The story, on these counts, must rank high
among the recreational arts. It gives us
common and racial moods; and almost more
than anything else, it is capable of carrying
us, in these relaxed moods, into the lives of
others. Both these attitudes or moods must
be maintained throughout all the plastic
years of childhood. The child must be kept
in touch with the common life ; and his ex-
perience must be broadened at every point,
while he is made to enter sympathetically
into all manner of life situations.
If the functions of the story are so varied
as this : if it not only arouses deep strata of



EDUCATIONAL STORY-TELLING 81

the child's nature, but plays upon all the de-
sires and all the functions which it is the
business of the school to educate, and also
performs a part in the no less important
recreational life, we can no longer regard it
as merely an accessory method of teaching —
as a means of resting the mind, or of giving
pleasure — ^but we must give it a high place in
the methods of the school and make story-
telling an important part of the work of the
teacher.
The story can be made to perform all these
functions, besides widening the child's men-
tal vision, stimulating the imagination, in-
creasing the vocabulary, and imparting
information. It is one of the best means of
awakening an interest in good literature, and
in other departments of culture. Presently
we shall see how, in detail, the story may be
applied to each of the major departments of
the curriculum; to the teaching of history,
literature, nature, morality and religion.
