Children's Literature: A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training ClassesCurry, Charles Madison
General
Children's Literature: A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes
Curry, Charles Madison
Children -- Books and reading; Children's literature -- Study and teaching
The fact that literature for children is likely to have a strong
interest for adults is strikingly suggested in a few sentences in John
Macy's _A Child's Guide to Reading_:
When "juveniles" are really good, parents read
them after children have gone to bed. I do not
know whether _Tom Brown at Rugby_ is catalogued
by the careful librarian as a book for boys,
but I am sure it is a book for men. I dare say
that a good many pairs of eyes that have passed
over the pages of Mr. John T. Trowbridge and
Elijah Kellogg and Louisa M. Alcott have been
old enough to wear spectacles. And if Mrs. Kate
Douglas Wiggin ever thought that in _Timothy's
Quest_ and _Rebecca_ she was writing books
especially for the young, adult readers have
long since claimed her for their own. I have
enjoyed Mr. A. S. Pier's tales of the boys at
St. Timothy's, though he planned them for
younger readers. We are told on good authority
that _St. Nicholas_ and _The Youth's Companion_
appear in households where there are no
children, and they give a considerable portion
of their space to serial stories written for
young people. Between good "juveniles" and good
books for grown persons there is not much
essential difference.
2. LITERATURE IN THE GRADES
_Reading and literature distinguished._ A country school-teacher once
abruptly stopped the routine of daily work and, standing beside her
desk, told the story of the maid who counted her chickens before they
were hatched. One of her pupils, who is now a man, remembers vividly how
the incident impressed him. Although he was in the second grade, that
was the first time he had known a teacher to stop regular school work to
tell a story. Immediately the teacher was transformed. She had been
merely a teacher, one of those respected, awe-inspiring creatures whose
business it is to make the school mill go; but the magic of her story
established the relation of friendship between teacher and pupil. She
was no longer merely a teacher. If the story had been read as a part of
the reading lesson, it would not have impressed the pupil greatly. It
was impressive because it was presented as literature.
A clear distinction should be made between reading and literature,
especially in the primary grades. In the work of the reading course the
pupil should take the lead, being guided by the teacher. If the pupil is
to progress, he must master the mechanics of reading--he must learn to
pronounce printed words and to get the meaning of printed sentences and
paragraphs. The course in reading requires patient work on the part of
the pupil, just as the course in arithmetic does, and the chief pleasure
that the primary pupil can derive from the work is a consciousness of
enlarged power and of success in accomplishing what is undertaken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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