Chapter 7 THE PRESENTATION OF THE TALE

In the oral presentation of the tale new elements of the teacher's preparation enter, for here the voice is the medium and the teacher must use the voice as the organist his keys. The aim of the oral presentation is to give the spiritual effect. This requires certain conditions of effectiveness-to speak with distinctness, to give the sense, and to cause to understand; and certain intellectual requirements-to articulate with perfection, to present successive thoughts in clear outline, and to preserve relative values of importance.

The production of the proper effect necessitates placing in the foreground, with full expression, what needs emphasis, and throwing back with monotony or acceleration parts that do not need emphasis. It requires slighting subordinate, unimportant parts, so that one point is made and one total impression given. This results in that flexibility and lightsomeness of the voice, which is one of the most important features in the telling of the tale. The study of technique, when controlled by these principles of vocal expression, is not opposed to the art of story-telling any more than the painter's knowledge of color is opposed to his art of painting. To obtain complete control of the voice as an instrument of the mind, there is necessary: (1) training of the voice; (2) exercises in breathing; (3) a knowledge of gesture; and (4) a power of personality.

(1) Training of the voice. This training aims to secure freedom of tone, purity of tone, fullness of tone, variety of volume, and tone-color. It will include a study of phonetics to give correct pronunciation of sounds and a knowledge of their formation; freeing exercises to produce a jaw which is not set, an open throat, a mobile lip, and nimble tongue; and exercises to get rid of nasality or throatiness. The art of articulation adds to the richness of meaning, it is the connection between sound and sense. Open sounds are in harmony with joy, and very distinct emotional effects are produced by arrangements of consonants. The effect created by the use of the vowels and consonants in The Spider and the Flea has already been referred to under "Setting." The open vowels of "ón, little Drumikin! Tum-p?, tum-t[=oo]!" help to convey the impression of lightsome gaiety in Lambikin. The effect of power displayed by "Then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in," is made largely by the sound of the consonants ff and the n in the concluding in, the force of the rough u of huff and puff, and the prolonged o in blow. The effect of walking is produced by the p of "Trip, trap," and of varied walking by the change of vowel from [ui] to [ua]. The action of "I have come to gobble you up," is emphasized and made realistic by the bb of gobble and the p of up. Attention to the power of phonics to contribute to the emotional force and to the strength of meaning in the tale, will reveal to the story-teller many new beauties.

(2) Exercises in breathing. Training in breathing includes exercises to secure the regulation of proper breathing during speech and to point out the relation between breathing and voice expression. The correct use of the voice includes also ability to place tone.-Find out your natural tone and tell the story in that tone.-Many of the effects of the voice need to be dealt with from the inside, not externally. The use of the pause in story-telling is one of the subtlest and most important elements that contribute to the final effect. The proper placing of the pause will follow unconsciously as a consequence when the structure of the story is realized in distinct episodes and the proper emphasis given mentally to the most important details of action, while less emphasis in thought is given to subordinate parts. Therefore, the study of the pause must be made, not artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the pause. Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music-those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation-is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in association with the complete realization of the life of the story. Genuine feeling is worth more than mere isolated exercises to secure modulation, and complete realization eliminates the necessity of "pretending to be." The study of the fairy tale as literature, as has been indicated in the chapter on "Principles of Selection," will therefore be fundamental to the presentation of the tale. Entering into the motives of the story gives action, entering into the thought gives form, and entering into the feeling gives tone-color to the voice. The sincere desire to share the thought will be the best aid to bring expression.

(3) A knowledge of gesture. The teacher must understand the laws of gesture. The body is one means of the mind's expression. There is the eloquence of gesture and of pose. The simplest laws of gesture may be stated:-

(a) All gesture precedes speech in proportion to the intense realization of emotion.

(b) All expression begins in the face and passes to some other agent of the body in proportion to the quality Of the emotion. The eye leads in pointing.

(c) Hands and arms remain close to the body in gesture when intensity of emotion is controlled.

