The telling of the tale.  With this preparation, directions seem futile.  The tale should tell itself naturally.  You must begin at the beginning, as your tale will if you have selected a good one.  You must tell it simply, as your tale will have simplicity if it is a good one, and your telling must be in harmony with the tale you tell.  You will tell it with joy; of course, if there is joy in it, or beauty, which is a “joy forever,” or if you are giving joy to your listeners.  Tell it, if possible, with a sense of bestowing a blessing, and a delicate perception of the reception it meets in the group before you, and the pleasure and interest it arouses in them, so that in the telling there is that human setting which is a quickening of the spirit and a union of ideas, which is something quite new and different from the story, yet born of the story.

The re-creative method of story-telling.  This preparation for telling here described will result in a fundamental imitation of the author of the story.  By participating in the life of the story; by realizing it as folklore; by realizing it as literature—­its emotion, its imagination, its basis of truth, its message, its form; by paying conscious attention to the large units of the structure, the exact sequence of the plot, the characters, and the setting, the particular details of description, and the unique word—­the story-teller reproduces the author’s mode of thinking.  She does with her mind what she wishes the child to do with his.  With the very little child in the kindergarten and early first grade, who analyzes but slightly, this results consciously in a clear notion of the story, which shows itself in the child’s free re-telling of the story as a whole.  He may want to tell the story or he may not.  Usually he enjoys re-telling it after some lapse of time; perhaps he tells it to himself, meanwhile.  With the older child, who analyzes more definitely, this results in a retelling which actually reproduces the teller’s mode of thinking.  If persisted in, it gives to one’s mode of thinking, the story-mode, just as nature study gives to life the nature point of view.  This mode of thinking is the mode of re-creation, of realization.  It re-experiences the life, it reaches the processes of the mind, and develops free mind movement.  It is a habit of thinking, and is at the basis of reading, which is thinking through symbols; at the basis of the memorization of poetry, which must first see the pictures the poet has portrayed; it is the best help toward the adult study of literature, and the narration of history and geography.  It is the power to conceive a situation, which is most useful in science, mathematics, and the reasoning of logic.  “For,” says Professor John Dewey, “the mind which can make independent judgments, look at facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with simplicity, is the perennial power in the world.”

This re-creative method of fundamental imitation was illustrated in the telling of Andersen’s Princess and the Pea, in a student-teacher’s class: