MODERN pedagogy is practically agreed upon the value of oral story-telling in the primary grades. While the child is gaining a mastery of words through the sentence-phonic method, he should also be given the opportunity to lay the foundations for real reading later on. By making a child interested in stories, he comes to know that "learning to read" means the ability "to get stories out of books."

When the child feels that he wants to read, the battle is half won, and the introduction to the real treasures of the past which may be given him through oral story-telling will bear fruit in his selection of books which are part of the world's rich heritage of culture, when the time comes for him to select his own reading.

''We now have good reason to believe,'' says Dr. Charles [McMurry], "that there is no period when the educative and refining influence of good literature in the form of poems and stories can be made so effective as in this early period from four to ten years."

Everyone who knows children feels the difference in the eagerness of the little ones when the story is told, instead of read or even recited. The great difference is that the story-teller is free, free to watch his audience, to stand or sit, to use his body, eyes, voice, as aids in expression. The story is more spontaneous and the connection with the listeners is more electric, than when the book or its wording intervenes. Beyond this, is the added charm of the personal element in story-telling. Now the child gets the story plus your appreciation of it. It is the filter of personality. The longing for the personal is very human, and it is especially strong in little children.

It is incomparably easier to make the necessary exertion of "magnetism" when nothing else distracts the attention.

Then too, story-telling is a very old and very beautiful art. It recalls those stories of which Homer's Iliad was compounded: the transmitters of the legend and history which make up the "Gesta Romanorum," the granaries of age-long tradition, whose stories are parts of Celtic folklore, of Germanic myth, of Asiatic wonder-tales. Storytelling was once the chief entertainment of kings and warriors, serfs and children, and at no time has the art died out in the simple human realms of which mothers are queens.

The reasons or purposes of story-telling, from the teacher's standpoint, are summed up by Sara Cone Bryant as follows: Its part in the economy of life is, primarily, to give joy. True, you can teach a child interesting facts about bees and butterflies by telling him certain stories, and you can open his eyes to colors and processes in nature by telling certain others; but unless you do something more than that, and before that, you are as one who would use the Venus of Melos for a demonstration in anatomy. To give joy, and in and through the joy to stir and feed the life of the spirit: is not this the legitimate function of the story in education?

The teacher who has given this joy to her pupils has inevitably added something to the vital powers of their souls. She has given a wholesome exercise to the emotional muscles of the spirit, has opened up new windows to the imagination, and added some line or color to the ideal of life and art which always takes form in the child's heart.

A story well told invariably furnishes a relaxation of the tense, schoolroom atmosphere valuable for its refreshing, recreative power.

Another result which is even more desirable is this: Story-telling is at once one of the simplest and quickest ways of establishing a happy relation between teacher and children, and one of the most effective methods of forming the habit of fixed attention in the latter.

Accepting the judgment of leading educators that skill in oral presentation of a story is a prime requisite in early education, the important question for teachers is how to cultivate their resources in this phase of teaching. The most helpful suggestions by which this art may be acquired come from Dr. Charles [McMurry] who gives the following requirements as the basis of skill in oral work:

1. The good story-teller must have a rich experience in all the essential realities of human life. He needs contact with life, and with the occupations and joys and sorrows of men of every class; he needs to know good novels, typical life scenes, sunsets, inventions, poets, farmers - all such common, tangible things.
2. Close acquaintance with children, their varied tastes and whims, conceits and interests, vacations and outings - all these and other realities of child life, which will put the teacher on a footing of possible appreciation and sympathy with children. He must be master of the story he is to tell. After acquiring the facts, get at the heart of the story, the motive of the author; be resourceful in illustrative device and explanation. The preparation must be detailed, comprehensive, many-sided, and adapted to the fluttering thoughts of childhood.
3. Use simple, direct words, clearly defined in thought, and grounded upon common experience and conviction.
4. Power of narrative and description, together with various forms of graphic illustration and dramatic action are necessary.
5. Clear and simple outline of leading topics.
6. Acquired power in the use of development lessons, including question, problem, discussion, aims and the training of children to self-activity and thoughtfulness.
7. The successful oral reproduction of stories by the children.
8. Tact in the handling of large classes with children of differing temperament and capacity, and the encouragment of timid children.
9. Changing character of oral work in advancing grades.
10. The need of insight and ability to supervise constructive activities.

Teachers need, first of all, to cultivate resourcefulness in the use of their own knowledge and experience, and add to both as rapidly as circumstances permit. - Louise M. Wade Barnes.