But happily children are not so determined to wring a meaning out of every sight and every sound. Children play. Play is a child's own technique. Through it he seizes the strange unknown world around him and fashions it into his very own. He recreates through play. And through creating, he learns and he enjoys.
There is no better play material in the world than words. They surround us, go with us through our work-a-day tasks, their sound is always in our ears, their rhythms on our tongue. Why do we leave it to special occasions and to special people to use these common things as precious play material? Because we are grown-ups and have closed our ears and our eyes that we may not be distracted from our plodding ways! But when we turn to the children, to hearing and seeing children, to whom all the world is as play material, who think and feel through play, can we not then drop our adult utilitarian speech and listen and watch for the patterns of words and ideas? Can we not care for the _way_ we say things to them and not merely _what_ we say? Can we not speak in rhythm, in pleasing sounds, even in song for the mere sensuous delight it gives us and them, even though it adds nothing to the content of our remark? If we can, I feel sure children will not lose their native use of words: more, I think those of six and seven and eight who have lost it in part,--and their stories show they have,--will win back to their spontaneous joy in the play of words. This is the ultimate test of stories and verse,--whether they help children to retain their native gift of play with language and with thought.
In the City and Country School where my experiments in language have been carried on, we have not gone far enough to offer convincing proof along these lines. But I submit two stories told by a six-year-old class which are at least suggestive. The first is the best story told to me by any member of the class before any effort had been made to get the children to listen to the sound of their words or to think of their ideas as all pointing in one direction and giving a single impression. The second was told by the class as a whole while looking at Willebeek Le Mair's illustration of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." They said the picture made them feel sleepy and that they would say only things that made them sleepy and use only words that made them sleepy. Between the two stories I had met with them seven times. I had read them sounding and rhythmic verse. They had become interested in the sound of language apart from its meaning. They had become interested in the sound of the rain and the fire. They were thinking through their ears. Am I mistaken in believing this shows in their language and in their thought?