Chapter II: Part 2

Then the priest told Christopher how the man of Galilee had lived, and toiled, and suffered to make the world better; how he was crucified, died, and rose again. The story was a new and beautiful one to Christopher, the wonder of it! The priest told him that though this man was dead, his spirit was still in the world to make the world better. Then Christopher said to the priest: “He is the one that I wish to serve. How can I serve him?” Then the priest said: “You see this river?—there is no bridge for the people to cross; it is wide and at times dangerous. If you would serve him, help those who try to cross the river. You are tall, with broad shoulders and mighty strength. Day after day people as they travel through this land come to this river but cannot cross—you can help them across, and in that way you will serve him who, though dead, still lives.”

That pleased Christopher so that he built a house of logs and boughs by the river’s side, and when people came to the river he would wade through the water, take them on his shoulders and bear them across. Years passed by; Christopher grew grey in the service of humanity and his Master. Those who saw him day after day admired him and looked for him and he became a friend of all the country, loved by all.

One dark night when Christopher lay upon his bed, he heard some one calling, like the voice of a child: “Oh! Christopher, kind, good Christopher, come help me across!” Christopher arose from his bed and seizing his great staff, waded through the water until he reached the other side of the river, but there he found no one; all was silent, save the ripple and murmur of the waves along the river’s margin. “Strange,” he said, “I thought I heard some one calling.”

After looking all around, he said: “I must have been mistaken,” and waded back through the water to the other side of the river and lay down upon his couch again. But soon thereafter he heard the same voice calling: “Oh! Christopher, kind, good Christopher, come help me across!” “Strange,” said Christopher to himself, “some one must be there,” and seizing his staff he again crossed the river.

But no one could he find, all was silent. Above his head the stars shone, and he said to himself: “Strange it is I cannot find him who called me.”

He went across the river and laid down upon his bed again. He had not been lying there long before he heard the voice calling him a third time: “Oh! Christopher, kind, good Christopher, come help me across!” Christopher sat upon his bed—he was troubled. “Strange,” he said, “some one calls me and yet I cannot find him.” But again seizing his staff he said: “I will make one more trip.” When he reached the other side of the river, there he saw a little boy, and he said: “My little man, where were you,—twice I crossed the river to find you?” The little boy said: “I was here.” And then Christopher bent low and took the little man upon his shoulders and waded through the water, but the boy grew heavier until he seemed as heavy as a man. When Christopher reached the other side and put him down and turned to look to see why, what seemed to be a little child should be so heavy—lo! he was more than a child; a young man in appearance, with a shining face, and he said to Christopher: “I am he whom you serve; bury your staff and after a certain number of days buds will appear thereon.” Then he disappeared, vanishing as a mist, or as a shadow, though Christopher saw not. He went and lay down upon his couch and slept in great peace of mind and body.

Years passed. Christopher was still beloved by all the people and faithful to his work, but his days were numbered. Though somewhat feeble, he still bore the people on his shoulders across the river. One dark stormy night, when the wind roared through the treetops and the rain fell, Christopher, lying upon his bed, heard a voice call. He tried to rise and answer; he did go in response to the voice, but it was his spirit only that went, the last call had come to him.

The next morning the storm was gone and the sky was blue. People came to cross the river and called as usual to Christopher, but there was no response. They thought perhaps he was asleep and went to the cottage. There they found him-— asleep, but it was the long sleep. And a smile was on his face. Because of his service to the people they afterwards called him Saint Christopher.

SOULS THAT HAVE TOIL’D AND WROUGHT AND THOUGHT WITH ME—
THAT EVER WITH A FROLIC WELCOME TOOK
THE THUNDER AND THE SUNSHINE, AND OPPOSED
FREE HEARTS, FREE FOREHEADS—YOU AND I ARE OLD;
OLD AGE HATH YET HIS HONOR AND HIS TOIL,
DEATH CLOSES ALL: BUT SOMETHING ERE THE END,
SOME WORK OF NOBLE NOTE MAY YET BE DONE,
NOT UNBECOMING MEN THAT STROVE WITH GODS.
THE LIGHTS BEGIN TO TWINKLE FROM THE ROCKS:
THE LONG DAY WANES: THE SLOW MOON CLIMBS: THE DEEP
MOANS ROUND WITH MANY VOICES.
TENNYSON.

The Story of England’s First Poet[C]

By George Philip Krapp

On the northern coast of England in the town of Whitby (White-town) was built a monastery many centuries ago by a woman whose name was Hild; and when the monastery was completed she became the abbess. In this monastery ruled over by the Abbess Hild, there were not only monks and nuns, but also a number of servants and helpers who had not devoted themselves to the religious life. Among these was a poor herdsman whose name was Cadmon. He could neither read nor write, and his work in the monastery consisted in taking care of the cows and other cattle which were needed to supply the monastery table with milk and butter.

[C] Reprinted by permission from “In Oldest England” by George Philip
Krapp. Copyright, 1912, by Longmans, Green & Co.

