PART TWO THE USE OF STORY-TELLING TO ILLUMINATE SOME SCHOOLROOM SUBJECTS—STORIES FOR TELLING

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Story-Telling to Intensify Interest in History

It has been said by Walter Prichard Eaton, “The pupil who gets a mark of one hundred and thereafter hates Shakespeare, has failed—rather, his teacher has,”—and it is equally true that the instructor also has failed whose classes look upon history as a series of dates and dull facts instead of a colorful story.

To teach history successfully means to give the child vivid pictures of the past, to enable him to see as a whole the march of a race or of a nation across the canvas of time, to watch the legions of warriors go to victory or defeat, to hear the voices of statesmen whose wisdom has builded empires, to walk side by side with the men and women whose lives make up the annals of the world. To be of value to the child, history must be felt, just as a work of literature must be felt. He must live it, must approve the worthy and disapprove the unworthy, must rejoice in and sympathize with the fortunes and misfortunes of its characters, else it cannot be anything more to him than the chronology in the almanac, disliked during his school days and forgotten as soon as they are over.

Story-telling can make history alive and vital because of its power to convey the child to distant scenes and ages, and through it he may become, not only a spectator, but a participant in every human activity. If our libraries were to be swept away and publishing houses should shut their doors, we could still teach history to children, and teach it successfully, through the art of the narrator. By the medium of the story we can make the child see what has been done by his ancestors and other people in the past; by it we can interpret to him how his forefathers lived and acted, how other people have attempted to do what he is trying to do or sees done, and give him a vivid idea of human ways of living and conduct. This is history in the larger sense, and it was taught successfully by the story-teller in the past.

Before the days of printing, when books were manuscripts that no one but monks could read and kings could afford to own, story-telling was the only way in which this subject was taught. Tales of bygone days were told in castle halls and to groups of eager listeners on the village green, and boys and girls of King Alfred’s time knew as much of their country’s story from the lips of wandering bards as those of our generation know from cramming the contents of textbooks. They knew it because through the tales they heard they were able to relive it, and what has been done before can be done again. Because of the story’s power to vivify, modern children can relive the world’s story just as those in medieval times relived it, and history can be made a subject fraught with delight to the child.

Child attention centers first upon familiar things, and radiates from them to the unknown. Through his interest in creatures that are a part of his environment, the kindergarten tot becomes interested in those of other regions, in the men, women, children, and animals that are part of the life of some other child. Through knowledge of his immediate surroundings he comes to acquire knowledge of life in other surroundings, and according to the appeal it makes to his imagination, he understands and sympathizes with it, and his social sense is broadened. Therefore, in the study of history, the attention should be focused upon local environment, and from it should radiate to other sections of the world. In other words, by what the child sees happening around him, he must be led to see what has happened in the past and what is happening now in distant regions. This requires imagination, and a boy or a girl cannot see or feel these events if they are presented as a dry chronology, because under those conditions they do not arouse the imagination. He must behold them flashed on a canvas like a colorful picture, and because the story can do this, because it can make real to the imagination situations that cannot be experienced, through it he can be led to see and feel all that we desire him to see and feel.

The biographical story, the tale of the leader who towers above his fellows like the Matterhorn above the Valais foothills, is a boon to every teacher of history. Because it is unified in plot and dramatic in appeal to the imagination, it is the most easily handled of all the history material, and should be used freely. But if children are not to have a distorted idea of the story of the human race, we must not stop with the biographical tale. We must give them also a conception of the part the masses have had in the making of the great human story, of the yeomen of England, upon whose sturdy shoulders the foundation of British liberty stands, of the vassals of Italy, France, and Germany, of the army of unknown toilers who built the Pyramids and the Chinese Wall. Sometimes, in satisfying the child’s hero-love, we make him one-sided by laying too much stress upon individual achievement and not enough upon the work of the multitude. We do not lead him to value the importance of the humble who toil in the rank and file. This is not as it should be. We should make it clear to him that the stokers who feed the furnace of the man-of-war are as splendidly patriotic as the admiral who commands the fleet, and are as necessary to their land, because, were there no coal heavers, there could be no navy.

Sometimes, too, because martial events are more spectacular than those of peace, we give the impression that they are the only important and heroic ones, and fail to convince the children of the fact that the peasants of Lorraine, who tilled their fields until they blossomed like gardens, served their land as loyally as the soldiers who marched to victory under the oriflamme of Henry of Navarre. We are too prone to center the child interest around military affairs, and neglect to emphasize the importance of conflicts of another kind. The history of every modern industry, of every achievement that has meant anything to the world, is a story of struggle, of victory over opposing forces. It has its succession of events, its periods of triumph and defeat, its moments of suspense, and its thrilling climax, and if presented in all its possibilities, is as fascinating to childhood as Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Let us not fail to give these narratives of struggle that are unstained by human blood, and in doing it lead children to understand that there are other ways of serving one’s land besides riding a war horse or carrying a musket.

We teach that Robert Fulton invented the first steamboat, but it is only the exceptional child-leader who makes the most of that event, who throws upon the canvas, for youth to behold, the story of the struggle and disappointment, the triumph and despair, of the young American engineer. To give them the fact that the Clermont made a successful trip from New York to Albany in 1807, is like telling the end of a story without the beginning or intervening chapters, and a snatch of a tale never has the effect of the whole. But if the children have all the light and shade of that splendid narrative of invention, of the labor beside the Seine, of the hope and discouragement there, it becomes a fascinating, unforgotten tale. They remember the Clermont episode because they have enjoyed a story, and years afterward, when they see a ferryboat or an ocean greyhound, they will think of the New Englander through whose dreams and labor it came to be.

To the teacher who looks upon history as a great, fascinating tale, who regards it as a narrative instead of a mere bunch of dates and periods, who knows the story of man’s inner development as well as that of his outer, and who uses the myths, legends, and epics of a land as side lights to illuminate its true story, great results are possible. There is no phase or period of history that he cannot make intensely interesting to the child, no page of the world’s story that will not teem with life and color to the boy or girl who receives it from such an instructor. It may be an account of events in his own land, of happenings in the stern, white north country or in the opalescent south, it may be of knights in glittering armor or of serene-faced, brown-cowled friars, of men from the masses or from the ranks of the exalted, but it will breathe and pulsate for him, it will give him the information that he should receive, and it will give him an understanding that no memorizing of dates and outlines can give, because he has lived with those who made history, because he has suffered, rejoiced, and achieved with them.

Every great historian is more than a recounter of events of the past. He is an artist who fits himself into the moods of men and women who lived and accomplished before his time, puts them into his pages as creatures of flesh and blood, and gives to their activities as much freshness and interest as have the events that happen before our eyes. Motley, Guizot, Hume, Hallam, Froissart, and our own Parkman, Lodge, Prescott, and Bancroft created as splendidly as ever Hugo, Corneille, or Balzac created, because they endowed characters of fact with as much life as these other men gave to characters of fiction; and consequently, with sources rich in inspiration from which to draw, the teacher who aspires to vivify history by story-telling is confronted by no hopeless task. He need only go to the works of the standard historians for his background, and then, by giving the imagination sufficient play to supply setting and detail of situation, he can carry a joyful lesson to the children. This is well illustrated in the following story of Western discovery. Children love it and ask to have it told again and again, while if the bare facts are given them in outline form, it means little to them. Not every teacher is gifted to the degree of Miss Hood and can hope to weave a fact of history into a tale that deserves to rank as a children’s classic; but every teacher can put history into story form with enough skill to make it hold delight for his pupils and cause them to go from his instruction with a fondness for history, an understanding of what history really means, which is worth infinitely more than a thousand dates or outlines crammed into the mind for an examination or recitation, or stored there permanently to rust and grow useless, because they have no meaning, and therefore no broadening or illuminating effect upon his life.

THE SEARCH FOR THE SEVEN CITIES

By Margaret Graham Hood

The Story of Tejos

In the year 1530, when Nuño de Guzmán was governor of New Spain, he had an Indian slave of whom he was very fond and who was likewise fond of his master. He was a good servant and different in many ways from all the other slaves in the palace, and it often pleased Nuño de Guzmán to talk with him.

“Tejos,” said De Guzmán to him one day, “tell me of your home when you were a boy, and tell me of your father and mother.”

Then Tejos turned away from his master and stood for a long time silent.

