As one of the chief values of the exercise is the familiarity with
good English which it gives, I need not say that especial attention
must be paid to the phraseology in which the story is clothed. Many
persons who never write ungrammatically are inaccurate in speech, and
the very familiarity and ease of manner which the story-teller must
assume may lead her into colloquialisms and careless expressions. Of
course, however, the language must be simple; the words, for the most
part, Saxon. No ponderous, Johnsonian expressions should drag their
slow length through the recital, entangling in their folds the
comprehension of the child; nor, on the other hand, need we confine
ourselves to monosyllables, adopting the bald style of Primers and
First Readers. It is quite possible to talk simply and yet with grace
and feeling, and we may be sure that children invariably appreciate
poetry of expression.
The story should always be accompanied with gestures,--simple, free,
unstudied motions, descriptive, perhaps, of the sweep of the mother
bird's wings as she soars away from the nest, or the waving of the
fir-tree's branches as he sings to himself in the sunshine.
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