Now it was a common custom for Cadmon and his friends to entertain themselves, when the day’s work was done, by sitting around the fire telling stories and singing songs. Among other amusements they had one especially which is known as “passing the harp.” According to this custom, the harp was passed along from one person to another, and as it came each man’s turn, he took the harp and sang a song to its accompaniment. Most people in those days knew many stories which they could recite in this way, but unfortunately for Cadmon, this was an accomplishment which he could never learn. Consequently when he saw the harp approaching him, he would get up and leave the circle, ashamed to confess that he could not sing a song as the others had done.

It happened that one night Cadmon left the group of his friends in this way, as he had often done before, and went into the stable where he was to pass the night watching the cattle. After a time he fell asleep. As he lay sleeping, he heard a voice calling to him, which said: “Cadmon, sing for me.” Then Cadmon answered the voice, saying: “I cannot sing; and it is for that reason that I have left the company of my friends and have come hither.” “Nevertheless, I say you must sing for me,” the voice continued. “What shall I sing?” asked Cadmon. “Sing for me,” the voice answered, “the story of how all things were created.” And then Cadmon, greatly to his own astonishment, found that he was able to sing, and he began to sing the praises of God the Creator in verses which he had never heard before.

The next morning, when Cadmon awoke from the sleep in which he had had this dream or vision, the strangest part of it was that he remembered perfectly what he had sung in his sleep during the night, and better still, he was able to add other verses to these. He told what had happened to him to his master, and his master went directly to Abbess Hild and repeated the story to her. Hild immediately called Cadmon to her, and, sending for several learned monks, she bade them recite a passage of Scripture in English to Cadmon, and then she asked Cadmon to turn what he had heard into verse. The next morning Cadmon came back and recited to her in perfect and melodious verse all that he had been told by the learned monks. Then Hild immediately perceived that this poor cowherd in her monastery was possessed of a very precious gift. She gave orders that he should be accepted as a monk into her monastery, and that the other monks should teach him all the story of the Bible. This was so done, and being unable to read, Cadmon learned all the stories of the Bible by having them told to him, and then he turned them into poetical form. The monks were glad to write down the poems as Cadmon recited them, and thus together they put into verse the whole story of the creation of the world, of the fall of man, of the children of Israel and the Exodus out of Egypt into the Promised Land, and many other stories contained in the Bible.

For many years Cadmon continued to live in the monastery at Whitby, making noble use of this poet’s gift that had been granted to him. And it was here at Whitby that he finally died. He had been unwell for several weeks before his death, but it was not supposed that his sickness was serious. One night, however, the night on which he died, he asked his nurse to take him to the infirmary, which was the part of the monastery where those brothers who were dangerously sick and on the point of death were usually cared for together. The man was surprised that Cadmon should want to be taken to the infirmary, but he did as he was asked to do. Cadmon seemed to be bright and happy, and talked cheerfully with the other sick people in the infirmary. When it was about midnight, he asked if the Eucharist was there in the infirmary. “Why do you ask that?” his friends said. “You are not so near to death that you need ask for the Eucharist.” But Cadmon asked for the Eucharist again, and when he had it in his hand he inquired whether they were all kindly disposed and at peace with him. When they said they were, then Cadmon continued: “And I, too, am at peace with all men.” Having made his last communion, he asked if the time was near when the brothers of the monastery should arise and say the prayers known as nocturns. “It is almost time,” they answered. “Let us then wait for it,” he said; and blessing himself with the sign of the cross, he lay back upon his pillow, and so falling asleep, as peacefully and as gently as he had lived, he passed to his final rest.

This is the simple story of the blameless life of the first English poet whose name has come down to us. Other poets there must have been before Cadmon, poets who sang the stories of the bloody combats of English heroes before the days of Augustine and Aidan. From the very earliest times the English have had their bards or minstrels, whose task it was to keep alive the fame of the nation’s great men. But not even the names of any of these earlier heathen poets are known to us, and but a few fragments of their songs have survived to our day. These songs were of the kind which Cadmon could not sing, but which his companions, at their feasts and banquets, all sang so freely to the accompaniment of the harp. This heathen minstrelsy is now all lost and silent, while down through the ages the clear voice of Cadmon is heard, singing the old story of the Creation of the World and of the ways of God to man. From Cadmon to Milton it is a thousand years, but the poor cowherd who became the chief ornament of Hild’s ancient monastery on the cliff above Whitby sang his songs in the same spirit as the author of “Paradise Lost.”

The “Uncle Remus” Stories

Their Evolution and Place in the Curriculum

By Josephine Leach

Part One

The fame of the “Uncle Remus” stories, according to Joel Chandler Harris, himself, was an accident. But it is quite possible, that the fame has not been quite as much of an accident as his modesty declares it to be.

Mr. Harris was the son of a very poor woman in Georgia. She had very little to give her children, and very early Joel Chandler was put out to work. When, but a mere lad, he went to work as printer boy on the plantation of Mr. Joseph A. Turner. Mr. Turner was a well educated and cultured gentleman, who spent his leisure hours in publishing (on his own plantation) a small paper, voicing the sentiment of the times.

Mr. Turner became very much interested in the Harris boy. He recognized the lad’s ability, for very frequently he found unsigned paragraphs, quite good in quality, in his paper, which had been composed by the printer boy Harris, who inserted them as he set up the type. Mr. Turner gave the boy free access to his very large and splendid library. When Joel Chandler was not seated, during leisure hours, in the chimney corner of a cabin in the negro quarters, listening to negro folk-lore, he was delving deep into the best literature of all ages. He lived so completely with the great masters in the library, that it is said, that this quite largely influenced his charming literary style in years to come.