“Master,” he said at last, “when Tejos was a boy he lived not in this land, nor was he a slave. His home was in a land far, far to the northward. My lord, it was a great land. Beyond the home of my father there was yet another country greater still. In that farther land were seven great cities, and even the smallest of them was as great as this city of Mexico. So rich were the people of those cities that they made arrowheads of emeralds, and scraped the sweat from their bodies with scrapers made of gold, and put precious stones over their doors. Their houses were wide and high. My father carried to these people the feathers that they wore upon their heads, and in return they gave him gold and turquoises and emeralds. My father took Tejos with him twice, my lord, when he journeyed with feathers to those cities, and though Tejos was then but a small boy, he still remembers the long streets where were only the stores of jewelers who sold the precious stones and made them into ornaments for the people.”

“And where,” asked Nuño de Guzmán breathlessly, “where is this land?”

“It is far away from here, my lord,” answered Tejos, sadly. “Forty days you must journey to reach it, and the land through which you must travel is a desert lying between two seas, and there is neither water nor food to be had.”

Scarcely waiting to sleep, De Guzmán began to gather a force to march in search of this wonderful land. Far and wide the story spread and on all sides the talk was of

The Land of the Seven Cities

With four hundred Spaniards and twenty thousand Indians, De Guzmán marched from Mexico, and the people waited each day to hear that he had conquered a great empire in the north.

As he went, rumors of the Seven Cities kept coming to him, and his men were often so excited he could hardly get them to sleep enough. For days they pressed eagerly forward, hoping each day to find the Seven Cities at hand; but instead of this, the country each day grew more desolate, the mountains grew steeper and the roads harder to find, while the Seven Cities, instead of coming nearer, were always farther and farther to the north.

Then the Indians began to desert and the Spaniards to complain. “We have been deceived,” they said, “and we shall all die in this bleak land. Let us return to Mexico.”

For a while Nuño de Guzmán cheered them by holding ever before them the reward that awaited them, but at last he too grew discouraged and afraid; they all turned about and marched sadly back to Mexico.

“We will go back now,” said Nuño de Guzmán, “but some day I will have the right sort of an army and I will come again. Tejos himself shall lead me, and I will yet find and conquer those Seven Cities.”

But when he returned to Mexico, Tejos was dead, and the story of Nuño de Guzmán’s misfortunes discouraged others; so for six years no one went to seek the Seven Cities. Then a strange thing happened.

The Wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca

Into the town of Culiacan there one day came wandering four strange men. They were barefooted and almost naked. The little clothing they wore was made of skins and hung in rags about them. Their hair lay in a tangled mass upon their shoulders, and their beards reached almost to their knees.

They fell at the feet of the first Spaniard they met, crying, “Thank God! Thank God! At last! At last!” Then they seized his hands and kissed them, kissed each other, and danced about, clapping their hands and shouting for joy.

“They are madmen,” said the people who gathered around to look at them. “What shall we do with them?”

“No, no,” cried the oldest of the strangers. “No, no! You do not understand. We are poor wanderers who have been lost for years among the Indians. We have been slaves; our companions have died, but at last we have escaped and now, for the first time in years, we see Christians and Spaniards and our joy overcomes us. Can you wonder at it, dear friends?”

“Lost among the Indians!” murmured the people in astonishment. “Made slaves by the Indians! Terrible! What can it mean?”

“There is something very strange about it,” said one.

“Let us take them before our Capitán,” said another, and they took them at once to the Capitán.

“Who are you?” he asked rudely, looking with disgust at their dirt and rags.

“I am Cabeza de Vaca,” said the oldest man. “I am a noble of Castile who came with Narvaez to conquer Florida. The fleet was wrecked and all were lost save these three companions and me. We have been all these years since among the Indians.”

“I do not believe a word of it,” said the Capitán. “There is something strange about it. These men may be criminals. Put them into prison until we find out.”

For three months they lay in the prison. Then they were sent for by the Alcalde Melchior Diaz. He received them with all kindness, and to him they were allowed to tell their story.

“Is it true,” he said to the oldest man, “that you are Cabeza de Vaca of Castile?”

“It is true,” answered Cabeza de Vaca. “Ten years ago I sailed with Narvaez to the Florida coast to take part in his great expedition, but, alas! all our ships were wrecked and only a few of us escaped to the mainland. There most of those who did escape died, and we four, three of us Spaniards and one a negro, have wandered ever since among the Indians. We wept for joy at sight of our own people when we reached your town, but they have treated us worse than did the Indians.”

“Do not think of that now,” said kind Melchior Diaz. “It was a mistake; you shall now be treated with all the kindness that is your due. Tell me your story.”

Then Cabeza de Vaca began the story of his wanderings:

“After Narvaez and the ships were lost,” said he, “we escaped to the mainland and were taken captive by the Indians. They were a poor, starved people who lived on roots and berries and whatever they could get, and who often went for days without a mouthful. I do not know how many years they held us as slaves, but it was for many years and our sufferings were great.

“We tried always to get to the north, and little by little we got further westward and northward.

“At last we escaped from those Indians who held us as slaves and fell in with others farther west who had never seen a white man. We had with us a rattle such as is used by their medicine men, and this, with our beards, made them think we were from heaven. They fell on their faces before us and gave us all that they had.

“We told these people we wished to go to where the sun sets, and they said, ‘No, you cannot go there. The people are too far away.’

“‘It makes no difference,’ I said, ‘you must still lead us there.’

“We saw they were in great fear, but at last they sent off two of their women to see if they could find the other people and tell them of our coming. In five days they came back. ‘They have found no people,’ said the Indians to us. ‘Then,’ said I, ‘lead us to the northward,’ and again they said: ‘There are no people there. Neither is there food or water.’

“At this I became offended and went apart from them, and at night went away by myself to sleep. But they came at once where I was and remained all night without sleep. They talked to me in great fear, telling me how great was their fright, begging us to be no longer angry; and they said they would lead us whatsoever way we wished to go, though they knew they should die on the way.

“We still pretended to be angry, lest their fright should leave them, and while we were thus pretending a remarkable thing happened: the very next day many of them became ill, and eight men died. They believed we had caused their death by willing it, and it seemed as if they must all die of fear.

“In truth, it caused us so much pain to see them suffer that it could not be greater, and we prayed to God, our Lord, to relieve them, and they soon got better.

“News of our strange power spread through the land, and the people trembled at our coming. Sometimes they would come to meet us, and bring all they owned and offer it to us. Or, again, when they heard we were coming, they would go into their houses and pile all their goods in a heap in the middle of the floor for us, and then sit down, with their faces to the wall, their heads bowed, and their hair drawn over their eyes. Thus they waited until we came and spoke to them. Then they gave us whatever we would take from them.

“Wherever we went, they brought their sick to us and begged us to cure them. We always examined them carefully, and treated them as best we knew how, and prayed earnestly to God to help us, and they nearly always got well. Whenever a sick man got well, he not only gave us all that he had, but all his friends did likewise.

“As we pressed westward and northward we came all the time to finer Indians who had more wealth and better homes than those farther east.

“At last we came to a land of plenty. The people lived in houses and had beans, pumpkins, and calabashes for food and covered themselves with blankets made of hides. They were the finest-looking and strongest people we had seen and intelligent beyond any of the others. They had nothing they did not give to us. They begged us to pray for rain and told us that for two years not a drop had fallen. When we asked where they had got their food, they told us from the land of the maize. Then I bade them tell me of this land of the maize, and they told that beyond them was a land of many people and large houses, where maize grew all over the land; that the people of that land were wealthy and wore beautiful plumes and feathers of parrots, and used precious stones for arrowheads and to decorate their houses. And they brought to me five beautiful emeralds cut into arrowheads, and many fine turquoises and beads made of coral such as come from the South Seas. When I asked whence they got these stones, they pointed to some lofty mountains that stand toward the north and told us that from there came the precious stones, and that near those mountains were large cities. They said that in those cities the houses were so large that there were sometimes three or four lofts one above the other.”

“And did you not go to those cities?” asked Melchior Diaz, eagerly.

“No,” answered Cabeza de Vaca. “I did not go because I heard that toward the sunset were other men of my kind, and I hurried westward, hoping to meet them. Therefore I did not go to the land of the cities. I longed once more to look upon the face of a Spaniard.”

“You have suffered much,” said Melchior Diaz, “but do not think of it, and now rest.”

Then Melchior Diaz sent off a messenger to Mexico to carry a letter to the Viceroy de Mendoza, telling him of Cabeza de Vaca and his strange tale.

