Educating by Story-telling

Edited by Clark W. Hetherington

EDUCATING BY
STORY-TELLING

SHOWING THE

ALUE OF STORY-TELLING AS AN EDUCATIONAL
TOOL FOR THE USE OF ALL WORKERS
WITH CHILDREN

Katherine Dunlap Cather

Author of "Boyhood Stories of Famous Men,"
"Pan and His Pipes and Other Stories,"
"The Singing Clock"

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
1918

LB1042

WORLD BOOK COMPANY

THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE

Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson
YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK
2126 PRAIRIE AVENUE, CHICAGO

The Play School Series, of which Educat-
ing by Story-Telling is a member, is based
on the work of the Demonstration Play
School of the University of California.
Breaking away from the traditional idea
of the subjects of study, this school has
substituted a curriculum of activities
the natural activities of child life out of
which subjects of study naturally evolve.
Succeeding volumes now in active prepa-
ration will relate to the other activities
which form the educational basis for the
work of the Play School, including Social,
Linguistic, Moral, Big-Muscle, Rhythmic
and Musical, Environmental and Nature,
and Economic Activities. Each volume
will be written by a recognized authority
in the subject dealt with, as the author of
Educating by Story-Telling is in her special
field

PSS: CES-I

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

HIS book has grown out of years of experience with children of all ages and all classes, and with parents, teachers, librarians, and Sunday School, social center, and settlement workers. The material comprising it was first used in something like its present form in the University of California Summer Session, 1914, and since then has been the basis of courses given in that institution, as well as in private classes and lecture work. The author does not claim that it is the final word upon the subject of story-telling, or that it will render obsolete any one of the several excellent works already upon the market. But the response of children to the stories given and suggested, and the eagerness with which the principles herein advocated have been received by parents and teachers, have convinced her that the book contains certain features that are unique and valuable to those engaged in directing child thought.

Other works have shown in a general way how vast a field is the realm of the narrator, but they have not worked out a detailed plan that the busy mother or teacher can follow in her effort to establish standards, to lead her small charges to an appreciation of the beautiful in literature and art, and to endow them with knowledge that shall result in creating a higher code of thought and action. No claim is made that all the problems of the school and home are solved in the ensuing pages, and the title, "Educating by Story-Telling," makes no assumption that storytelling can accomplish everything. The author does

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assume, however, that when used with wisdom and
skill, the story is a powerful tool in the hands of the
educator, and she attempts to indicate how, by this
means, some portion of drudgery may be eliminated
from the schoolroom, and a more pleasurable element
be put into it. She undertakes to demonstrate how
it is possible to intensify the child's interest in most
of the subjects composing the curriculum, not by
advancing an untried theory, but by traveling along a
path that has been found to be a certain road to attain-
ment, not only for the gifted creative teacher, but for
the average ordinary one who is often baffled by the
bigness of the problem she has to solve.