_The apperceptive basis of story telling consists in study on the part of the story teller to discover what is the store of ideas in the minds of the children who will listen to the story._
Has the story too many new ideas for the child to be able to classify them in terms of his old ideas? On the other hand, has it one or two new thoughts so carefully presented through association with already familiar concepts that the child will be able to make them his own and give them a permanent place in his mind with the old ones?
A child’s mind is an eery place for an adult to try and enter. Teachers, kindergartners and story tellers are a little prone to think that a knowledge of one child’s mental content gives them the power to know the mind of the child-at-large. Our psychologists have given us studies of child mind, not child minds. This mind hypothesis is, perhaps, sufficient for the general working out of systems of teaching, but success in the delicate art of story telling means a most critical study and observation of the minds of the special group of children who will hear the story. The story teller must ask herself these questions:
“Have they any experience other than that of the home on which to bank?”
“Do they come from homes of leisure or homes of industry?”
“Have they had a country or a city experience?”
“Have they passed from the stage of development when toys formed their play interest to the game stage in which chance and hazard interest them more deeply?”
“Are they American children, familiar with American institutions, or are they little aliens in our land, unfamiliar with and confused by our ways?”
When she has satisfactorily answered these questions, the story teller will select her story having for its theme, atmosphere and _motif_ an idea or group of ideas that will touch the child’s mental life as she has discovered it and by means of which it will find a permanent place in his mind through its comfortable friendliness and familiarity.
The child who has come directly from his home and the sheltering arms of his mother or nurse should not, at first, be taken far afield through the lands of fairies and giants. If he is told a fairy story, it should have for its content the sweet, homely qualities that characterize the home. I am using as a good example of the apperceptive story, “The Cap that Mother Made.” The child listeners are carried, it is true, to the palace of a King and are formally introduced to a Princess, but this is brought about through the familiar symbols of the home: _mother_, _brothers_, the _farmer_, and the queer little _cap_ with its red and green stripes and blue tassel. Although Anders, the story hero, spends a happy hour at the Princess’ ball, he finally finds his way home again, and the story has an apperceptive appeal which is unusual. It is full of precious, familiar concepts that establish an association in the child’s mind between fairyland and home. After hearing the story, he will be very apt always to remember a palace as a very charming place to visit, but not to stay in, when one may go home to mother.