Forthwith the messenger returned with a letter commanding Cabeza de Vaca and his companions to come at once to Mexico and appear before the viceroy.

To Mexico they went, and again Cabeza told the strange story of their wanderings.

“It is a wonderful story,” said the viceroy, when he had finished, “and you certainly deserve to spend the rest of your life in ease. Say the word, and I myself will send you home to Spain.”

Cabeza de Vaca almost wept for joy at these words. “Gladly will I go, dear friend. Gladly will I go, for I am weary of wandering and would once more see my own country.”

So Cabeza de Vaca and two of his companions sailed off to Spain, and the Viceroy de Mendoza thought much of the wonderful cities far to the northward.

The Journey of Fray Marcos

The story of Cabeza de Vaca set all New Spain talking once more of the Seven Cities.

“Of course,” said the people, as they talked, “of course they are the same seven cities Nuño de Guzmán learned of from Tejos, the Indian. He did not get the right directions, and so he failed to reach them. But now we know they are there,” and many were eager to set out at once.

But the Viceroy de Mendoza was a quiet and careful statesman.

“There have been many lives lost already,” he said, “and it will be better not to be in too great a hurry. I believe these are the seven cities sought for by Nuño de Guzmán, but I shall not send an army until I am sure.”

Then he thought of a monk called Fray Marcos of Niza, who had been much among the Indians of the north, and he sent for him to come at once to Mexico.

Fray Marcos came, and the Viceroy de Mendoza told him the story of Cabeza de Vaca.

“Now, Fray Marcos,” said the viceroy, after finishing the story, “if we should send an army, these Indians would surely make war upon us and both for them and for us there would be many lives lost. You understand them, and it might be that they would let you come among them and learn what we desire. Perhaps there lies to the northward as great a nation as Peru or Mexico. It must be taken for the church and the crown. Will you not be the one to carry the message of the cross and to take possession of the country for the king of Spain?”

“I will,” said Fray Marcos, eagerly.

“Very well,” said Mendoza, smiling. “The negro Stephen who was with Cabeza de Vaca is here, and he shall be your guide. Remember that this expedition is to be undertaken more to spread our knowledge of God than for great wealth. Therefore, bear in mind that the natives are to be treated with the utmost kindness, and my displeasure will fall heavy upon whosoever shall offend them. Say to them that the Emperor is very angry at those Christians who have been unkind to them, and that never again shall they be enslaved or taken from their homes.

“Take special note of their number, and of their manner of life, and whether they are at peace or at war among themselves. Notice the nature of the country, the fertility of the soil, and the character of its products. Learn what wild animals there are there, and find out if there are any rivers great or small. Search for precious stones and metals and, if possible, bring back specimens of them. Also make careful inquiry if the natives have any knowledge of a neighboring sea.

“If you shall succeed in reaching the Southern Sea, write out an account of all your discoveries and bury it at the foot of the tallest tree and then mark the tree with a cross. Do the same at the mouth of all rivers, and those who are sent after you will be on the lookout for such a sign. Take enough Indians with you so that you can send them back from time to time to bring to us reports of the route you have taken and how you are treated by the Indians you meet. If you shall come to any great city, do not send back word but come yourself and tell me about it. And lastly, although all the world belongs to the Emperor, be sure and plant the cross in those new lands and take possession of them in the name of the Spanish crown, and never forget that your life is of great value to your church and your country, and do not risk it needlessly. Now, go. Make all your plans and set out as soon as may be.”

Fray Marcos hastened to make his plans, and on the seventh of March, 1539, he set out from Culiacan with the negro Stephen and a few faithful Indians.

Several months went by; then, at the end of September, 1539, a traveler in a monk’s gown came walking alone into Culiacan.

“It is Fray Marcos!” cried the people. “It is Fray Marcos, who went to search for the Seven Cities!” “Did you find them, Fray Marcos?” “Where is Stephen, the negro?” “Are the Seven Cities full of wealth?”

But Fray Marcos would not answer. “I have much to tell,” he said to them, “but I will tell it only to the Lord de Mendoza himself.”

To the Lord de Mendoza he told a story even more wonderful than the story of Tejos, the Indian, or that of Cabeza de Vaca.

“All the way,” he said, “I found great entertainment, for after I told the Indians they were not to be enslaved, they could not do enough to show their love for me. I went where the Holy Ghost did lead me. The Indians guided me from place to place, and some went ahead to tell others that I was coming. Everywhere they came to meet me and gave me welcome. They had food ready for me; and where there were no houses, they built bowers of trees and flowers that I might rest safe from the sun.

“I saw naught that was worthy of notice until there came to me some Indians from an island off the coast, and these wore about their necks great shells that were of mother-of-pearl. To these I showed the pearls which I carried with me for show, and they told me that in their islands there were great stores of such, and that there were thirty islands.

“And then I passed through a desert of four days’ journey, and there went with me the Indians from the island and from the mountains I had passed. At the end of this desert I found other Indians, who marveled much to see me, because they had not before seen a white man. They gave me great stores of food and sought to touch my garments, and called me Hayota, which in their language means ‘A man come from Heaven.’

“As best I could, I told to all these Indians of our Lord God in Heaven, and of our great Emperor over the sea. Then I asked them if they knew of any great kingdom thereabout or of any great cities.

“And they told me that farther on were high mountains, and at the foot of those mountains was a large and mighty plain on which were many great towns and people clad in cotton. Then I showed them metals that I carried with me and said to them, ‘Have the people of those cities any of these?’ And they took the gold metal from my hand and said: ‘Of this do the people of those cities make the vessels from which they eat, and also do they make of it thin plates to scrape the sweat from their bodies, and the walls of their temples are covered therewith.’

“Then I asked concerning the precious stones known to the people of the cities, and the Indians answered that they had round, green stones that they prized much and wore hanging from their noses and ears.

“The Indians offered to take me to the cities, but because it was a long journey from the sea, and your lordship had commanded me to keep close to the coast, I did not go.

“It was now Passion Sunday, and I felt inclined to tarry among the people I was with. I did so, but I sent on ahead of me the negro Stephen.

“I told him to go to the northward fifty or threescore leagues, and to take with him Indians, of whom he should send back from time to time messengers bearing me news of all that he learned.

“We agreed that if it were the mean country of which he learned, he should send me a cross no longer than my hand; but if it were a great country, he should send me a cross the length of two hands; and if it were a country greater and richer than New Spain, he should send a great cross.

“Stephen went from me on Passion Sunday, after dinner, and within four days there came to me messengers bearing a cross as high as a man. He sent me also word that I should at once come after him, for he had news of a mighty province; that he had with him certain Indians who had been to that province, and one of them he sent to me.

“The Indian whom Stephen had sent told me it was thirty days’ journey beyond the town where Stephen was, to the first city of the province, which was called Cibola. He said there were seven great cities in this province all under one lord. The houses, he said, were made of stone and the smallest of them were of two lofts, one above the other; and the house of the lord of the province had four lofts and was wide and long. He said, too, that the gates of the finest houses were cunningly wrought with turquoises, whereof they had plenty.

“The same day that Stephen’s messenger came to me there came also another Indian from the seacoast, and he told again of the many islands in the sea and of people who have many pearls and much gold.

“And that same day there came to me three Indians with their faces and breasts and arms painted.

“They came, they said, from a province toward the east that bordered upon that of the Seven Cities. They had heard of me and wished to see me. They told me of the Seven Cities of Cibola, the people, and the houses, in the same manner that Stephen had sent me word. I sent back the Indians who had come from the islands on the seacoast, and hurried on after Stephen.

“Each day messengers came to me from Stephen, all carrying large crosses and all telling of Cibola.

“At last came Indian messengers who told me of three other kingdoms called Marata, Acus, and Tonteac. They said that the people of those provinces dressed even as the people of Cibola, with gowns of cotton that hang to their feet, and they bound them with girdles of turquoises. And they told me much more, to make me know that these provinces were in all ways as great as Cibola.

“I traveled on for days, stopping to know the people among whom I passed and always being received by them with all tenderness.

“They brought me their sick that I might heal them and sought always to touch my garments. They gave to me cowhides so well tanned that I could not well believe them to have been dressed by savage people.

“As I went on, I came to great crosses set up in the ground by Stephen to let me know that the good news of the country increased. I came to a pleasant town at last where indeed were people clad in cotton, both men and women, and they wore turquoises in their noses and ears. The lord of the village came with his brethren to greet me, and they were well dressed in robes of cotton and hides and wore collars of turquoises about their necks.

“It was a fair country, better than any I had yet seen; so I set up two great crosses and took possession of it for His Majesty, the Emperor. They offered me gifts of all they had, but I took not one thing save food.

“I came now to a desert and went into it, and I found that the Indians had gone on ahead of me and built bowers beneath which I ate and slept, and in this manner I traveled for four days.

“Then I entered a valley where were many people; men and women came to meet me with food. All of them had turquoises hanging from their noses and ears and collars of turquoises three or four times double about their necks.

“Here they knew of Cibola as much as we in New Spain know of Mexico and could answer all I wished to ask about the people.

“As I went on I met more and more people, and passed through a fine country where is much grass and water. The people were in all ways civil and kind and told me about Cibola and Acus, and Tonteac and Marata and Quivira. Here I saw a thousand oxhides all nicely dressed and chains of turquoise, and they told me they all came from Cibola.

“And now I had two deserts to cross and was fifteen days’ journey from Cibola.

“I entered the desert, and many Indians went with me, and others went on ahead to make ready for me; and each day there came word from Stephen, telling me all was true and to hurry after him.

“For twelve days I journeyed thus, and then there came running to meet us an Indian in great fright—his body covered with sweat and dust and his face showing the greatest sadness.

“He told us that the day before, Stephen had reached Cibola, and had sent messengers into the city with presents for its lord, and to let him know they came in peace.

“But the lord of the city fell into a great rage, and dashed the presents of Stephen to the ground. In his fury he drove the messengers out of the city, and told them that if they again appeared they would surely be killed, as would also Stephen, if he dared to come near.

“The messengers hurried to Stephen and told him what had happened, but he was in no wise afraid; he answered he should go, nevertheless, and bade the Indians fear not, but to come with him.

“They went on, but as they were about to enter the city, many of its people met them and seized them and cast them into a great house that stood just outside. They took from them all that they had, and left them all night without food or drink. The next morning Stephen and his Indians tried to escape, but they were scarce outside their prison when the people of the city set upon them, and Stephen and all the Indians, except the messenger and one other, were killed. These two had been struck down and left for dead, but were only stunned. They had lain under the dead bodies of the others until the angry people had gone back into the city. Then they had crept away.

“My Lord de Mendoza, so great was my grief at this terrible news that it seemed for a moment I must indeed die, but when I saw all my Indians begin to weep and lament, I knew I must not give way.

“I straightway gave to them many of the presents I had intended for the people of Cibola, and then I resolved that though I might not enter the city I would still look upon it, and I told them I would nevertheless go on. They begged me not to go, but when they saw I was firm two of them agreed to go with me. So we left the others to await our return and journeyed forwards. We traveled one day, and then we came to a round hill. This I climbed, and on looking down saw at its foot the city of Cibola. It was a fair city, my lord. The houses were as the Indians told me, of two and three and four stories and built of stone. The people were somewhat white and dressed in white garments. Greatly was I tempted to risk my life and go thither, but knowing that if I were killed all knowledge of the country would be lost, I gave it up and contented myself with planting a cross upon the hilltop in token that I took possession for the crown of Spain.”

“You have done well, Fray Marcos,” cried Mendoza, “and now it is time to send an army.”

The Disappointment of Coronado

When Mendoza wanted to send an army, the first person he thought of was a brave soldier and fine nobleman named Francisco de Coronado, who sat by his side, listening eagerly.

Coronado knew all about the expedition of Nuño de Guzmán, and had heard the story of Cabeza de Vaca. Also, he had talked with Mendoza before the viceroy had sent Fray Marcos on his journey, and had said he would be willing to spend a fortune in fitting out an army to take the Seven Cities.

So Mendoza turned to Coronado and said: “Is it still your wish, my noble friend, to lead an army against this kingdom of Cibola?”

“It is,” said Coronado.

“Well, then, make ready at once, and I will help you in every way that I can,” said the viceroy.

The news spread rapidly, and again all New Spain was talking of the Seven Cities. In a short time three hundred Spaniards and eight hundred Indians had enlisted, and so many gentlemen of noble birth had offered to go that the viceroy was much embarrassed in choosing officers, for of course he must take the noblest gentlemen, and there were too many!

A fine sight they were—those cavaliers of Spain—in their glittering armor, mounted on prancing horses, their lances gleaming in the sunlight and their banners flying. Out of Compostela they marched in the gayest spirits, thinking of the loads of gold and jewels they would bring back with them.

But it was very different when they reached the desert and the mountains. They did not know how to bear the fatigue of such a journey, nor how to care for their horses and cattle and sheep. The animals died in large numbers, and the courage of the soldiers weakened rapidly as they grew weary.

The soldiers had come with the thought of conquest, so they did not treat the Indians they met so kindly as Fray Marcos had done, and of course the Indians did not like them very well, and in a little while there began to be trouble.

At last they came to a narrow pass in the mountains.

“I am afraid the Indians will try to keep us from passing,” said Coronado to the Master of the Field. “Go you with a company of soldiers and guard that pass until all the army come up. Then we will go through.”

The Master of the Field took his company and stood guard at the pass. But that night, while all but the sentries were asleep, the Indians crept down upon them and the sleeping camp was roused by a shower of stones and arrows and the wild yells of the Indians.

Now the men had lain down with their guns beside them; so they were ready, and they sprang up and began fighting bravely. For a while the battle raged hotly, the Spaniards firing their guns and the Indians replying with stones and arrows. But when the Indians saw some of their number falling dead, they were frightened and fled away in the darkness, and the Spaniards held the pass.

After that the Spaniards had little peace, but nevertheless Coronado managed to keep up their courage. On they went, up through that country we now call Arizona, over almost the same road that Fray Marcos had traveled. They paused where is now the city of Tucson, and then marching northeastward, crossed the Gila River and moved on toward Cibola. At last, where today stands the town of Zuñi, they reached the first city of the kingdom whose fame had so long filled with golden dreams the minds of the Spaniards. But instead of the great, fine, glittering city they had expected they saw only a village of a few hundred houses.

The hearts of the Spaniards sank as they gazed upon it. Coronado called three of his men and said to them, “Go into the city and say to the people that we are not enemies, but have come in the name of the Emperor, our lord, to defend them and to join with them in friendship.”

The messengers went into the city and delivered Coronado’s message, but the people of Cibola received it with scorn.

“We did not ask you to come,” they replied, “and your lord had no right to send you. This is our land and we can defend it. Go back to your lord and to your own land, for if you stay here you shall not one of you live.”

The messengers turned to go back to Coronado, and even as they went the people of Cibola began firing arrows at them.

Coronado got his men quickly together and gave the command to attack. The people of Cibola were gathered upon the walls of their city and rained down arrows and stones upon the Spaniards as they came. The Spaniards were many of them so weary from their long journey that they had not strength enough left to pull a crossbow. Indeed, for a time it seemed they must be beaten, so fiercely did the Indians battle against them. The glittering armor of Coronado and the earnestness with which he cheered on his men, told the Indians that he was the leader of the Spaniards, and they tried particularly to kill him. Twice they felled him to the ground, and once he must surely have been killed had not a brave knight stood across his body and guarded him from the rain of stones until he recovered. He would not give up. Weak from the blows he had received, aching in every part, and with an arrow sticking in his foot, he led the last charge, shouting “Santiago!” as he rode.

“Santiago!” echoed his soldiers as they followed him straight into the town. The Indians fled as the Spaniards entered, and the battle was over.

The Spaniards almost wept with rage and despair as they looked about them. The houses, it is true, were made of stone and were large, as had been said, but there were no jeweled gates, no vessels of gold and silver, no fine city, no stores of wealth to carry back to Spain.

So great was Coronado’s despair that he fell ill almost unto death. He could not bear to give up. It seemed he must find those seven wonderful cities. As soon as he was able he sent out parties in all directions to see what could be found.

For almost two years they searched. Whenever an Indian told them a new tale, they started off at once to see if it were true. They heard of a great river to the westward, and Arellano, one of the brave officers, led a party at once in search of it. Across the dry, hot desert of Arizona they went, and never stopped until they came to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. Below them flowed the mighty river between walls hundreds of feet deep and so steep they could not descend to the water, though they were almost dying of thirst as they stood over it.

Scarcely had they got back before the army was again all excitement because an Indian had told a tale of a great city to the northeastward. Coronado himself led them in search of it. Up they went through New Mexico, traveling for days among herds of buffaloes that reached farther than they could see.

