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Story Telling--A Public Library Method
The National Child Conference for Research and Welfare was organized at a meeting held at Clark University, Worcester, Mass., in July 1909. Several papers on library topics were presented at this meeting, one of the most interesting of which was given by Miss Olcott. In this paper she presents the story hour as a method of introducing "large groups of children simultaneously to great literature," and asserts, "the library story hour becomes, if properly utilized, an educational force as well as a literary guide."
The library movement has grown with such startling rapidity that it has not been possible to codify the best methods of library work, but there has been an earnest endeavor to establish a body of library pedagogy by careful experimentation. Unfortunately during this experimental stage methods have been introduced which do not produce direct library results. Many of these methods, which in this paper it is not expedient to enumerate, are interesting and appeal to the imagination; they may impart knowledge, but they are not, strictly speaking, library methods.
The library worker has to deal with large crowds of children of all ages, all classes and nationalities. In a busy children's room she is rarely able to provide enough assistants to do the necessary routine work and help each individual child select his reading, therefore it becomes necessary for her to direct the children's reading through large groups and to adapt for this purpose methods used by other educational institutions. Then the story telling method was made, one of the most effective, if rightly applied, which the public library uses to introduce large groups of children simultaneously to great literature. On the other hand, if the library worker uses story telling merely as a means of inculcating knowledge or teaching ethics, the story fails to produce public library results and the method becomes the weakest of methods, as it absorbs time, physical energy, and library funds which should be expended to increase good reading.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh began systematic story telling to large groups of children in 1899. After a few months a decided change was noted in the children's reading. The stories were selected from Shakespeare's plays and there came an increasing demand for books containing the plays, or stories from them. It became evident that if a story was carefully prepared with the intention of arousing interest in reading, it could prove a positive factor in directing the reading of large groups of children. The method was adopted throughout the library system and extended to the various children’s reading rooms, home libraries, playgrounds and city schools. In order to make the story telling effective and systematic, a subject was chosen for each year, stories being told every Friday afternoon in the lecture rooms of the Central and Branch libraries and at varying intervals in the other agencies. Large numbers of duplicates of children's books containing the stories were purchased and placed on story hour shelves in the children's rooms. Announcements of the story hours were made in the public schools and notices posted on the bulletins in the children's reading rooms. The children responded so eagerly that it became almost impossible to handle the large crowds attending weekly and it was quite impossible to supply the demand for the books, which, previous to the story hour, had not been popular.
The story hour courses are planned to extend over eight years and are selected from romantic and imaginative literature. For the first two years nursery tales, legends, fables and standard stories are told. For the following years--Stories from Greek Mythology; Stories from Norse Mythology and the Nibelungenlied; Stories of King Arthur and the Round Table, and legends of Charlemagne; Stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey; Stories from Chaucer and Spenser; Stories from Shakespeare. At the end of the eight years the cycle is repeated.
The storyteller carefully prepares each story beforehand. In the Training School for Children's Librarians conducted by this Library, all the students are obliged to take the regular course in story telling which includes lectures and weekly practice. Informality in story telling is encouraged. Dramatic or elocutionary expression is avoided, the self-conscious, the elaborate and the artificial are eliminated; we try to follow as closely as possible the spontaneous folk spirit. The children sit breathless, lost in visions created by a sympathetic and un- self-conscious storyteller.