Here on the plantation, in the negro cabins, he came, through the stories, to feel the emotions of the negro. No one has ever been so capable of putting himself in another’s place as has Joel Chandler Harris. He became possessed of all the curious knowledge of the negro, he learned of dogs and horses, he knew the path of the red stream in the swamp, and the way of the wild folk in the woods. In fact, one writer has gone so far as to say, that had Joel Chandler Harris not spent these boyhood days in the plantation home of Joseph A. Turner, there would have been no “Uncle Remus” with all that he now means to literature.

In 1876, Mr. Harris was invited to take a place on the paper called “The Constitution,” published at Atlanta, Georgia. Samuel Small was then writing humorous sketches for this paper. Small suddenly resigned. His sketches had been very popular, and the editor immediately looked around for some one who could continue the work. Mr. Harris was given the place. He went about his new task with much foreboding. He was steeped in the quaint stories of the plantation, but would the people accept these? He resolved to make the attempt, and then came the Uncle Remus stories for their first appearance.

The stories grew in popularity, and for the same reason that made Æsop’s fables an imperishable classic, these stories have taken their permanent place in literature. They were the simple stories that had been linked with the thoughts and emotions since earliest time, and have now, for the first time, been put in artistic form, by one who had so entered into the life of the negro, that he was able to express the negro’s emotions in the negro’s way. In quoting from an article on Joel Chandler Harris in “The Bookman,” Volume 27, the author says, “When Mr. Harris chose for his subject, the plantation negro, he had a character of much subtility to deal with. His subject is a creature of extremes, carelessly happy one day, deeply despondent the next, which characteristic has sprung from his very helplessness; with a never failing sense of humor, which acts as a continual balance wheel. He is a being, whose mystical side has been highly developed, and one to whom the “creeturs” have become brothers and sisters, being endowed by him, with human virtues and vices.”

“Uncle Remus” gave to literature and the world a new type of negro, that of a good kind-hearted, sympathetic old man, who was willing to spend hours in telling stories to a little boy. So little is said of Uncle Remus himself. He is merely the teller of the stories and yet one feels him to be just such an old man, for his character is interpreted by the stories he tells. Indeed, some one once asked the author, “Mr. Harris, really, don’t you suppose that Uncle Remus would steal chickens if he had a chance?” and Mr. Harris replied, “If I follow Uncle Remus all day, you surely can’t expect me to know what he does all night.”

Joel Chandler Harris in writing his “Uncle Remus” stories, did not labor to place them in logical sequence. He cared little about their value to students of comparative folk-lore, and had little notion of their evolution when he wrote them. The series cannot be placed into one great cycle that follows a hero through a number of incidents and at last brings him to the end, victorious. Mr. Harris told them for the pure enjoyment, and he was much surprised to find such a demand for a thing that was all pleasure and no work to him. He loved the simple tales because they were so near to nature’s heart, because they were full of primitive wonder, quaint flashes of humor, homely philosophy, and simple goodness.

The stories, however, readily group themselves into four classes.

I. Those that account for Certain Animal Traits, or Characteristics.
II. Stories with Brer Rabbit as a Hero.
III. Those stories told to the little Boy for their Ethical Value.
IV. Stories that attempt to Account for some Natural Phenomena.

Under the first group, Stories that account for certain animal characteristics, I have placed the following:

Why the Hawk Catches Chickens.
Miss Partridge has a Fit.
Why Brer Possum has no Hair on his Tail.
Why Brer Fox’s Legs are Black.
Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace.
Why Brother Bull Growls and Complains.
How Mr. Rabbit Lost His Fine Bushy Tail.
Mr. Terrapin Shows His Strength.
Brer Buzzard Teaches Brer Terrapin to Fly.

The stories that show the shrewdness of Brer Rabbit, might be taken as a small cycle which has Brer Rabbit as a hero.

The following are examples:

The Wonderful Tar Baby Story.
Old Mr. Rabbit, He’s a good Fisherman.
Brer Rabbit and de’ skeeters.
Brer Fox Says Grace.
Brer Rabbit Has Fun at the Ferry.
Why Brer Wolf didn’t eat the little Rabbits.
Brer Fox “Smells Smoke.”
Brer Rabbit Frightens Brer Tiger.
Brer Rabbit Conquers Mr. Lion.
Heyo House.
Sis Cow Falls a Victim to Mr. Rabbit.
How Mr. Rabbit Saved his Meat.
The Sad Fate of Mr. Fox.
Brer Rabbit Nibbles up de Butter.

The third group of stories that were told to the little boy for their ethical value, presents quite a modern idea of the purpose of a good story; namely, that in order to teach, a moral must be tacked on. When Uncle Remus found the little boy in mischief, he straightway told him a story with a homely moral. As for example the story of “Brother Bear and the Honey Orchard.” Uncle Remus caught the little boy eating a great piece of cake, while his little brother stood by, crying for some. ’Tis then that he relates of the selfishment of Brer B’ar with his own conclusion, that “to his membrence stingy folks nevah come to no good ’een.”