They went so far north as to enter that part of our country now called Kansas. They found in reward for their long journey only a few Indian villages.

At last, when more than two thirds of his men were dead, Coronado gave up and marched back to Mexico. And this was the last search for the Seven Cities that were not.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Story-Telling to Intensify Interest in Geography

In the study of geography the story means as much as in history. The child is keenly interested in what he is doing and in what those around him are doing, and when he discovers that people in China, in South America, in Australia, or in Russia are doing the very things he is attempting to do or sees done, that they are engaged in industrial occupation very much as his father or uncle or neighbor is engaged in it, that distant occupation loses its remote quality, and the country with which it is associated becomes real and near to him. In the larger sense geography is something that must be felt and imagined. It is an interpretation of foreign activities and the regions in which they take place, and because the story can interpret these activities, because it can make situations real and familiar instead of aloof, it is of inestimable value in teaching the subject. Here the myth and fairy tale can be used with excellent results, because through them the child sees something of the struggle of man in his effort to interpret the world and comes to have a broader sympathy for the ideals of people of other regions. Moreover, in many instances it tends to fix definite information concerning a certain locality and to invest distant regions with vivid interest, for to the boy who associates the Rhine or Danube or Himalayas with the tale of a hero or people who once lived and did brave deeds there, those rivers and mountains will be more than black specks on a map. If he hears of the two frogs in Japan who started out to see the world, he will not say that Kioto is somewhere in South America, because the spot has been fixed in his mind by a story. Because it is associated with something he has enjoyed, it stays there, and while the highest aim of the study of geography is not merely to stuff the mind with facts, but to broaden the horizon and bring the world within the child’s own dooryard, the acquisition of certain information tends to give him that broad outlook which makes all people seem creatures of his world and all activities a part of his own experience. Unfortunately, however, teachers sometimes lose sight of this fact, and the larger aim is made subservient to a memorizing of data.

Geography and history are so closely related that it is difficult to separate them, and in making one vivid we must draw constantly from the other. The field is limitless. In fact, there are so many stories to give the geography class that teachers sometimes say, “When are we to have time for formal recitations?”

Too much recitation and not enough story is responsible for the fact that boys and girls sometimes give startling information about the location of places. Shorten the recitation period, if necessary, but do not fail to give the stories that bring far-away places as near as one’s own dooryard, and let tests and examinations prove which method is better. We must possess before we can give, and the pupil who is assigned a number of pages and expected to recite about them often fails miserably, because interest, which must underlie the acquisition of knowledge, has not been aroused. We may tell him to study the course of the Rhine and locate the cities that dot its banks, and one will mean no more to him than the other. But if he hears the tale of the building of the king of German cathedrals and the legend of the architect’s compact with the Evil One, Cologne will have an individuality very different from that of Coblenz with its bridge of boats. If he listens to the tale of Maui fishing up New Zealand from the bottom of the ocean, of the demigod chieftain who was the discoverer of Hawaii and the patriarch of his people, there will pass before his eyes at the mention of places among the Pacific Islands pictures of a dark-skinned, sea-loving race with a history fully as fascinating as that of his own people.

If there is not time for him to recite it all, let him write about it. This will help to solve the composition problem, because the reason for much of the miserable written English work is due to the fact that the child has nothing to give. He is told to elaborate upon a subject that lies far from his interest, one of which he has little knowledge, with results that every English teacher knows. But if he has been interested in it by a story, he can give that story back in oral or written form, even though the construction be far from perfect.

Another value of using stories with a geographical or historical background is that they develop the child’s social instinct and give him something of a realization of the brotherhood of man. Through hearing and reading them he becomes broader and more tolerant. He sees that in every part of the world men have their standards and ideals, which, although they may be greatly at variance with his own, are entitled to respect because they represent deep convictions and desires. Instead of viewing the world through a keyhole, he sees it across unobstructed fields and comes to have a bigger human understanding. In the study of geography there is a finer opportunity than anywhere else in elementary education to divert the child’s feet from a narrow, provincial trail into the broad highway of cosmopolitanism.

As in the study of history, so in geography the story should radiate from local environment to other sections of the world, and every worker with girls and boys, whether mother, teacher, or librarian, should endeavor to give them some idea of the story of their own locality. The child should know something of the legends of the people who built their camp fires on the spots that are his public parks and gardens, and teachers especially should aid the earnest group of men and women that is patiently collecting and preserving our American folklore, by giving some of it to the children. It will not only heighten pride in their own locality, but it will broaden their understanding of other lands and races and their sympathy with the struggles of different peoples. This kind of work belongs to the field of history, but it so greatly increases interest in geography that the teacher should not miss the opportunity of using this material.

There are legends clustering about every section of our country that the people of that locality should know, and it is a matter of regret that the average man or woman has seldom heard of them. Europeans are inclined to say we are a people of no traditions. While the charge is untrue, and our land is rich in legendary lore, it is true that only a small percentage of Americans are familiar with it. One reason for this general ignorance is that much of it has been buried in scientific treatises, which are unavailable to the layman. But within the last few years a large amount has been put within reach of the story-teller. The unceasing work of the American Folklore Society has resulted in unearthing and preserving much that would otherwise have been lost and that is important enough to have a place in our schools. Nothing is more fascinating to the child than stories of his own region, and our young people ought to be privileged to share in that joy with boys and girls of the Old World.

There are peasant lads in France, Italy, and other European countries who can entertain by the hour with tales of their rivers and mountains—not those of some distant province, but the peaks that tower above their native village, the streams along which they trudge on their way to school. California, Washington, and Oregon children should be given legends of the Yosemite, of Lake Tahoe, of Mount Shasta, of the Columbia River, and of Mount Rainier. Boys and girls among Southern bayous should be taught the traditions of their region, of the Indians and Creoles who made history there when that section was a province of France; while along Northern lake and inland river are tales of forest folk, of pathfinder and black-robed message bringer, of knights of the Old World come to seek fortune in the New, that are a part of the heritage of every youth living there. Let us give them to our young people, that they may love their home spots, not just because they are beautiful and are theirs, but as the French child loves the Rhone or the Austrian the Danube, because of the stories that tend to make them enchanted ground.

In using the story in geography the teacher’s work does not end with telling the story. The places mentioned in it should be located on the map, that their exact position may be fixed in the mind of the child. Interest in the story will make this a pleasure rather than a task for the boy, just as it becomes a delight rather than a hardship for him to follow the route taken by his father or uncle when he goes on a journey, or to work out the itinerary of a trip he hopes to take himself. One small boy studied the geography of Virginia with keen interest after reading Lord Cornwallis’ Silver Buckles, and more than one man and woman attest to the fact that some book read and loved during their school days did more to fix the location of river, city, and mountain in their minds than hours of classroom recitation spent in bounding states and countries and tracing the courses of rivers.

The following legend of Niagara Falls is illustrative of one type of tale that will greatly add to the child’s interest in geography by investing certain localities with story associations. Much other material is given in the appended bibliography, and the wide-awake teacher will be able to glean much more from libraries and adapt it to her work.

THE GOD OF THE THUNDERING WATER

Retold from an Iroquois Legend

Before the white man sailed westward across the Atlantic, in fact, before Columbus was born or anybody even dreamed about a short route to the Indies, a little Indian girl lived on the shore of Niagara not so very far above the cataract. She was a happy little thing, and as she grew to maidenhood she became the fairest girl of her tribe, and her father, who was a mighty chieftain, promised her in marriage to the most powerful of his braves. This Indian was a swift runner, and around the council fire not another tongue was so nimble or eloquent as his, and never did his arrows fail to pierce the heart of the deer at which he aimed them. But that mattered little to the girl. He was not her ideal of a husband, and she could think of nothing more dreadful than becoming the mistress of his wigwam. Yet her father had spoken and she must obey, and with a sad heart she made ready for the wedding, weaving the handsomest of wampum belts and ornamenting her moccasins with gay beads and bits of woodpecker feather.

The wedding morning dawned, and the Indians began the games and merrymaking that always marked a marriage. The bridegroom and the young braves vied in races and wrestling matches, and the women too had a part in the festivities, singing and chanting weird songs as they tended the fire and roasted venison for the feast. Everybody was happy,—every one but the bride, who did not want to marry, and who sat in her wigwam looking sadly out upon the sport. Suddenly came the decision that she would not be the squaw of the man she detested.

