Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/267

 philologists, physiologists, psychologists, and, not least, folk-lorists, with whose relation to educationists I now proceed to deal.

I.—Folk-lorists will readily understand that one of the principal means of imparting instruction to young children is stories and games, and that, therefore, Prof. Stanley Hall, who has taken the lead in America in inquiries into the psychology of children, is now making preparation for "an extensive and systematic collection of children's stories, based on their preferences, by a method not yet clear to me, but which should give their preference free scope:

"A collection of their games as actually played, from actual study, including the formulas (often in rhyme) of the Mother Goose order:

"A good graded collection of proverbs, in rhythm or otherwise, and also of maxims, as one element of moral training."

It will be seen at once that folk-lorists can give great help to educationists in this work, because the collections asked for are just those which the Folk-Lore Society is now making. The tabulation of folk-tales will, when it has approached some degree of completion, afford precisely what Prof. Hall wants. The tales which appear in the great collections of folk-lore are tales, as I take it, that have survived from age to age because they have delighted generation after generation, not only of men and women, but of children. Thus the frequency, the approach to universality, of a folk-tale, shows very fairly the extent to which it has met with general approbation; and when we find the same outline and the same plot repeated with endless variations we may fairly conclude that that plot will please again if the details are once more changed. And not only will the folk-tale classification give us a very good indication of the kind of tale that pleases most, and a series of model plots which we can adapt to our own uses, it will also give us valuable hints in the construction of our stones. Nothing is more remarkable in folk-tales than the dramatic skill with which the materials are handled. Nothing is lacking; nothing is superfluous. Each incident arises in its proper place, the plot develops itself without dragging, and yet without hurrying, up to the denouement. No art is more necessary to the story-teller than