Page:A Study of Fairy Tales.djvu/161

Rh child much pleasure and will give him a chance to do something with it coöperatively. He can reproduce the setting of this tale upon a table in a schoolroom. Each child could decide what is needed to represent the story and offer what he can. One child could make the yard outside the castle of green blotting-paper. Another child could furnish a mirror for the lake, another two toy green trees, one two wax swans, one a box of tin soldiers, another a jack-in-the-box, while the girls might dress a paper doll for a tinsel maid. The teacher, instructed by the class, might make a castle of heavy gray cardboard, fastening it together with heavy brass paper-fasteners and cutting out the door, windows, and tower. It is natural for children to handle playthings; and when a story like this is furnished the teacher should not be too work-a-day to enter into its play-spirit. After the representation objectively, the re-telling of the tale might be enjoyed. The child who likes to draw might tell this story also in a number of little sketches: The Jack-in-the-box, The Window, The Boat, The Rat, The Fish, and The Fire. Or a very simple little dramatic dance and song might be invented, characterized by a single mood and a single form of motion, something like this, sung to the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush, etc":—