Quickly, softly, she crept from the wigwam and hurried to the river bank. The others were so busy with their merrymaking that they did not see her go, and soon she came to where her canoe was moored to some bushes. She stepped into it, pushed it from shore, and began drifting down the stream. It was good to be there on the water, for, like all Indian girls, she loved to paddle, and in her joy of skimming along with the current she began to sing.

Suddenly a whoop went up from the village of her people. It was not the cry of those victorious in a game, it was a shout of anger, a cry of alarm, for they had seen her and believed she was trying to escape from the marriage every one knew was distasteful to her. The bridegroom started in pursuit, then another Indian and another, until every man in the village was rushing to the river and some had already begun the chase in canoes.

“They shall not take me back,” the girl murmured. “I will not go back to the village and become Kunawa’s squaw.”

With swift, powerful strokes she paddled down the stream. She forgot that the cataract was roaring below her, forgot that her canoe was going rapidly and surely toward the bright foam from which no boat could come back. She thought only that she was fleeing from a wedding, and not until she saw the rapids beneath her did she realize her fate. Then she began her death song, and those in pursuit heard it for a moment, loud, clear, and plaintive as the canoe cut into the cataract, then suddenly silenced as it shot down to the rapids. Some of the women wailed and joined in the funeral dirge, and some of the others cried out in fear to the Great Spirit.

“It is the last of Kunawa’s bride!” they exclaimed. “She is now on her way to the Spirit Land.”

But it was not the last of the girl. Far down in the mist of the cataract, Heno, the Thunder God, had seen her. He held forth his arms, and as the canoe dropped to the rapids, she went into them, and bearing her through the watery depths, he placed her in a cavern behind the fall where he had lived since the beginning of things, and where the girl would live with him henceforth.

Many years passed. She was no longer a young maiden, but a tall, sturdy woman, and Heno gave her to one of his sons to be his squaw. She lived there in happiness with him in the cavern under Niagara, and often she thought of her people and her native village above beside the river. Because she remembered and loved them, Heno was kind to them, and when pestilence came to the region he lifted her to the shore that she might tell them where to go to escape the disease.

Once a great monster, a snake all green and white, came trailing his body through the forest like a river between hills, and made straight for the village by Niagara to feed upon the people there. But through the Indian girl Heno had told them of the coming danger, and they fled before the monster so fast that when it reached the village it found only a place of deserted camps. The great creature hissed with wrath, but Heno saw it from the mists and struck it dead with a thunderbolt. The great mass rolled to the river, floated down the stream, and lodged so tight above the cataract that a fold in its body sent a great volume of water out of its course, forming the Horseshoe Fall. The flood centered there destroyed the home of Heno too, but the Thunder God arose with his children and the Indian girl, and ascending to the heavens, has lived there ever since, where he thunders in the cloud mists as he once did in those of the fall. His voice is so mighty that the echo of it is always sounding above Niagara, and although white men say it is nothing but the noise of falling water, the Indians know better. They know it is the song of the god of the Thundering Water.

Sources of Material to Use in History and Geography

The history and geography references have been combined because each of the books listed here is valuable in both lines of work. This plan also carries out the Play School idea, which is that there is no line of demarcation between the two subjects.

Baldwin, James: The Discovery of the Old Northwest.

Becquer, Gustavo Adolfo: Romantic Legends of Spain.

Brabourne, Lord (Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen): River Legends (London and England).

Converse, Harriet Clarke: Myths and Legends of New York State Iroquois.

Griffis, William Elliot: The Unmannerly Tiger and Other Tales (Korean).

Guerber, Helène A.: The Story of the English; Legends of the Rhine; Legends of Switzerland.

Hardy, Mary E.: Indian Legends from Geyser-land (Yellowstone).

Hearn, Lafcadio: Kwaidan (Japan).

Janvier, Thomas A.: Legends of the City of Mexico.

Johonnot, James: Ten Great Events in History.

Judson, Katharine B.: Myths of California and the Old Southwest; Myths and Legends of the Great Plains; Myths and Legends of Alaska; Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest.

Lang, Andrew: True Story Book.

McMurry, Charles A.: Pioneers of the Mississippi Valley.

Perry, F. M., and Beebe, Katherine: Four American Pioneers.

Pitman, Leila Webster: Stories of Old France.

Skinner, Charles M.: American Myths and Legends; Myths and Legends beyond Our Borders (Mexico and Peru).

Smith, Bertha H.: Yosemite Legends.

Warren, Henry Pitt (Ed.): Stories from English History.

Westervelt, H. D.: Legends of Old Honolulu.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Story-Telling to Intensify Interest in Nature Study

Nature study, as a formal subject in the elementary schools, is often uninteresting to the child, because many teachers think that there the bare truth should prevail, and present information concerning the sciences as a series of dry, emasculated facts. The result is indifference toward what might be a keen pleasure, and sometimes even distaste for it. But if the nature lesson is presented in a manner that brings vivid pictures to the mind of the child, if he is given some vision of what cannot be understood by mere description, it becomes a living reality, and not only fixes information that is the foundation for scientific study later, but enlarges the emotional life and quickens the imagination. It gives him a feeling of close contact with nature and makes him so responsive to its varied life, moods, and aspects, that he comes to love it.

Those who understand nature love it more than those who do not. The man who knows the elm, the beech, the hemlock, and various other forest brethren, finds a pleasure in the woods that is impossible to him to whom a tree is just a tree. The latter is like Peter Bell, of whom Wordsworth wrote:

He goes on his way thinking that trees are good for lumber, to produce shade and break the force of winds that might otherwise blight his crops, but he has little conception of how they affect human happiness and human life. When tired and nerve worn, he does not yearn for the peace of the redwoods, but for some artificial stimulus in a city distant from the one in which he has his cares. Why? Because he was not born with a love of nature that is as rare as genius, and was not fortunate enough to be led along the path on which it is acquired. That there are many men and women of this type is proved by the ruthless way in which our forests have been destroyed, by the abuse of privileges in public parks and gardens, by the way in which trees are slaughtered in city streets. It is certain that love of nature is not born with every one, and that what is the fortunate heritage of the few must be instilled into the many. This can be done, and it can be done through story-telling. The careless child, the unobservant child, to whom a flower is just a flower or a bird a bunch of feathers, can be led to open his eyes and see what he did not see before, while the one who has already found joy in the life of field and stream will respond with intense pleasure because a new and roseate light is flashed upon what is already familiar.

Children learn to love nature just as they learn to love a picture, a dog, or a swimming hole, through experience with it that gives joyous results. The country lad, whose Saturdays and vacation days are associated with cowslips, dragon flies, and quiet hours beside a trout stream casting a line for the elusive catch, is not likely to find schoolroom nature study a dull subject, because, through hours of enjoyment, he is equipped with an emotional and imaginative background that gives color to every fact presented. But he who has not had this opportunity, who knows as little of wild life as a cormorant knows of the Colorado crags, will not respond eagerly to a series of facts, because experience has not previously aroused his imagination concerning them, and he cannot comprehend their mystery and wonder. If these facts are presented through the medium of the story, if they depict the life of the open as vividly as some painting that meets the eye, they will give pleasure and furnish incentive for further investigation. They will not only awaken the uninformed child to a realization of the wonders and delights nature holds for him, but they will give the other, more fortunate child additional pleasure, just as a favorite fairy tale does when told again and again by one who loves it and can make its moods his own.

This does not mean that all information should be presented through the medium of the story. The story should be used only to give such information as is natural to the story form. But nature study can be wonderfully illuminated by the story, because many of the truths of science do lend themselves to plot, and where they have been put in parallel literary form, they are as replete with beauty and imagery as the fairy tale, and afford the fancy as free play as do the adventures of sprites and goblins. The marvel of the brown bulb or seed metamorphosing into the brilliant-hued blossom, of the homely caterpillar evolving into a bit of flying color, of the majestic movements of stars and planets through worlds remote but as exquisitely constructed as our own, fascinates the child and furnishes wide, untrammeled avenues along which his imagination may roam. There is almost no branch of science that is not rich in material for the story-teller. Dr. Carrel, the great French specialist, once said that some day an artist will arise who will weave the facts concerning the circulation of the blood into a tale as fascinating as any conte from the Arabian Nights.

