Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Who wrote this lullaby? In what country did Tennyson live? What ocean is west of England? Where is the home of the mother who is singing her baby to sleep with this song? Tell whether it is inland or on the coast, in a town or a village, or standing alone, upon high ground or low. Is there any thing in the song to tell us whether the people are rich or poor? Which do you imagine them to be? Then what kind of home have they? Of what is it built? Where is the mother sitting as she sings to her baby- on the first floor o the second, and in what room? Draw a plan of the room in which she sits. Describe it as it looks by daylight. Can the sounds of the sea be heard from this room? Describe the mother. Describe the baby. Draw a picture of the mother's chair. If you could hear the mother singing, what other sounds could you hear at the same time? If you stood by the window, what could you see outside? What time of year do you imagine it to be? What kind of evening is it? Why shall the wind blow "sweet and low"? If the moon is a "dying moon," does it give much light? Where is the baby's father? What is he doing? To what is the mother comparing her little one when she calls it a "babe in the nest"? What does she mean by "Silver sails all out of the west How many times does the sound of long o occur in the first stanza? In the second line, how many words begin with w? In the third line, which ones begin with b? In the sixth line of the second staza, what two words begin with s? Does it make a line more musical for some of the words to begin with the same letter? No comment or questioning is needed to awaken a love for this lullaby. The musical words, softly spoken, exercise a spell over the child's heart. Let the little song be read a number of times, that the children may become thoroughly familiar with it, before there is any attempt to analyze or to vivify it. Before it is memorized, however, the suggested scene should be clearly developed. Such development, if it be skillful, will inspire an added love for the beautiful cradle song. From a New Angle IV A Talk on Language (Continued) Rorlund "Allow me to ask what you will do in our society." M - From Ibsen's Pillars of Society. ISS CHASE was known far and wide for her success in presenting the first grade story-telling work. For this reason, the visitor telephoned and found out from the principal of the building in which this teacher taught, just when the language lesson would be in progress. Promptly at five minutes before the scheduled time, she entered the primary room and witnessed the speedy gathering up of the materials that had evidently been used in painting the excellent landscapes now spread out on a nearby table to dry. The children worked quickly and quietly, but, with it all, there was such a strong undercurrent of suppressed excitement that it was plain to be seen that the teacher's shor and simple command, "Get ready for our language lesson," aroused a lively sense of pleasure as well as keen anticipations. Soon everything was put away and the lesson proceeded. During its progress the listener became so absorbed that the close of the twenty-minute period came with the sense of a distinct shock, for the work proved to be all and more than she had been led to expect from the reports given to her beforehand. The telling of the stories and the expressive voices of the children who gave them revealed a deep and absorbing interest and a great delight in the recitation. As was her custom the inquiring visitor stayed after the children were dismissed in order to bombard the teacher with questions. "How did I do it?" echoed the teacher. "Oh, that's easy when you find out just how to go about it," and she straightway proceeded to give a full and complete account of her methods, thus justifying the visitor's long-felt belief that teachers, especially primary teachers, are inherently unselfish, particularly about their pet discoveries and the conclusions made in the course of the daily work. "I thoroughly believe," and the teacher dropped into a nearby chair, "that every teacher in the first two grades at first wages a losing fight with the language stories. Whether she ever turns defeat into victory, depends upon her powers of observation and her capacity for original thinking. Now this may sound like a college lecture on pedagogy, but, from my own experience, I can say that I never succeeded in having any language work worth the name until I did some observing on my own account and then followed it up with a little deep thinking that was all my own." "Observation of what?" came the listener's puzzled question. "Why, of children and their interests and the particular way in which their little minds work. You see, one day, quite a long while ago, I suddenly awoke to the fact that my work on the stories was far from being a glorious success and I began to wonder what I could do about it. My aunt has four little children, little steps from babyhood to the kinderg rten stage, and I began to observe them during the frequent visits I made this lively and interesting family. In a very short time, I came to the conclusion that there was one thing that marked them all, from the two-year-old up. and that was imagination! They simply revelled in the joy of it, and nine-tenths of their play was nothing but the free use of this mind process. The five-year-old used his imagination as freely as the younger ones and so I began to argue that, to a large extent, the same fact must be true of my six-year-olds. There was my starting-point and now you have the key that unlocked the secrets of successful language work, at least for me. Simple, isn't it?" Seeing her visitor's deep interest she hurried on. "I made up my mind that every one of my little tots should have such a vivid picture of the story he told that he would simply live it in his mind as he recited it to the others. The method for doing this worked its way out gradually and naturally in the course of the work. My first task was the discovery of the ways and means to give those forty young minds the power of vivid imaging, for you know all children are not equally gifted in this respect." 