VANISHING HOME-INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1521, 17 August 1912, Page 9

VANISHING HOME-INDUSTRY

• The. art of telling bedtime stories is visibly on tho decline. It is being destroyed by the same factory methods that have driven, the spinning wheel out of existence and threaten the integrity of the home-baked loaf of bread. There ; seems to bo no end to the "Readings for Children" which tho publishers are turning out. Nowadays ono niay rend Anything to infants. The Bible, Shakespeare, the mythology of the Greeks and tho Norsemen, the librettos of Wagner, tho leading principles of Marxian Socialism, may bo had in words of one syllable. Specialisation has invaded tho nursery. The tired business man, having been relieved of tho necessity of mental effort in the theatre and 'in so much of the contemporary literature, is now being freed from the mental strain of talking the children to sleep. From the children'.'; point of view, it is probably all for tho best. The machine-mado story, prepared under expert supervision and in accordance with tho latest pedagogical principles, is easily superior to tho old hotne-jnade article. In the long run the process may even woi*k toward the encouragement and preservation of filial respect. Our young may no longer bo driven to conceal their contqmpt for the amateurish efforts of their parents. But if the children, ns a class, profit by tho substitution of modern, scientific, sanitary methods for the old happy-go-lucky methods of.small production, their ciders are not so well oft'.. The natives of India and Zanzibar may rejoice in tho products of Manchester and Birming;bani, but the wido dissemination of

cotton goods has been attained nt tho heavy cost of transforming the British working innn. from an artisan into a. machine. Those attractive little "Headings for Children" may mako life easier for parents, but can th'o timo and energy saved atone for the loss of valuablo mental and spiritual exercise? Hero was a field in which every father and mother was privileged to experience tho highest pleasures known to man, the ioyof creative effort in tho realm of art. To play Homer to an audience of unspoiled souls; to play Aristophanes, Dante, Shakespeare, Dumas, and Jules Verne—what greater opportunity could the ordinary man and woman ask for escaping from tho world of ordinary duties and interests into tho world of pure imagination? The loss will bo felt, as we have said, not by the groat infant public, but by tho adult artist. And it is a loss of actual enjoyment as well as of spiritual profit. Thero is less unselfishness in the business of amusing children than we imagine. When Gladstone crawled about the floor, a fiery charger, with his grandchildren on his back, the steed was probably quite as happy 'as his riders. Lot 'it be confessed; in its highest form the art of story-telling is a difficult one to master. It calls for imagination, but the imagination has to work under severe restrictions. To tho great artist this onlv adds to tho joy of the. work, of course'; but to those of humbler range, convention is a serious handicap. And our infant audiences are mercilessly conventional. They insist that "a story shall ba told for the fiftieth time as it was told for the first time. For-every child Who will bo bored by the slaying of the familiar dragon in exactly the same number of sword-strokes, a dozen children will protest vehemently-if tho dragon is chopped up in forty pieces, instead .of the thirty-five pieces he was chopped up in last night. It is exactly as it was with the. audiences for whom Sophocles and Euripides wrote. They knew tho story by heart. There was no concrete surprise in store for them. .They were interested in obtaining new emotional com-binations-out of the old material. Howto be exact and yet be interesting! how to make familiar things fresh, how not to disappoint the giggle of delight that is waiting for [ the old man'with a crooked leg to fall downstairs before it breaks out, how .to work up with proper effect toward the little thrill of horror that shakes.the little body when -the giant's clnb just misses the head of. tho giant-slayer—it is an art which calls for effort and devotion, but which carries with it its own rewards. So we repeat. Tour parents of the future, provided with' "Headings for the Very Young," may have an easier time of it -when it comes to the children's hour of entertainment. But it will be at the cost of their own soul's entertainment. It will be the substitution'of the phonograph for the living voice of Caruso or tho living touch of Pndcrewski's fingers.—. '"New York Post."