The following stories were told with this idea in mind:

Brother Bear and the Honey Orchard.
The Man and the Wild Cattle.
Brer Rabbit’s Money Mint.
Brother Billy Goat’s Dinner.
The King that talked Biggity.
According to how the Drap Falls.

Under the fourth heading I have grouped such stories as:

The Story of the Deluge and how it came about.
Where the Hurricane Comes from.
The Creation.
Why the Negro is Black.

No one can doubt but that these simple stories were first told when the human race was very young. The things that are at present accomplished by science were then met by magic. Whether or not we believe that the child in his development passes through much the same experience as the race has in its development, there are certain things that are evident: the child makes human and holds conversation with everything in his backyard world. The same voices speak to him that spoke to his cave dwelling ancestors. To him the wind is a person of might and power, that moans when in anguish and sighs when weary.

(_To be concluded in next issue_)

The Three Goats

By Jessica Childs

This story, contributed by Miss Jessica Childs of the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Training School for Teachers, is a translation from the Norse Folk Lore. It is very popular, Miss Childs finds, with children in the first school year.

Now you shall hear!

There was once a Boy who had three Goats. All day they leaped and pranced and skipped and climbed up on the rocky hill, but at night the Boy drove them home. One night, when he went to meet them, the frisky things leaped into a turnip field and he could not get them out. Then the Boy sat down on the hillside and cried.

As he sat there a Hare came along. “Why do you cry?” asked the Hare.

“I cry because I can’t get the Goats out of the field,” answered the Boy.

“I’ll do it,” said the Hare. So he tried, but the Goats would not come. Then the Hare, too, sat down and cried.

Along came a Fox.

“Why do you cry?” asked the Fox.

“I am crying because the Boy cries,” said the Hare; “and the Boy is crying because he cannot get the Goats out of the turnip field.”

“I’ll do it,” said the Fox. So the Fox tried, but the Goats would not come. Then the Fox also sat down and cried.

Soon after, a Wolf came along. “Why do you cry,” asked the Wolf. “I am crying because the Hare cries,” said the Fox; “and the Hare cries because the Boy cries; and the Boy cries because he can’t get the Goats out of the turnip field.”

“I’ll do it,” said the Wolf. He tried, but the Goats would not leave the field. So he sat down beside the others and began to cry too.

After a while, a Bee flew over the hill and saw them all sitting there crying. “Why do you cry?” said the Bee to the Wolf.

“I am crying because the Fox cries, and the Fox cries because the Hare cries; and the Hare cries because the Boy cries; and the Boy cries because he can’t get the Goats out of the turnip field.”

“I’ll do it,” said the Bee.

Then the big animals and the Boy all stopped crying a moment to laugh at the tiny Bee. He to do it, indeed, when they could not! But the tiny Bee flew away into the turnip field and lit upon the ear of one of the Goats and said,

“Buz-z-z-z-z!” And out ran the Goats every one!

“_The child makes human and holds conversation with everything in his backyard world._

”_The same voices speak to him that spoke to his cave-dwelling ancestors._

“_To him the wind is a person of might and power, that moans when in anguish and sighs when weary._”JOSEPHINE LEACH.

Story Telling in Washington, D. C.

By Marietta Stockard

To the Kindergarten perhaps more than to any other department of education, must be conceded the credit for having recognized the power of the story in the life of the child. The best Kindergarten training schools would no more omit a well organized course in story telling than they would a course in psychology or child study, so it is with no claim of something new or different that I respond to the invitation of the STORYTELLERS’ MAGAZINE to tell of the work as it is done in the Washington Normal School.

We are fortunate in having a Principal who has been willing to allow a full two years’ course in stories. This makes possible a broader literary basis, better developed principles of selection, more of adaptation and practical story telling than could be accomplished in a shorter time. It also makes possible a more leisurely, more psychologic approach to the subject, and therefore launches us upon the actual story telling with much of the beginner’s painful self-consciousness eliminated.

My first question to a new class is, “What have you read and really enjoyed during your past summer?” Next, “What are your favorite books?” Through a careful study of the students’ responses to these questions I gain a knowledge of the literary background and taste of each individual of whom I shall strive to make a successful story teller.

Discussion of these books which the students know and like leads us into the field of basic principles of selection in literature. Brief studies of a few typical short stories, analysis of purpose, structure, and style follow.

Realizing that the two absolute essentials in a successful story teller are, on the one hand, a sympathetic knowledge of the best in literature, and on the other, real understanding of the child, we read together as much of the best literature about children as time permits.

Our first approach to the story for the child is through a discussion of favorite fairy tales, remembered from the student’s own childhood. Comparison shows that there are many common favorites, further study reveals these same stories as favorites of generations of children.

Re-telling and enjoying these we gradually search out the secret of their universal appeal and come to formulate a standard embodying the essential characteristics which all stories for children should contain.

This knowledge of type stories is further developed by a brief study of Norse Myths and Folk Tales. No other literature gives quite so well the fundamental characteristics of action, simplicity and embodiment of ideals as does the Norse. The student who has read Mabie’s Norse Myths, Dasent’s Popular Tales from the Norse, Stories from Bjornstern and Selma Lagerlöf, absorbs the essential characteristics of the best story and can scarcely help telling a story with vigor, simplicity, directness and imaginative appeal.