13 "Far from it!" the visitor agreed, and the teacher resumed her narrative. "I began first with the vivid use of memory, for, as a teacher, you must know that imagination is but memory with something added. In the beginning, I used my morning talks for the purpose of stimulating clear and exact memory pictures. I called the work a "game" and carried it on in this way. As brightly and interestedly as I could I asked, 'Who went down town yesterday? What did you do? What did you see?' By frequent questions I did my best to aid the child in giving a full account of his outing. It was quite surprising to observe what an improvement two or three days of this kind of work made. At the end of that length of time I asked fact, the one they loved the most, and then had them describe them to look at one of the pictures on their walls at home, in it the next day. By the way, I made a most interesting discovery just here, for almost without exception, the picture represented action in some form or other, thus proving that oft-heard statement that child-nature delights in having things happen. This offers a very significant help in selecting stories to be presented in primary grades. When we had extracted our due amount of benefit from this descriptive picture work, I asked them to describe a kind deed that they had watched for and had seen the day before. I soon found an ethical as well as a language value in this, and for that reason we have never quite dropped this little device, for we go back to it at intervals all through the year. The next step in this memoryreproduction work was the description of a recent picnic or party. At this stage of the work, the little people had they were really living the fun over again in mind as they gained the power of talking along quite smoothly and since told about it, they were almost uniformly free and unembarrassed. had been but a preparation. The first command was changed "Now came the real work for which all of the foregoing to, 'Tell me about a trip down town that you are thinking of in your mind.' I had rather dreaded the step of making this transition, but the reality proved much less difficult than my anticipation of it. The second command was, 'Tell me about a beautiful picture that you see in your mind; and, again, 'Play that you are watching some one who is very kind and tell us just what you see him doing.' This was followed in time by, 'Play you are at a picnic and tell us all about it.' The last step and the one best liked by the pupils was the form of the 'game' in which we played that we had all of the doing in spending it. In this part of the work, many an ethical money that we wanted and told, in turn, just what we were lesson crept in unawares, so we never quite parted from this game either. We were now ready for the formal language work." ing whether this underlying idea was only used in the way of The visitor listened most eagerly, for she had been wonderpreparation or whether it ran, as a central thought, through all of the work. Her secret questionings were soon set at rest. cess. "Now for another pet idea of mine," resumed the teacher. "I have always had the theory that nine-tenths of the population of this terrestrial globe of ours go through life with their servation is concerned. And, more than that, the principal eyes shut, or might as well do so, as far as their power of obthing that makes the older children dread their theme writing so intensely is the fact that they have been poor or careless pictures vivid enough to write about with any degree of sucobservers all along the way and have therefore no mindThis idea of clear visualizing was adhered to at every step of the work and I made the sense training lesson furnish us most valuable aid in the power of quick seeing. We began, of course, with a review of the nursery rhymes. were first recited, then dramatized, and lastly, the picture They For instance, Jack Be Nimble was performed, and then the produced by the dramatization was most carefully described. performance was described in detail down to the color of followed o t with each of the commonly known Mother Jack's eyes and the kind of shoes he wore. This plan was Goose Rhymes. Then we played a very interesting guessing game. given, 'Think of one of our Mother Goose friends and see "All of the children closed their eyes and the command was if we can guess who it is when you describe it. The child chosen would give a short description on something like the following: 'I see a girl and a boy climbing a steep hill. The boy has on a red cap and sweater and black pants and shoes. The girl wears a blue and