In regard to gesture, a Children's Library pamphlet, dealing with the purpose of story-telling, has said, "The object of the story-teller is to present the story, not in the way advocated usually in the schools, but to present it with as little dramatic excitement and foreign gesture as possible, keeping one's personality in the background and giving all prominence to the story itself, relying for interest in the story alone." The schools have perhaps been misinterpreted. It is clear that only that personality is allowable which interprets truly the story's life. The listening child must be interested in the life of the story, not in the story-teller; and therefore gesture, tone, or sentiment that is individual variation and addition to the story itself, detracts from the story, is foreign to its thought, and occupies a wrong place of prominence. It is possible to tell a story, however, just as the author tells it, and yet give it naturally by realizing it imaginatively and by using the voice and the body artistically, as means of expression.

(4) A power of personality. What rules shall be given for the making of that personality which is to bring with it force in the telling of the tale and which must override phonetics, inflection, and gesture?

The very best help towards acquiring that personality which is the power of story-telling, is to have a power of life gained through the experience of having lived; to have a power of emotion acquired through the exercise of daily affairs; a power of imagination won from having dwelt upon the things of life with intentness, a power of sympathy obtained from seeing the things of others as you meet them day by day; and a first-hand knowledge of the sights and sounds and beauties of Nature, a knowledge of bird and flower, tree and rock, their names and some of their secrets-knowledge accumulated from actual contact with the real physical world. This power of life will enable the story-teller to enter, at the same time, into the life of the story she tells, and the life of those listening, to see the gift of the one and the need of the other.

The ideal position for the story-teller is to be seated opposite the center of the semicircle of listeners, facing them. The extreme nearness of the group, when the teller seeks the fingers of the listeners to add force to the telling, seems an infringement upon the child's personal rights. A strong personality will make the story go home without too great nearness and will want to give the children a little room so that their thoughts may meet hers out in the story.

Suggestions for telling. Now that the teacher is ready to speak, her first step in the art of story-telling, which is the first step in the art of any teaching, which lies at the very foundation of teaching, which is the most important step, and which is the step that often is neglected, is the establishing of the personal relation between herself and the listener. This is one of those subtleties which evades measuring, but its influence is most lasting. It is the setting to the whole story of teaching. It must play so important a part because, as teacher and listener are both human beings, there must be between them a common bond of humanity. How do you wish to appear to this group of listeners? As a friend to be trusted, a brother or sister to give help, or as a good comrade to be played with; as "master, expert, leader, or servant"? If you wish to be as real and forceful as the characters in your story, you must do something which will cause the personal relation you desire, to be established; and moreover, having established it, you must live up to it, and prove no friend without faith. You must do this before you presume to teach or to tell a story. You need not do it before each individual story you present to a group you meet often; you may do it so effectively, with a master-stroke, at the beginning when you first meet your class, that all you need do at successive meetings will be but to add point to your first establishment.

A student-teacher, in telling a story to a group of kindergarten children who were complete strangers, and telling it to them as they sat in a semicircle in front of her comrades, adult students, established this personal relation by beginning to tell the little children her experience with the first telling of Three Bears to a little girl of four:-Seated before a sand-box in the yard, after hearing the story of Three Bears, M-- had been asked, "Wouldn't this be a good time for you to tell me the story?" In reply, she paused, and while the story-teller was expecting her to begin, suddenly said, "Do you think M--'s big enough for all that?" and refused to tell a word. Then turning to the group before her, the student-teacher made the direct appeal. "But you are the biggest little people in the kindergarten, and you wouldn't treat a story like that, would you?" The children, through the personal picture of friendly story-telling with a little child, that paralleled their own situation somewhat, immediately felt at home with the teller; it was just as if they were the same intimate friends with her that the little girl portrayed to them was. The human bond of good comradeship and intimacy was established. In the direct appeal at the end, the children were held up to an ideal they dare not disappoint, they must live up to their size, be able to get the story, and be the biggest little people in the kindergarten by showing what they could do with it. Again there was an undefined problem thrown at them, as it were-an element of wonder. They did not know just what was coming and they were mentally alert, waiting, on the lookout. The way for the story was open.-This is what you want, for no matter how perfect a gem of folk-lore you tell, it will fall heedless if the children do not listen to it.