Sympathetic attitude toward child and story and basis for selection of stories in the light of fundamental principles of literature having been developed, we next formulate the requisites of a good story teller and methods of story telling. This is done through story telling in class under criticism and a study of such books as: Voice and Spiritual Education, by Corson; How to Tell Stories to Children, by Sara Cone Bryant; Stories and Story Telling, by Porter St. John. We study, re-tell, adapt, and collect in a manuscript story book such stories as are particularly suitable for use in the kindergarten.

The demand for story tellers in the schools, in playground and library work, in social centers and Sunday schools, led to the establishing of a course in story telling and children’s literature at George Washington University. This course is credited both in the teacher’s department and in the English department of the University.

The work consists of lectures, required readings and reports. The history of the story, its relation to literature, its relation to the child, the story as a moral force, methods of story telling, including adaptation, preparation, and presentation are a few of the topics discussed. Studies of groups of animal stories, folk and fairy tales, hero tales, Bible stories, Christmas and Thanksgiving stories, spring stories and humorous stories constitute the content of the course.

Every student of children’s stories not only gains a deeper appreciation of the best in literature and an added sympathy with and understanding of the child, but also discovers an inexhaustible source of usefulness and joy.

Story Telling for Camp Fire Girls

By Ellen Kate Gross

_Chief Guardian, Children’s Playground Association of Baltimore, Md._

Apropos to our conversation at the Richmond Congress in regard to stories for Camp Fire Girls, the following plea is submitted to your editorial board with the hope that your splendid magazine will help us in one phase of our work.

In furthering the development of the Camp Fire Girls, there arises the necessity for a supply of Indian folk tales well told and embodying the out-of-door spirit of the Indian and his ideals. Moreover the various points of the law of the Camp Fire can best be exemplified through stories which develop the ideal held up. This law is to

“Seek beauty
Give service
Pursue knowledge
Hold on to health
Glorify work
Be happy”

The following suggestive list may illustrate how this method can be carried out,—the thought and meaning of each precept being developed through one of the stories named.

_SEEK BEAUTY_

Hawthorne, “The Great Stone Face.”
Kingsley, “Water Babies”—in parts.

_GIVE SERVICE_

Robert Louis Stevenson, “Prince Otto.”
Stockton, “Old Pypes and the Dryad,” in Fanciful Tales.
Biographies and Autobiographies.
Example “Florence Nightingale.”
“Lucretia Mott.”
“The Little Hero of Haarlem”
Emile Poulsson, “Nahum Prince,” in “In the Child’s World.”

_BE TRUSTWORTHY_

“Ruth and Esther,” told in Hamilton Mabie’s “Stories Every Child
Should Know.”

_GLORIFY WORK_

19th Psalm.
Lives of Burbank, Edison and other Inventors.
“The Basket Weaver.”
“Beowulf,” in Hamilton Mabie’s “Legends Every Child Should Know.”
“The Message to Garcia,” by Elbert Hubbard.

_BE HAPPY_

“King Midas.”
“Ugly Duckling.”
“Pine Tree that changed its Leaves.”
King Arthur tales.

If some of these stories or similar ones, and also some Indian legends could be published in your magazine from time to time, it would be a great help to those who are working with Camp Fire Girls.

“Wohelo”

“Wohelo,” the musical cry of the Camp Fire Girls was sounded by more than nine hundred of them at the first Grand Council held in the 69th Regiment Armory, New York City, recently.

Clad in the picturesque attire of the American Indian, they sat in a big circle around three lighted candles, representing their three foundation principles, and groups of lights representing real camp fires, a Camp Fire ceremonial which is performed to the music of “Burn, Fire; Burn!”

Under the supervision of the guardian Hiltini, who is Mrs. Luther H. Gulick, three other guardians, Mrs. Bradley, Mrs. Weber and Miss McCarthy, representing respectively WORK, HEALTH, LOVE, lighted the camp fire by the Indian expedient of rubbing two sticks together.

The call of the Camp Fire Girls, “Wohelo,” is formed by the first syllables of the three foundation words of their organization: WORK, HEALTH, LOVE.

The Play Spirit in America

Those who have lost the play spirit are beginning to die. These were the words of Dr. Cabot of the Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston at the recent Congress of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, held at Richmond, Va. True recreation is re-creation—to be made anew from day to day, mind and body. The old saying that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is true of adults as well as children. It is more important that adults emphasize recreation for themselves than for the child. It is so much easier for grown people to forget to play.

The serious person is only half awake. Seriousness often excludes humor and thus shuts out the play spirit in life. The serious person is not always thoroughly in earnest. He who excludes humor and play cannot be in earnest because he does not use all the resources at his command. Young people are always earnest; play and humor are part of their program.

The calculating business man sitting in his close office or the hard taskmaster sitting at a teacher’s desk may be making a living and yet not living but prematurely dying. Compare such a one with a group of young people who shout and laugh in joyous play or work outside and ask yourself which is preferable, which is life? The business man once had the play spirit but he has lost it, and with it life and its joy. When he went to school years ago he was not taught to live but to calculate; not to think but to imitate and accumulate a living, not a life. He has been true to his teaching. He might be rescued even now if he could be made to see the necessity for play and feel the rejuvenating effect of rhythmic games. He must get rid of the idea that it is undignified for a grown man or woman to play, to join hands in a circle, to shout and laugh and sing and play games on the green.