white dress, a blue hair ribbon, clean white stockings and black shoes. Her hair is light and her eyes are blue. I can see her hair because she hasn't any hat on her head. Her cheeks are rosy. The boy and girl are carrying a pail between them! Of course the boy and girl are Jack and Jill and you may be sure that it was not necessary to tell any child to pay attention during the course of the description quoted above." After we had spent sufficient time upon the Mother Goose Rhymes, I presented very short stories and had them retold after they had first been dramatized. These stories were not over three or four lines long and I picked them up here and there, generally in children's magazines. I chose them for good English, vivid and familiar imagery, decisive and abundant action and last, but not least, their brevity. Each story must be full of easily imaged pictures and objects and if it had this virtue and the English was too mediocre for my purpose, I did not hesitate to re-write the story in what I judged to be better language. In this rewriting, or editing, whatever you wish to call it, I took care to omit all unnecessary or prolonged bits of description and to substitute a different verb for the word "was" whenever I found it at all possible. These stories told of bits of nature lore, good deeds, anecdotes of the best-known characters of history and some interesting happenings from real life. I saw to it that the children really visualized every detail that the stories presented and the freedom and enthusiasm, with which the stories were reproduced, attested to the vividness of the mind pictures that they called up. I return to this short story drill at intervals throughout the year, for these briefer selections afford the enjoyment of a change from the longer stories as well as a rapid drill in memorizing, because, you see, at this stage of the work, I tell each story but one time before I have it retold to me. Of course you know, without my telling you, that our old friends, the most familiar fables are included in this work. They are excellent for use just at this period of advancement, for they are brief, full of action and everyone of them is expressed in the very tersest English. "If this preliminary work has been carefully and thoroughly done, it is now time to introduce another little 'game', a great favorite with the children. This is the telling of wholly imaginary stories, as they are suggested by large colored pictures which I distribute to the class. I have several hundred pictures, both large and small, which are of inestimable value in many different phases of the primary work. The making of the collection has not proved to be a source of great expense, either, for many of these pictures, especially the black and white ones, are the Perry prints; others I cut from old magazines and still others, the greater number of the larger colored pictures, were given out as Sunday supplements by several of the well-known newspapers. All of the mounting I did myself, so you see I have the benefit of a great aid in my Language work at a very little outlay of money and time. I "Well, to return to our picture game. I always set the form myself, by taking a particularly interesting picture and weaving an exciting story about it, while I hold it out in front of me so that the children can all see it as I talk. I begin with quite a short story and then pass the pictures and ask the children to tell their original stories. In the beginning of this work, the stories told are generally quite brief, but as time goes on, again set a model and take care, this time, to see that it is longer and more complicated. A little later on, I tell a still longer story, thus paving the way for the introduction of long stories with the refrain, or 'refrain stories,' as they are sometimes called. The 'Little Red Hen,' the 'Old Woman and Her Pig,' the 'Three Bears' and all of the other selections of this nature have their turn, and are completed in a time that is incredibly short when compared with the long, laborious days of work that I was formerly obliged to spend upon them. "The teaching of the Nature Myths probably requires more skill than the work in any of the other lines of primary Language. This is true because we are bound to encounter more or less description and a much smaller amount of action. These are therefore less akin to the present status of our little folks, but, in this day of sky-scrapers and crowded cities, we must make the children love and notice the different aspects of Nature, or they will go through life with souls shut away from half of its beauty. Every primary teacher can testify that just at this point of her work, that is, when the class is struggling with the Nature Myths, there always comes the first clearly perceptible sag, both in interest and progress. Here is where the teacher must pay the most strict attention to her methods of presentation, for upon the way in which she conducts the presentation of these myths depends the enthusiasm that alone can make the undertaking a satisfying success." The visitor was framing a request for the outline of the speaker's methods when she again found her question antici pated. "Your member how interested the primary tots always are when they are learning 'Golden-rod and Aster,' don't you? And how easily they learn it?" The visitor nodded her acquiescence, and the teacher went on. "Now, I