It is not likely that physiology will ever be the nucleus of stories to give to children in the early years of school life, but Dr. Carrel’s words hold a valuable hint for the narrator, who should not fail to draw from truth as freely as he draws from myth and fable. An overdose of one kind of food, no matter how wholesome, disarranges the digestive apparatus, and an overdose of one kind of literature makes a one-sided man. There are some facts to show that a too free feeding on fairy tales has led to crooked thinking and susceptibility to superstition, and the story-teller should balance his work in improbable tales with those of fact that fire the imagination because of the marvels related in them.

This is not so difficult as it may seem, for many of the truths of science have been put into simple language by men who were poet enough to bring to children something of their mystery and beauty, and there is no dearth of books that can be used with gratifying results by workers among children as young as those of six to nine years. Part of the story of evolution is enjoyed in this period. The boy in the age of fancy is fascinated by listening to an account of early man’s struggle with nature, and tales of the tree dwellers, of cave and cliff dwellers, of the discovery of fire and the adventures of the first wanderers, mean as much to him as any fairy tale, because they have the very characteristic that makes the fairy tale delightful—an element of mystery that permits the fancy to roam unchecked.

Older children revel in the truths of science, if they are presented in story form. Take, for instance, David Starr Jordan’s “Story of a Stone.” Where is there a fairy tale more fascinating than this narrative of “a bit of petrified honeycomb,” plowed up by a Wisconsin husbandman as he made ready to sow his winter wheat? The style and language have the charm of Andersen, the plot is as well sustained as that of any Thuringian folk tale collected by Grimm, and it begins as fairy tales have begun since the beginning of time:

Once upon a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years that one grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and quartz and bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette harbor opened out toward Baffin’s Bay, and the northern ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name on the pictured rocks; when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the northern peninsula of Michigan, swept over Plymouth Rock, and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography, because there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the towns were seaports,—in fact, an immensely long time ago, there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of Wisconsin a little jellyfish.

Dr. Jordan has also woven into story form information concerning the animal life of sea and stream, of a mother and baby seal, in the delightful tale of “Matka and Kotik,” and there is not a boy or a girl in the heroic period who does not listen eagerly to the adventures of a salmon, “a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes which made almost half his length, and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow.” The account of the battle of the fish there under the ripples of the Cowlitz, the beginning of the eventful journey down the river, the merry conflict with the herring and the terrible one with the sea lions, swimming always and always, growing larger and more daring, and having in his watery realm as many adventures as bold Robin had in his greenwood, hold the children from the beginning to the end of the story. They sympathize as he struggles up the stream again, “growing poor and ragged and tired,” and through his life and adventures they come to have an interest in the world of fishes that they will not have without the tale. Such stories demonstrate the fact that information concerning the sciences can be put into fascinating story form, and every worker with young folk should endeavor to present some of it through this delightful medium.

The child will find such tales far more appealing than the so-called nature stories in which animals are over-personified and in which they meet man in situations that every intelligent boy or girl knows are impossible. A lad is not brought into harmony with nature by being given yarns that caricature nature, and many of the modern nature stories do this very thing. Children know that a wild bear does not walk into a little girl’s flower garden, and then politely say “I am sorry” and back out because the small mistress of the garden is kind and instead of throwing stones at him explains in elegant English that it is rude to go into another’s property unbidden. They know that animals and children do not converse together in the same language, and that bears do not have courses in ethics. The nature story that fascinates the child must be true to nature’s laws. He may listen to some of the sugary, impossible yarns written to point a moral, but they do not give him keen pleasure, and because they are ridiculous in his eyes, he draws no lesson from them. One of the aims of story-telling is to give ethical instruction, but there is a wealth of tales that reflect nature and life correctly that should be used for this purpose, and the facts of science should not be distorted in an attempt to emphasize a lesson.

Tales pervaded by over-sentimentalism will not stir deep response in children. This is why the nature story that is true to the facts of science is the one that interests the boy or girl. It is like the racial tale, full of conflict, of temporary defeat and final triumph. The young salmon grown old, struggling up Snake River to the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains, was sore of muscle and unsightly of skin, and his tail was frayed and torn, but the desire of his nature was fulfilled at last. He scooped out a nest and covered the eggs of his companion, and then, because the work of his life was done, was free to drift downstream. Such stories give insight into nature and engender a love of nature; and besides quickening the imagination and enriching the emotional life, they help to give stability to the child character, because through them he learns the workings of certain inexorable laws.

There is such a vast amount of material to use in teaching nature study, that the suggestions and bibliography given in this chapter can by no means be comprehensive. In the realm of geology there is the story of limestone, of slate, of quartz and granite, of rock salt and sandstone, and particularly interesting to the child is the story of coal. For him it abounds in color, and beautiful indeed are the pictures that he sees as he listens to this narrative of the carboniferous forests that grew in the beginning of time, of the lush, dank swamps of the Permian or Triassic or Miocene Period, and the strange animal life that peopled them. From astronomy and botany one may glean as much as from geology, while entomology, zoölogy, and ichthyology hold untold delights for the child.

A wonderful science story is that of the coral polyp, building from some submerged cliff or crag until a little island rises above the blue water. In my own childhood it meant as much as ever a fairy tale meant, and I can still feel the pleasure I experienced the first time I heard it. It is full of mystery and wonder, and a story of rare beauty for the child. I have used it often in story-telling, and it never fails to bring enthusiastic response; and very popular with the children is this song of the insect builders, of which I do not know the authorship, but which is one of the fragrant memories of my childhood:

Older children enjoy hearing about the different forms of coral, of the characteristics of that of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. They enjoy, too, hearing about the coral industry, of the fishing for it along the shores of Africa, of the departure of the seekers from Sicily, of the Feast of the Coral Fishers that is such a picturesque feature of the island life, of the polishing and carving and preparing the product for trade; they like the legend the southern Italians tell of how the first medallion in Sicily was made as an offering of gratitude by a fisher lad to the young Princess of Naples. From beginning to end the coral story is a narrative that charms the child, and it is but one of the forms of sea life, which holds rich opportunities for the narrator, while sea life is but one of the fields of science from which he can glean with splendid results. In fact, the possibilities for story work in the teaching of science are almost beyond imagining until one begins to survey the field and enumerate sources of material, and the story-teller will be restricted in it only by her ability to organize material and present it to the children in story form.

Sometimes writers, thinking they will make nature stories more enjoyable to boys and girls, people them with supernatural folk who are supposed to be responsible for the marvels that occur in them. It is a practice that scientists decry, and it is condemned by all who believe that a story fit to give to children must be worthy of the name of literature, and consequently, whether fact or fiction, must be true in spirit. The tale that portrays a fairy up in the sky keeping the planets in motion like so many checkers on a board, or one in which enchanted creatures bury their beads in the ground, causing them to send up roses and lilies and other beautiful blossoms, is not a nature story. It may be a charming fanciful tale, but it should not be given to teach the truths of science. Science stories, like Bible stories, need no sugar coating to make them attractive. When given as stories, and not as a string of facts, they are full of suspense, and accounts of actual happenings in star land, under the waves, or deep in the earth are as fascinating to the child as the fancied ones of nature’s forces were to primitive man in the forest, when he crept close to the tribal story-teller and in big-eyed, wondering awe sought to know the meaning of the great globule that gleamed in the sky by day and the numberless tiny ones that gleamed there by night. The primitive animal tale, which gives early man’s belief as to how certain creatures came by their characteristics, is very interesting to the child, and while in a broader sense it belongs to the field of geography, my own experience has been that if told in connection with animals or flowers studied, it is received with enthusiasm by boys and girls. But the child should understand that these narratives are primitive man’s conception, and that the science stories are the real “why” and “how” stories.

THE WONDERFUL BUILDERS

Out in the heart of the Pacific, far out where the blue waves roll their shining masses between Samoa and the Australian mainland, where the brown-skinned islanders and the white-winged sea birds seem always happy, a little animal floated around one day, floated from among the shoals of Tutuila toward the open sea. It was a tiny creature, and as curious as it was tiny, for it looked more like a spot of clear jelly than anything else, and its name was Polyp.

Quite lazily it floated about in the water, now under a stretch of seaweed, all purple and opalescent like ropes of wonderful colors, now through the clear, bright current past the gaping mouth of a shark. But the shark, although always on the watch for something to devour, did not get the little polyp, and soon it came to a submerged rock deep under the waves. This seemed a very good resting place, and there the polyp stayed.

Days passed, weeks lengthened into months, and still the polyp kept to its place on the under-sea rock. But it was not drowsing and sleeping like a lazy creature. It was busily at work, for the very minute it landed on the rock it decided to make a house.