The American people must be taught recreation, not only in public playgrounds but the necessity of using home, lawn and yard for play for child and adult as well. We must get rid of the idea that people are made for parks and substitute the idea, parks are made for people.

A one-time city superintendent of schools in a large city and for a number of years a college president recently spent a year on his farm and says that as a result his whole feeling and view toward life has been changed by the year of recreation. To have normal feelings is more important than abnormal knowledge. Knowledge is sometimes weakness rather than power.

A child without a playground is the father of a man without a job, says one of our playground officials, and we might add that a man without play will soon be a man without a job and without health. It is high time that school faculties realize their sin in failing themselves to play. Enthusiastic teachers often study and teach all the winter, then go to a summer school and pile on more of the same kind of work. We recognize the evil of this, yet few are brave enough to stop in the midst of work and play and teach play. Summer schools should send their students back home rejuvenated, with renewed health and enthusiasm and with a new feeling for life rather than book-burdened, tired and nervous.

We have in America a wealth of folk-games, folk-dances, folk-songs, folk-stories brought hither by the various races of Europe, that would give us wholesome recreation,—a folk-culture, yet we stand idly by and let an ignorant commercial schemer run a dance hall and give our young people dissipation instead of recreation. Churches and homes make a great mistake when they say “Don’t do this” or that and stop there. We must be positive and say “Do this, these are the games to play, these are the songs to sing, these are the stories to tell, come and join us.” If good people do not give us good recreation, bad people will give us bad recreation and make us pay for it. A machine can add a column of figures for us, another person can spell a word for us, but no one else can recreate or have health, personality and enthusiasm for us.

R. T. W.

Invocation

Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Father, make us glad that we are here, glad in the dear fellowships of the past, glad in the strong ties that bind us to our tasks, glad of the tasks. O Thou Burden Giver, lift us above the selfishness of the ease-seeker.

¶ Father, we come to listen to Thy commissions. Grant us power to go into the dark places of human lives, the sad places of human hearts, and in Thy name speak the word that may bring strength, peace, consolation. Father, help us to realize the opportunities that await us; gird us anew for the high and holy warfare wherein the weapons are the instruments of love, the counters of kindness. Help us to forget the things that hurt, to rise above all discouragements, to dwell with Thee in deathless places; to rejoice with Thee in the boundless realms where the petty lines of caste, class and sect, of race and prejudice, do not obtain, but where Thy children, conscious of Thy Fatherhood, rejoice in the largeness of the love that includes all races, all climes, and all ages.

¶ Father, take our hands and touch them with usefulness. Take our feet that they may be shod with willingness. Take our hearts that they may glow with kindness. Take our minds and tutor them in the way of truth. Take our voices and tune them to the universal harmonies, that in finite time we may sound some notes of thy never-ending song. Amen

What the Leagues are Doing

The closing meeting of the Knickerbocker Story Tellers’ League of New York City, for the season 1913, was held on Saturday evening, May 17th.

The recent work of the League has been directed along the lines of the English, Spanish and American Schools of Art. At a previous meeting the stories of the Florentine, Flemish and Dutch Schools were told and no actual reading was done throughout the entire evening. Mrs. Estelle Davis Burt, the President, handled the topic Dutch Art.

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The last meeting of the Atlanta Story Tellers’ League is reported by Mr. George B. Hinman as the most interesting of the year.

Mrs. Goodman gave a very charming and illuminating account of her visit with Mr. R. T. Wyche to the Knickerbocker Story Tellers’ League in New York, and Mrs. Stevens told a most interesting original story, which held her audience spellbound throughout. Miss Ray Klein, who is one of the friends of the League, told a beautiful fairy story. The attendance was large and appreciative.

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The Story Tellers’ League of Little Rock, Arkansas, held its closing meeting at the public library in May, when the following officers were elected: Miss Eliza Hockins, president; Miss Grace Boyce, vice-president; Miss Johnnie Bledsoe, secretary and treasurer. The program was excellent. Miss Marguerite English told of “The Hall of Heroes”; Mrs. L. W. Cherry told an Egyptian legend, adding to the beautiful story by touches of personal experience in Egypt; Mrs. W. B. Rawlings told the story of a Syrian mother; Miss Abbie Whitcomb gave the story of a Parisian boy hero in her usual expressive way.

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A conference was held May 27, 1913, at the Sinton Hotel from three to five, with Dr. Richard Wyche, President of the National Story Tellers’ League of New York, who has started a magazine for the benefit of story tellers, entitled “The Storytellers’ Magazine.” Dr. Lester Riley, Miss Pearl Carpenter, Miss Alice Adele Folger, Miss Annie Laws, Miss Marie Dickore, Miss Josephine Simrall and others of the Cincinnati branch of the National Story Tellers’ League were present.—_Cincinnati Commercial Tribune._

From the Editor’s Study

The revival of interest in story telling on the part of educators today is due perhaps more to scientific men than any other group. The old conception of the child was that he was born in depravity and therefore his natural impulses were bad, and he should be repressed. Methods of suppression resulted; the child had no rights. If the things he was compelled to study were meaningless and obnoxious to him, well and good. The things he was interested in were ignored.

