Or I'll catch you."

And Marni would scimper scamper like a mousie until she reached the breakfast table.

Then they would all have breakfast together.

THE ROOM WITH THE
WINDOW LOOKING OUT
ON THE GARDEN

In this story written for a three-year-old group, I have tried to present the familiar setting of the classroom from a new point of view and to give the presentation a very obvious pattern. I want the children to take an _active_ part in the story. But before they try to do this I want them to have some conception of the whole pattern of the story so that their contributions may be in proper design, both in substance and in length. That is the reason I give two samples before throwing the story open to the children. If each child has a part which falls into a recognized scheme, through performing that part he gets a certain practice in pattern making in language,--however primitive--and also a certain practice in the technique of co-operation which means listening to the others as well as performing himself. I have not tried to add anything to their stock of information,--merely to give them the pleasure of drawing on a common fund together.

THE ROOM WITH THE WINDOW LOOKING OUT ON THE GARDEN

Once there was a little girl. She was just three years old. One morning she and her mother put on their hats and coats right after breakfast. They walked and walked and walked from their house until they came to MacDougal Alley. And then they walked straight down the alley into the Play School. Now the little girl had never been to the Play School before and she didn't know where anything was and she didn't know any of the children and she didn't even know her teacher! So she asked her mother, "Which room is going to be mine?" And her mother answered, "The one with the window looking out on the garden."

And sure enough, when the little girl looked around there was the sun shining right in through a window which looked out on a lovely garden! She knelt right down on the window sill to look out.

Then she heard some one say, "Little New Girl, why don't you take off your things?" She turned around and there was Virginia talking to her. "Because I don't know where to put them," said Little New Girl. "How funny!" laughed Virginia, "because see, here are all the hooks right in plain sight," and she pointed under the stairs. So the little girl took off her hat and her mittens. Her mother had to unbutton the hard top button but she did all the rest. Then she hung up everything on a hook.

"Goodbye," said her mother. "Goodbye," said Little New Girl. "Don't forget to come for me because I don't know where anything is and I don't know the children and I don't even know my teacher." And her mother answered, "No, I won't." And then she was gone.

"Now, Little New Girl, what do you want to do?" said her teacher. But the little girl only shook her head and said, "I don't know anything to do." One little boy said, "Let me show Little New Girl something." And what did he show her? He took her over to the shelves and he showed her the blocks. "You can build a house or anything with them," said the little boy.

Then another little girl said, "Let me show Little New Girl something." And what did this other little girl show her? She showed her the dolls. "You can put them into a house," said this other little girl.