Page:A Study of Fairy Tales.djvu/153

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THE TELLING OF FAIRY TALES
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doing of the Bird. After the Story of Medio Pollito all the child's efforts of making Little Half-Chick into a weathervane and of fixing the directions to his upright shaft, will be expressions of the search for the unknown, of the instinct of experiment. After the story of The Little Elves, the dance of the Elves to the accompaniment of music will represent an expression of the artistic instinct; but it also represents expression of the instinct for the new and the untried. After the dance is finished the child has seen himself do something he had not done before. This union of the instinct of inquiry with that of artistic expression shows itself most completely in the entire dramatization of a fairy tale.

(3) The instinct of construction. In his industrial work the very youngest child is daily exercising his active tendency to make things. In the kindergarten he may make the toy with which he plays, the doll-house and its furnishings, small clay dishes, etc. In the first grade he may make small toy animals, baskets, paper hats, card-board doll-furniture, little houses, book-covers, toys, etc. Self-expression, self-activity, and constructive activity would all be utilized, and the work would have more meaning to the child, if it expressed some idea, if after the story of Three Bears the child would make the Bears' kitchen, the table of wood, and the three porridge bowls of clay, or the Bears' hall with the three chairs. In the Grimm tale, Sweet Rice Porridge, after the story has been told and before the