But with the coming of the biologist, geologist, and psychologist, we have seen a world of growth and change, reaching back into the immeasurable past, and man in this order, not fallen and depraved, but natural and normal with his face to the morning, ever moving upward and onward. The students of history, primitive art and folk-literature have traced for us the path-way along which the soul of the race, ever growing into self-realization gave expression to its beliefs, its hopes, its prayers and its religion, in myth, fairy story, folk-lore and folk epic. As one who travels through low land and forest yet ever climbing reaches an upland peak and looking back sees path, forest, field and rim of sea all in the perspective of beauty, so we today looking back have an infinitely larger and deeper view of life and its meaning. It is this view that has changed our attitude toward the child and will result in our setting him, “the last serf of civilization free.”

This new valuation of the child, respect for his rights and a better understanding of his needs has brought story telling to the front again. It is true that the race and the individual of all races have had stories told them more or less by troubadour and rhapsodist—the old story tellers, chief among them Homer, but not until modern times have educators so seriously studied this story as a means of education. For many centuries literature lived orally and was handed down by the story tellers; but when printing was invented the teacher began to busy himself with grammar for young and old alike, until language form became an end instead of a means.

Man in his development did not invent letters and language with the hope that he might have something to say, but he had so much to say he was compelled to invent language in order to express himself. So with the child, we must feed the springs of imagination and emotion if we would give him something to express. As a tree puts forth leaf and blossom in obedience to the laws of life within, so will the child give back in vital expression the things that nurture his inner life. Expression is life, suppression is death. It is the recognition of this truth that has given us the pedagogical basis for the story, whether it be re-telling, dramatization or illustration of the story; modelling into clay, carving into wood or motiving in life.

Man becomes like that which he admires, therefore, stories of noble deed and great heroes are used in school and Sunday-school for character building in place of memorizing abstract statements.

Young people will read books from which interesting stories have been told them, therefore many of the public libraries have a story teller for the children’s room, who by story telling, directs the reading of the children for a whole community. Story telling is a means of recreation and pure pleasure, therefore the public playgrounds throughout the land have their story tellers for the young people. Parents who tell in their homes the right kind of stories make an atmosphere in which a soul can grow and bind their off-spring to them with spiritual ties, the most lasting of all.

Story telling is an alluring subject for study, a means of delightful social intercourse and reinforcement for life, therefore many have organized themselves into the National Story Tellers’ League and its local branches.

It is to deal with this work of story telling in all of its aspects that the STORYTELLERS’ MAGAZINE is founded. It is our purpose to point out as far as we can the vital principles that underlie the whole movement.

The question of what stories to tell is supremely important. We cannot tell or read one-hundredth part of the good stories. In order to answer this question, we propose to re-tell in the pages of the magazine some of the best stories recognized by educators the world over; and by articles from specialists, point out the stories most worth while from the standpoint of literature. It is true we shall deal as do the oral story tellers with much of the old literature but with a creative touch that will give it the breath of life, making it a living literature and a new expression of American life and art.

We propose to answer the question of what stories to tell by a study of the child and his needs in the various periods of his development. Stories that contribute most to the making of ideal womanhood and manhood, in the last analysis, are the stories to emphasize.

The ancient story teller who by fireside or in royal court told stories of their nation heroes like King Arthur, Siegfried or Ulysses had quite a simple and direct use for the story compared to the situation today. With the complexity of modern life the use of the story becomes far more rich and varied. We expect through short articles from authorities in this work to point out all legitimate uses of the story.

Many a one has a gift for story telling but knows not how to use it. We shall have an occasional article by those who have made a success of story telling and can speak from experience.

When we think of the many educational institutions and individual workers taking up this work of story telling, and when we see the many young men and women who could, if they but knew how, become evangels of the fine art of story telling, and when we hear the voices of the great multitudes of children in neglected country districts as well as cities, saying “tell us a story” surely there is an opportunity and a call to service for THE STORYTELLERS’ MAGAZINE.

American thought is in a creative period. Old forms in education, art, religion and government are assuming new forms to fit new conditions. The story telling movement is one with this growing life. Let us make it a true expression of the Nation’s best life. We are still young; much lies ahead of us. In the spirit of the great heroes of the old story books let us spread every sail, make for the mid-seas and discover lands not laid down in any chart.

In this issue of THE STORYTELLERS’ MAGAZINE will be found the initial number of Miss Martin’s admirable King Arthur Series, composed of twelve stories, as follows:

1. Merlin and His Prophecies.
2. How Arthur Won His Kingdom.
3. How Arthur won His Sword “Excalibur,” his Bride and his Round
Table.
4. The Adventures of Gareth—the Kitchen Knave.
5. The Adventures of Geraint.
6. The Adventures of Tristram, the Forest Knight.
7. The Adventures of Launcelot of the Lake.
8. The Dolorous Stroke.
9. The Coming of Galahad.
10. The Quest of the Sangreal.
11. The Achieving of the Sangreal.
12. The Passing of Arthur.

At least one story will appear in each succeeding issue of the Magazine until the series is finished, and should space permit, possibly two stories will appear in some of the numbers.