know that some teachers would say that this happens solely because it is September and the children's minds are fresh and interested. This may be partly true, but not altogether so, for if you will study 'Golden-rod and Aster,' as I did, and if you will note its wording and its plot, you will discover that almost every word in the whole story is a concrete one that calls up a definite and clearly seen picture. What do I mean by a concrete word? One that calls up a concrete image, either of sound, sight, feeling or odor. Sometimes the sensation lies in the noun, as 'storm-cloud'; sometimes in the adjective, as 'weather-beaten,' and sometimes in the verb. For instance, the word 'grated' in the sentence, 'The boat grated on the sand,' gives the reader a distinct sense of hearing the sound itself because the word makes such a strong appeal to the same sensation, gained through the ear, in the past. That is the principal difference between a lively, interesting, absorbing story-whether a magazine short-story, a novel or a simple nature myth told by a teacher to the 'little tots' in a primary room and a long, wearisome, monotonous tale ground out to a dull length that interests nobody. The first story seizes the reader and makes him see and hear and think and feel and even live the tale over again at the author's pleasure. If this is true of us adults, why not so of children, since one and all of us are as some one has well expressed it, 'but children grown tall?' "Now," she went on, "you will understand why I took the story of 'Golden-rod and Aster' as my model for re-writing, or partially re-writing, the Nature Myths that I desired to teach in the course of the Language work. Sometimes it proved a light task, calling for the substitution of single words or a phrase here and there. In one or two, I changed every verb for a more vivid one, obliterating a score of verbs such as is and were, with their faint appeal to the child's active sense impressions. Some of the stories I found shortened and already carefully edited for me, in books such as 'McMurry's Classic Stories' and some of the collections used in the kinder gartens. This original editing, while it may sound difficult to one who has not as yet tried her hand at it, really proves most interesting and delightful work, giving the writer a wholly new sense of the peculiar flavor and vital power of the words in our native tongue. "The success of the interest that must either make or mar a magazine short story depends almost wholly upon the tension of the succeeding events forming the plot. If a breathless and unweakened interest is steadily maintained, and, in fact, strengthened little by little, up to the point of climax, the story becomes a literary success. This is the idea upon which I based my method. The conservation of this tense interest led me to adopt three unvarying rules. The first one is: Make each section of the story of such a length that it will lead up to one of the most interesting points in the story and always stop there.' This rule as worked out, not only causes a variety in the length of the sections given day by day, but enables the teacher to make each day's section as interesting as the short stories presented, one a day, in the work that has gone before. Rule two is this one: Do not interrupt the speaker during the course of the recital. This is fatal to the interest the teacher has so carefully fostered. If the child has made mistakes, correct him at the end of his recitation, or better and fully two-thirds of my correcting is done in this last way-reserve five minutes at the close of the recitation and ask the children if they have heard anything said that could have been said in a better way. Why is this way the best? Because it quickens the ear for hearing such errors and none of us ever learn to correct our own slips until our ear has become so sensitive that we receive a shock every time we hear the incorrect expression drop both from our own lips and those of others. And, for pity's sake, don't let the little people say, 'Jane said this,' or 'I heard Johnny say that!' Keep the whole matter impersonal, as impersonal as you can, and don't worry about the offenders profiting by the corrections even if his own particular blunder is not sent straight at each child's head. Foster this impersonal atmosphere and later on a quiet 'Saw, not seen, Jane,' will give the needed help with no sickening sense of shame to the child who is guilty of the slip from grammatical perfection. "Rule number three is also one that has to do with the emotional tension. Here it is. Keep the fever of interest and anticipation at its height, at such a height that the children will be carried away by it to such an extent that all sense of self-conscious timidity will vanish away like Longfellow's tents of the Arabs. There, that finishes the principal points that I try to remember while I am giving Nature myths to my children. "One thing more;" glancing at the clock, and that I must not let you go away without. I find that the nature myths gain in interest and are less difficult to present if they are not given at too close intervals of time. I have a plan arranged so that I can correlate nature stories with the nature study that I teach by months. Here it is. Copy it if you care to." And while the teacher set her room in order and put on her wraps, the visitor wrote down the following: SEPTEMBER |