Now you must not think that it could not work, because, although it did look like a drop of jelly and was small and curious, it was alive. It had arms, very, very tiny arms, finer than the finest silk thread in your mother’s workbasket, and so thin and delicate looking that nobody could see them. But those arms were stronger than they looked, and with them it held on to the rock tight and fast.

Then, what a queer house-making! The little, jellylike body began to swell. It raised itself up in the shape of a tube, and around the edge of the tube came a little rim. This rim was the beginning of the house of the polyp.

The waves rolled on. The sun beat down brightly and hotly as it always beats down in the South Sea country, and then came another change. A knot rose in the middle of the jelly, and out of that knot reached a mouth and feelers.

Now the work began in earnest. The polyp began to eat, to eat as greedily as a boy who has had not a bit for a whole day. It took in chalk and phosphorus from the sea food that came its way, yet it seemed never to get enough, and all the while the little feelers kept reaching out for more food and pouring it into the open mouth. As it ate, the chalk it took in piled around the little rim, which I told you was the beginning of the house, and although the polyp wanted much to hold some of that nice chalk food in its mouth long enough to get the full taste, it could not. The white substance went right down and piled up on the rim; so it is no wonder that the little creature was always hungry.

Well, it ate and it ate. The rim kept growing and growing, as of course it must with so much chalk piling up on it, and as the house grew higher and higher the polyp kept moving to the top. The part below was hard and white like stone, and still the polyp kept eating, eating, and building, building.

For a long time it kept on, until finally it died. Then one day another drop of living jelly floated that way, and finding the chalk house of the other polyp, stopped there and began building on top of it. The waves rolled on. The sun shone, and all the while the house went steadily higher. Other polyps too came and began building beside and above it, and as they died they left their hard, white homes behind them as the first polyp had done. Others and still others came, until, as many, many years passed, the chalk houses reached the top of the water and men called them an island.

The waves rolled by. Seaweed drifted that way and lodged itself on the chalk reefs. It decayed and turned to soil. Sometimes the water and sometimes the wind brought bits of plant and seed from some other older islands, until at last there were flowers and trees and birds singing in the branches.

Now the ships of the world sail by, going toward China or Australia or to the American shores far, far away, and sometimes they stop at the little island, and sometimes those on board rest there among the palms and think it so delightful a land that they wish they never had to go away, but might stay there always and always. Yet but for a wee, curious sea creature that island would not be, for it had its beginning in a tiny animal, more like a drop of jelly than anything else, that floated one day between Samoa and the Australian mainland, and made its house upon a bit of submerged rock.

Sources of Material for Science Stories

Beard, James Carter: Humor in Animals.

Bergen, Fanny Dickerson: Plant Work.

Burroughs, John: Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers.

Collins, Archie Frederick: The Book of Stars.

Comstock, John Henry: Insect Life.

Du Chaillu, Paul B.: The World of the Great Forest.

Fabre, Henri: Insect Adventures; The Life of a Fly; The Hunting Wasps; The Mason Bees; The Life of a Caterpillar.

Frye, Alexis Everett: Brooks and Brook Basins.

Grinnell, Joseph and Elizabeth: Birds of Song and Story.

Grinnell, Morton: Neighbors of Field, Wood, and Stream.

Groos, Karl: The Play of Animals.

Hawkes, Clarence: Shovelhorns: The Biography of a Moose.

Holder, Charles F.: Stories of Animal Life.

Ingersoll, Ernest: Wild Life of Orchard and Field.

Jordan, David Starr: Science Sketches.

Lea, John: The Romance of Bird Life.

Miles, Alfred H.: Animal Anecdotes.

Miller, Ellen R.: Butterfly and Moth Book.

Morley, Margaret W.: Butterflies and Bees.

Porter, Gene Stratton: Moths of the Limberlost.

Porter, Jermain G.: Stars in Song and Legend.

Roberts, Charles G. D.: Earth’s Enigmas; Haunters of the Silences; Kindred of the Wild; Kings in Exile.

Thompson, Jeanette May: Water Wonders Every Child Should Know.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Story-Telling in Domestic Science and Manual Training

People are likely to smile when a story-telling enthusiast suggests that his art will intensify the interest in manual training and domestic science, but a little investigation usually convinces them that this contention is not merely a wild theory. Cooking and sewing and wood, metal, and leather working each has an interesting story, and through understanding how these crafts originated and how they have developed with the progress of the race, he comes to have an appreciation of their true dignity and value. In a broad sense these tales belong to the field of history and geography, for domestic science and manual training have a background in history and present-day geography. But since the school gives them as separate subjects, a consideration of story materials touching them will be valuable to teachers of these subjects.

It is a far cry from the first roast meat of primitive man, discovered by accident to be more delectable than that untouched by heat, to the banquet of the twentieth-century gourmet, but they are chapters of the same tale, each intervening portion of which is interesting. There seems to be no relation between the grass skirt of the prehistoric belle and the creations of Worth or Paquin, but they are links in the same chain, beads strung upon the same thread, as are the rush mats of the cave woman and the rugs of Teheran. There are dozens of stories to give to girls that will increase their interest and delight in household crafts. Tales of the lace makers of Italy and Spain, of medieval tapestry weavers, of dower chests of European peasant maids, the contents of which pass from generation to generation, of royal costumers and court tailors, their problems, patience, and artistry, all tend to give a touch of romance to something many girls are inclined to hold in contempt. They enjoy hearing about cookery in foreign lands, of ways of serving meals that are very different from our own, and no one is more amused by Lamb’s “Dissertation on Roast Pig” than she who deals with problems of roasting and baking.

Domestic-science girls who are told something of the legends clustering around various foodstuffs enjoy the cooking class more than those who hear nothing but lectures on chemistry, dietetics, and comparative nutritive values, and they take more pleasure in preparing a meal because they know stories about the various dishes that comprise that meal.

This is no unproved theory, but one that has been tried successfully with a group of fourteen-year-old girls, who took keener delight in bread making after being told of the bakers of Nuremberg and who brewed coffee with more interest when they knew the tale of how Arabians discovered the use of coffee.

There are stories of wood, metal, and leather workers that should be given to every boy, not only because they throw new light upon what he is doing and add interest to it, but because they lead him to respect those who toil with their hands. Stories of medieval carving, of house building in different lands and ages, now of the brush hut of the Australian aborigine, now of the workmanship in the palace of a sultan or czar; of the poet craftsmen of Nuremberg, of the pottery making of the Aztecs, of the building of Venice upon piles hewn from Tyrolean forests, these and dozens of kindred subjects are rich in materials that will give children pleasure and knowledge. To the boy or girl who loves the work in manual training and domestic science they bring additional pleasure, while in the indifferent they awaken interest; and, moreover, the snobbish child who is inclined to think handcraft beneath his respect, will be led to see that the carpenter who strives to make each effort more worthy than the preceding one, or the housewife who puts the best of herself into the preparation of a meal, is in the same class with Phidias or Shakespeare in earnestness of purpose, even though not in results, and is as deserving of honor. The first step toward success with these branches is to dignify them in the eyes of children, and nothing accomplishes this as effectually and rapidly as the story. To know that the crafts were worthy of the best efforts of those of other times and lands is to make them feel they are worthy also of their best effort.

There is another reason why these stories should be told. In the midst of the agitation in favor of vocational training, the force of which is sweeping away and modifying some of the old educational standards, there is danger that in catering to the demand for the practical in schools we neglect that which conduces to dreams and ideals.

A man may advance beyond the ranks of a journeyman joiner and make a good living if he has no thought beyond the work of each day as it dawns, but without vision he cannot become the master builder, and romance is the corner stone upon which the temple of vision stands. The palaces of old Hellas were built to strains of music, for the beauty-loving Greeks knew that melody gave men lofty thoughts, and believed work performed to its accompaniment would be of higher order than that performed without it. Bands were hired to play as the toilers worked, and boys who were to become builders were inspired to emulate the efforts of great craftsmen by being told stories of their achievement. In our day we cannot expect the state to provide bands and symphony orchestras to inspire toilers, but during the days of their apprenticeship we can give them tales that will have a tendency to glorify their chosen craft. We can cause them to feel that only the best efforts of hand and brain are fit to go into this craft, because it is a monument to the memory of those who lived and died in its ranks, and that every worthy effort of each succeeding toiler helps to make that monument nobler and more enduring.