The Immortal Stories

They were told long before anybody had learned how to write them out, though most of the fairy tales which the children feed on now are of the second crop, to be sure.

Dr. Greville MacDonald, writing in the _Contemporary Review_ of “The Fairy Tale in Education,” insists as strongly as Ruskin did upon the vital importance of the fairy story in the right kind of ministering to children. He regrets the tendency among the science worshipers to regard the fairy tale as a weed of superstition, to be pulled up and cast out with all such worn out beliefs. And he goes on:

“The fairy tale is a wild flower. It is native to that pasture of aboriginal, uncultivated innocence wherein, among the roots of grass and flowers, the elemental passions dwell....

“Not the least important of these elemental passions is the individual sense of unity with the world beyond. It is dominant in all unspoiled peasant folk, and dormant when not dominant in all children. It takes concrete form in folk-lore, folk-song and folk-dance. It throve fearlessly in the thirteenth century painters, in the Gothic masons and glass stainers of the great cathedrals. It is, indeed, the elemental gift in whose atmosphere and inspiration the true art grows. Hence comes the child’s fellow feeling with all simple life—his clutching at the flower, his delight in kitten, bird or butterfly. These are fellow creatures all, allies in “effort and expectation and desire.”

Dr. MacDonald is not worried by the protest that fairy tales sometimes have “bad morals.” He finds much popular confusion between the words “meaning” and “moral” in such complaints. What we do actually and rightly dislike, he thinks, is a moral label.

This is why the short sighted, the unco guid, or those whose “heads are filled with science” (to paraphrase a great writer), stupidly object to the fairy tale; they always want to append a copy book moral. The bad figures in fairy tales often play tricks successfully upon the good ones, but the child is not thereby deceived. His unerring instinct, unwarped by any sophistry of man’s education, pierces all the shams, and he loves the good and turns away, just as surely, from the bad. The spiritual sense of what is deeply true is integral in the child’s imagination, and must be held sacred.—_N. Y. Evening Sun._

From the Book Shelf

“IN OLDEST ENGLAND,” by G. P. Krapp. Price, 75 cents. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.

Dr. Krapp, a professor of literature in Columbia University, has given us an interesting and valuable book, for both youth and adult. He relates in an interesting way the story of England’s history, from the beginning up to the Norman conquest, using facts, ancient manuscripts, pictures and early literature to tell the story. He makes an appeal to the imagination, to re-create those far-off days, that we may fully realize how our ancestors lived a thousand years ago.

The measure of a people’s civilization, he says, is not in the amount of machinery they possess, but in the thoughts and affections which go to make up character. We cannot give a better idea of the book than the story of England’s first poet, which we give on another page of the Magazine.

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“TALES OF THE ENCHANTED ISLES OF THE ATLANTIC.” By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Price, $1.50. The Macmillan Company, New York.

“Bancroft, the historian, made it a matter of pride that the beginning of American annals was bare and literal,” says the author, and he goes on to prove, through two hundred and fifty-nine interesting pages, that Bancroft was mistaken. To Europeans, undiscovered America lay beyond the great unknown sea of awe, danger and vanishing isles. The islands within sight of European shores, Irish, Breton, Welsh and Spanish, had the glamour of enchantment cast about them. They were the gateways to a sea of mystery. The Canary Isles were discovered before the Christian era and then lost sight of for thirteen centuries. A continent called Atlantis, thought to have been submerged in the Atlantic, had long haunted the imagination of people in Europe and Africa. Solon, the law-giver and poet, wrote a letter in which he said that when a student in Egypt, he was told that the island of Atlantis, was sunk thousands of years ago. This letter was read and studied by both Socrates and Plato. From these traditions, taught by Greek and Egyptian, and believed by the inhabitants of Western Europe, who ever looked out upon the Atlantic, grew the interesting tales which the author gives, such as “Island of Youth,” “Swan Children of Lir,” “Castle of Active Door,” and “Island of Seven Cities.” King Arthur visited one of the Islands, and wrestled with Half-Man, which meant Habit, and when he fought his last battle in the West, and sailed away, it was to Avalon, one of the enchanted isles.

These traditions were great psychic forces, that lured men on until they discovered a new world, more marvelous than Atlantis. A fine book for the story tellers and one bearing directly on American history.

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“INDIAN SKETCHES, PÈRE MARQUETTE AND THE LAST OF THE POTTAWATOMIE CHIEFS.” By Cornelia Steketee Hulst. Price, 60 cents. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.

Mrs. Hulst combines historical data and literary art in such proportion as to make a most readable book, an Indian epic, beginning where the Song of Hiawatha left off, and bringing the Indian down to modern times. The story of the white man’s injustice and greed toward the Indian should be told our children. Our histories have omitted the accounts of the exile and banishment of tribes to the Far West. “To frankly confess a fault indicates a higher plane of honor and sincerity,” says the author. We have wronged our brothers, the Redmen, the first Americans. Let us as far as we can right the wrong. The book is a voice from the present speaking to the future. No one can read the book without feeling its appeal to fair play and eternal justice and right.

The Indian’s religion of the Great Spirit, his folk-games and folk-stories,—a true folk-culture that came out of the countless ages of American geography and history may yet be made over into the culture of modern America for our good. The author has set us thinking.

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