all the early races of putting their great literature before the people by song, dramatic action, and word of mouth is very suggestive to the teacher. The power and effectiveness of this mode of presentation, not only in early times but even in the highly civilized cities of London and Athens, is unmistakable proof of the educative value of such modes of teaching. This is only another indication of the kinship of child life with race life, which has been emphasized by many great thinkers.

The oral method offers a better avenue for all vigorous modes of expression than the reading book. It can be observed that the general tendency of the book is toward a formal, expressionless style in young readers. Go into a class where the teacher is handling a story orally and you will see her falling naturally into all forms of vivid narrative and presentation, gesture, facial expression, versatile intonation, blackboard sketching and picture work, the impersonation of characters in dialogue, dramatic action, and general liveliness of manner. The children naturally take up these same activities and modes of uttering themselves. Even without the suggestion of teachers, little children express themselves in such actions, attitudes, and impersonations. This may be often observed in little boys and girls of kindergarten age, when telling their experiences to older persons, or when playing among themselves. The freedom, activity, and vivacity of children is, indeed, in strong contrast to the apathetic, expressionless, monotonous style of many grown people, including teachers.

But the oral treatment of stories has a tendency to work out into modes of activity even more effective than those just described.

In recent years, since so much oral work has been done in elementary schools, children have been encouraged also to express themselves freely in blackboard drawings and in pencil work at their desks by way of illustrating the stories told. Moreover, in paper cutting, to represent persons and scenes, in clay modelling, to mould objects presented, and in constructive and building efforts, in making forts, tents, houses, tools, dress, and in showing up modes of life, the children have found free scope for their physical and mental activities. These have not only led to greater clearness and vividness in their mental conceptions, but have opened out new fields of self-activity and inventiveness.

So long as work in reading and literature was confined to the book exercises, nearly all these modes of expression were little employed and even tabooed.

Finally, the free use of oral narrative in the literature of early years, in story-telling and its attendant modes of expression, opens up to primary teachers a rare opportunity of becoming genuine educators. There was a time, and it still continues with many primary teachers, when teaching children to read was a matter of pure routine, of formal verbal drills and repetitions, as tiresome to the teacher, if possible, as to the little ones. But now that literature, with its treasures of thought and feeling, of culture and refinement, has become the staple of the primary school, teachers have a wide and rich field of inspiring study. The mastery and use of much of the preferred literature which has dropped down to us out of the past is the peculiar function of the primary teacher. Contact with great minds, like those of Kingsley, Ruskin, Andersen, the Grimm brothers, Stevenson, Dickens, Hawthorne, De Foe, Browning, Æsop, Homer, and the unknown authors of many of the best ballads, epics, and stories, is enough to give the primary teacher a sense of the dignity of her work. On the other hand, the opportunity to give to children the free and versatile development of their active powers is an equal encouragement.

Teachers who have taken up with zeal this great problem of introducing children to their full birthright, the choice literature of the world suited to their years, and of linking this story work with primary reading so as to give it vitality,—such teachers have found school life assuming new and unwonted charms; the great problems of the educator have become theirs; the broadened opportunity for the acquisition of varied skill and professional efficiency has given a strong ambitious tone to their work.

CHAPTER II

The Basis of Skill in Oral Work

Accepting the statement that skill in oral presentation of a story is a prime demand in early education, the important question for teachers is how to cultivate their resources in this phase of teaching, how to become good story-tellers.

It may be remarked that, for the great majority of people, story-telling is not a gift but an acquisition. There are, of course, occasional geniuses, but they may be left out of consideration. They are not often found in the schoolroom any more than in other walks of life. What we need is a practical, sensible development of a power which we all possess in varying degrees. Nor is it the fluent, volatile, verbose talker who makes a good oral teacher, but rather one who can see and think clearly: one who knows how to combine his ideas and experiences into clear and connected series of thought.

We may proceed, therefore, to a discussion of the needs and resources of a good story-teller.

1. Without much precaution it may be stated that he should have a rich experience in all the essential realities of human life. This covers a large field of common things and refers rather to contact with life than to mere book knowledge. Yet it is the depth, heartiness, and variety of knowledge rather than the source from which it springs that concerns us. Books often give us just this deep penetrating experience, as soon as we learn how to select and use them. We need to know human life directly and in all sorts of acts, habits, feelings, motives, and conditions,—something as Shakespeare knew it, only within the compass of our narrower possibilities. Likewise the physical world with its visible and invisible forces and objects besetting us on every side. These things must impress themselves upon us vividly in detail as well as in the bulk. The hand that has been calloused by skill-producing labor, the back that aches with burdens bravely borne, the brain that has sweat with strong effort, are expressions of this kind of knowledge of the world. Clear-grained perceptions are acquired from many sources: from travel, labor, books, reflection, sickness, observation. I go to-day into a small shop where heavy oak beer-kegs are made, and watch the man working this refractory material into water-tight kegs that will stand hard usage at the hands of hard drinkers for twenty years. If my mind has been at work as I watch this man for an hour, with his heavy rough staves made by hand, his tools and machines, his skill and strong muscular action, the amount and profit of his labor, that man's work has gone deep into my whole being. I can almost live his life in an hour's time, and feel its contact with the acute problems of our modern industrial life. That is a kind of knowledge and experience worth fully as much as a sermon in Trinity Church or a University lecture.

The teacher needs a great store of these concrete facts and illustrations. Without them he is a carpenter without tools or boards. He needs to know industries, occupations, good novels, typical life scenes, sunsets, sorrows, joys, inventions, poets, farmers—all such common, tangible things. Even from fools and blackguards he can get experiences that will last him a lifetime if they only strike in and do not