In
preparing the verses for this book of songs, the author has kept particularly
in mind children rather younger than those for whom most song books
are prepared, although some songs are included which are beyond the
nursery child except as he would join with older children in singing
them; and a few are supplied which are intended for his mother to
sing to him.
The
verses are concerned with many subjects, for the little child’s interest
and imagination are ready to range earth-wide and heaven-high. In
the main the subjects are those which might present themselves to
him in the course of his long happy day, - home love and care, budding
childish ideals, weather mysteries, play indoors and out with plants
and animals and with child companions.
any
facts and activities which wear a prosaic aspect to our vision (dulled
as it is by familiarity) show themselves to the little child as the
marvels that they really are. “In this the same sun that shines over
Carbrook?” asked a four-year-old, when away from his native village.
“Sometimes the big waves come softly and say ‘Hush!’ to the little
waves,” remarked a child who spent his summers by the sea.
“I
saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid,”
said
the child-hearted man Stevenson, as many an ordinary child has said
and will say as long as the wind blows. Bird and beast, garden flower
and shell from the sea, all are wonders that thrill the little child
who is just discovering them as if they were newly created for him.
He should not only see them, play with them, and learn about them,
but should also sing of them. The song fixes them in his thought and
expresses the feelings for which he, unaided, would have no fitting
expression.
Specific
account has not been taken of the city environment; for even in the
city the child comes in contact with the great universal facts and
things, and with elements or examples by which he can reach out toward
those far removed. He has family and home; the wind blows through
city streets; the sun shines, and rain and snow fall. The park interprets
the country; city lights, the lighthouse; doves and sparrows, the
feathered kingdom. Horses, dogs and the ubiquitous pussy-cat bring
other four-footed creatures more or less into cognizance. All these
known things are to the child’s constructive imagination like clay
figures with which it busies itself, stretching out here and pinching
in there, as it were, and adding this and that characteristic (learned
from picture or story) to create the new and unknown thing. What though
the resultant mental image is but a roughly shaped figure? It is all
ready for corrections and finishing touches, and these will be the
more quickly made because the mind is alertly eager to compare its
own creation with reality and to modify it accordingly.
What
the character of the words, the language of a young child’s song should
be, is quite clear in the minds of many persons who try to initiate
little children into the joyous world of song. The comparatively small
supply of exactly such songs as are desired is owing to the difficulties
encountered by the verse writers in keeping within the restrictions
imposed by the capacity of the young child and at the same time making
the song a song, with some degree of spontaneity and grace. Familiar
words and a direct mode of expression must predominate if the thought
is to be intelligible to the child singer. Yet the language must be
somewhat above childish vernacular or badly prosaic statement, and
may well include some unfamiliar words; for the child needs to extend
his vocabulary and otherwise improve his language. The song-rhyme
or poem which he learns by heart and repeats often is one of the surest
and pleasantest means to this end.
The
games included under “Playtime” are not distinctively kindergarten
games but are nevertheless of a useful kind for the kindergarten as
well as for the home. Such simple movement plays and dances may, when
rightly played, exert developing power over more than the physical
nature and the rhythmic sense to which they so obviously minister.
The strengthening and control of will goes on with the strengthening
and control of the muscles; the idea of subjection to law is prepared
for by keeping the rules of the game; awaiting one’s turn cultivates
patience and altruism; and adjusting the individual’s hap-hazard motions
to the regulated rhythmic motion of a partner or the whole company
impresses the spirit with the pleasurableness of harmonious action.
The
music for child songs, like the verses, has its Scylla and Charybdis,
- the child’s small powers and the requirements of musical art. The
writer of the words in Songs of a Little Child’s Day gratefully acknowledges
the debt her words will owe to the music which goes forth with them,
their loyal companion,--a companion that is in close sympathy with
their every mood, heightening the joy, deepening the thoughtfulness
and adding grace. It will help, as only child music of high quality
can, to carry the meaning of the songs into the little singer’s heart,
and will enable him to re-express that meaning freely in childlike
tuneful melodies.
-
EMILIE POULSSON
Hopkinton, Massachusetts, 1910