The second step in the art of story-telling is one which grows naturally out of this first step. This second step, to put the story in a concrete situation for the child, to make the connection between the child and the literature you present, is the one which displays your unique power as an artist. It is the step which often is omitted and is the one which exercises all your individual ability and cleverness. It is the step which should speak comfort to the eager teacher of to-day, who is compelled to stand by, Montessori fashion, while many changing conceptions say to her: "Hands off! It is not what you do that helps the child develop; it is what he himself does!" Here at least is one of the teacher's chances to act. This step is the opening of the gateway so that the story you are about to tell may enter into the thoughts of your listeners. It is your means to organize the tale in the child's life. If in the school program you permit nature study, representing the central interest, to occupy the place of main emphasis, and if the game, occupation, and song work is related to the child's life, this organization of the child's tale in his life will be accomplished naturally.

In the example cited above, both the establishment of the personal relation and the placing of the story in a concrete situation, were managed partly at the one stroke. Your best help to furnish a concrete situation will be to preserve at the one end a sympathy for the life of your story and at the other to perceive the experience of the children in the listening group. Seeing both at once will result in a knowledge of what the children need most to make the story go home. If your children are good enough, and you and they sufficiently good friends to bear the fun of pantomime and the gaiety of hilarity, asking several boys, as they walk across the room before the children, to imitate some animals they had seen at a circus, and getting the children to guess the animal represented until they hit upon the elephant, would put certain children in a spirit of fun that would be exactly the wide-awake brightness and good humor needed to receive the story of The Elephant's Child. You can get children best into the story-telling mood by calling up ideas in line with the story. In the case of the story cited above, under the establishment of the personal relation, the story, The Bremen Town Musicians, was related to the child's experience by a few questions concerning kinds of music he knew, and what musician and kind of music the kindergarten had. In telling Andersen's Tin Soldier you must call up experience concerning a soldier, not only because of the relation of the toy to the real soldier, but because the underlying meaning of the tale is courage, and the emotional theme is steadfastness. And to preserve the proper unity between the tale and the telling of it, the telling must center itself in harmony with the message of the tale, its one dominant impression and its one dominant mood.

Every story told results in some return from the child. The teacher, in her presentation, must conceive the child's aim in listening. This does not mean that she forces her aim upon him. But it does mean that she makes a mental list of the child's own possible problems that the tale is best suited to originate, one of which the child himself will suggest. For the return should originate, not in imitation of what the teller plans, but spontaneously, as the child's own plan, answering to some felt need of his. But that does not prevent the story-teller from using her own imagination, and through it, from realizing what opportunities for growth the story presents, and what possible activities ought to be stimulated. A good guide will keep ahead of the children, know the possibilities of the material, and by knowledge and suggestion lead them to realize and accomplish the plans they crudely conceive. A consideration of these plans will modify the telling of the tale, and should be definitely thought about before the telling of the tale. A story told definitely to stimulate in the children dramatization, will emphasize action and dialogue; while one told to stimulate the painting of a water-color sketch, will emphasize the setting of the tale.

The telling of the tale. With this preparation, directions seem futile. The tale should tell itself naturally. You must begin at the beginning, as your tale will if you have selected a good one. You must tell it simply, as your tale will have simplicity if it is a good one, and your telling must be in harmony with the tale you tell. You will tell it with joy; of course, if there is joy in it, or beauty, which is a "joy forever," or if you are giving joy to your listeners. Tell it, if possible, with a sense of bestowing a blessing, and a delicate perception of the reception it meets in the group before you, and the pleasure and interest it arouses in them, so that in the telling there is that human setting which is a quickening of the spirit and a union of ideas, which is something quite new and different from the story, yet born of the story.

The re-creative method of story-telling. This preparation for telling here described will result in a fundamental imitation of the author of the story. By participating in the life of the story; by realizing it as folklore; by realizing it as literature-its emotion, its imagination, its basis of truth, its message, its form; by paying conscious attention to the large units of the structure, the exact sequence of the plot, the characters, and the setting, the particular details of description, and the unique word-the story-teller reproduces the author's mode of thinking. She does with her mind what she wishes the child to do with his. With the very little child in the kindergarten and early first grade, who analyzes but slightly, this results consciously in a clear notion of the story, which shows itself in the child's free re-telling of the story as a whole. He may want to tell the story or he may not. Usually he enjoys re-telling it after some lapse of time; perhaps he tells it to himself, meanwhile. With the older child, who analyzes more definitely, this results in a retelling which actually reproduces the teller's mode of thinking. If persisted in, it gives to one's mode of thinking, the story-mode, just as nature study gives to life the nature point of view. This mode of thinking is the mode of re-creation, of realization. It re-experiences the life, it reaches the processes of the mind, and develops free mind movement. It is a habit of thinking, and is at the basis of reading, which is thinking through symbols; at the basis of the memorization of poetry, which must first see the pictures the poet has portrayed; it is the best help toward the adult study of literature, and the narration of history and geography. It is the power to conceive a situation, which is most useful in science, mathematics, and the reasoning of logic. "For," says Professor John Dewey, "the mind which can make independent judgments, look at facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with simplicity, is the perennial power in the world."

This re-creative method of fundamental imitation was illustrated in the telling of Andersen's Princess and the Pea, in a student-teacher's class:

The story was told by the Professor. After the telling of the story it was decided to have the story told again, but this time in parts and by those who had listened, in such a way that it would seem as if one person were telling the whole story.

The Professor named the first part of the story. A student was asked to tell the story from the beginning to the end of the Prince's coming home again, sad at heart. Another student told the second part, beginning with the storm and ending with what the old Queen thought. A third student told the third part, beginning with the next morning and ending with the close of the story, Now this is a true story.

The Professor next asked students to think over the entire story, to see if each student could find any weak places in the remembering of the story. Several students reported difficulty-one failed to remember the exact description of the storm. A number of details were thus filled in, in the exact words of the author. After this intimate handling of the separate parts of the story, a final re-telling by one student-omitted in this case because of lack of time-would bring together what had been contributed by individual students, and would represent the final re-creation of the entire story.

The simplicity of this selection, the simplicity of the plot, the few characters, the literary art of the story, the skillful use of the unique word, the art of presenting distinct pictures by means of vivid words, through suggestion rather than through illustration, together with the delicate humor that hovered about the tale, and the art of the Professor's telling-all combined in the final effect. The re-telling of the story in parts accomplished the analysis of the story into three big heads:

(1) From The Prince who wanted a real Princess ... to his

return home.

(2) From The storm, one dark evening ... to what the old Queen

thought.

(3) From What the Queen did next morning ... to the end of the

story.

In the analysis of the story into parts, telling exactly what happened gave the framework of the story, gave its basis of meaning. Telling it in three steps gave a strong sense of sequence and a vivid conception of climax.-If the division into parts for re-telling corresponds with the natural divisions of the plot into its main episodes, this telling in steps impresses the structure of the tale and is in harmony with the real literary mastery of the story.-The re-telling of each part drew attention to the visualization of that part. Each hesitation on behalf of a student telling a part, led the class to fill in the details for themselves, and impressed the remembrance of the exact words of the author. This resulted in the mastery of each part through a visualization of it. Hand in hand with the visualization came the feeling aroused by the realization. This was more easily mastered because changes of feeling were noticeable in passing from one part of the story to another.

After a mastery of the structure of the story through analysis, after a mastery of the thought, imagination, and feeling of the story, after a mastery of the form, and the exact words of the author in the description of details embodied in that form, the story is possessed as the teller's own, ready to be given, not only to bestow pleasure, as in this case, but often to transmit a message of worth and to preserve a classic form.

The Foolish Timid Rabbit, a Jataka tale, might be prepared for telling by this same re-creative method of story-telling. It must be remembered-and because of its importance it will bear repetition,-that the separation of the story-structure into parts for separate telling should always be in harmony with the divisions of the plot so that there may be no departure from the author's original mode of thinking, and no break in the natural movement of sequence. A separation of the tale into parts for re-telling would result in the following analysis:-

(1) Rabbit asleep under a palm tree ... to his meeting hundreds of Rabbits.

(2) Rabbits met a Deer ... to when the Elephant joined them.

(3) Lion saw the animals running ... to when he came to the Rabbit who first had said the earth was all breaking up.

(4) Lion asked the Foolish Rabbit, 'Is it true the earth is all breaking up,' ... to end of the story, 'And they all stopped running.'

After the re-telling of these parts, each part should be filled in with the exact details so that in the final re-telling practically the whole tale is reproduced. This is a very good tale to tell by this method because the theme is attractive, the plot is simple, the sequence a very evident movement, the characters distinctive, the setting pleasing and rather prominent, and the details sufficiently few and separate to be grasped completely. The final re-telling therefore may be accomplished readily as a perfected result of this method of telling a tale.

During the telling, the charm here is in preserving the typical bits of dialogue, giving to the Lion's words that force and strength and sagacity which rank him the King of the Beasts. One must feel clearly the message and make this message enter into every part of the telling: That the Lion showed his superior wisdom by making a stand and asking for facts, by accepting only what he tested; while the Rabbit showed his credulity by foolishly accepting what he heard without testing it.

Adaptation of the fairy tale. Sometimes, in telling a story one cannot tell it exactly as it is. This may be the case when the story is too long for a purpose, or if it contains matter which had better be omitted, or if it needs to be amplified. In any case one must follow these general rules:-

(1) Preserve the essential story from a single point of view.

(2) Preserve a clear sequence with a distinct climax.

(3) Preserve a simplicity of plot and simple language.

In shortening a long story one may:

(1) Eliminate secondary themes.

(2) Eliminate extra personages.

(3) Eliminate passages of description.

(4) Eliminate irrelevant events.

It has been the practice to adapt such stories as Andersen's Ugly Duckling and Ruskin's King of the Golden River. In the King of the Golden River the description of Treasure Valley could be condensed into a few sentences and the character of South West Wind omitted; and in The Ugly Duckling, passages of description and bits of philosophy might be left out. But there is no reason why literature in the elementary school should be treated with mutilation. These stories are not suited to the kindergarten or first grade and may be reserved for the third and fourth grades where they may be used and enjoyed by the children as they are. Andersen's Thumbelina might be adapted for kindergarten children because it is suitable for them yet it is very long. It could easily be analyzed into its leading episodes, each episode making a complete tale, and one or more episodes be told at one time. This would have the added attraction for the child of having one day's story follow naturally the preceding story. Adapted thus, the episodes would be:-

(1) Thumbelina in her Cradle.

(2) Thumbelina and the Toad.

(3) Thumbelina and the Fishes.

(4) Thumbelina and the Cockchafer in the tree.

(5) Thumbelina and the Field-Mouse.

(6) Thumbelina and the Mole.

(7) Thumbelina and the Swallow.

(8) Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers.

Andersen's Snow Man as adapted for the kindergarten would require the episode of the lover omitted. It is irrelevant, not essential to the story, and is an illustration of the sentimental, which must be omitted when we use Andersen. To omit this episode one would cut out from "'That is wonderfully beautiful,' said a young girl," to the end of "'Why, they belong to the Master,' retorted the Yard Dog."