The most important instance of this is the fervour
with which many compilers of stories for school use have directed their
efforts solely toward illustration of natural phenomena. Geology, zoology,
botany, and even physics are taught by means of more or less happily
constructed narratives based on the simpler facts of these sciences.
Kindergarten teachers are familiar with such narratives: the little
stories of chrysalis-breaking, flower-growth, and the like. Now this is a
perfectly proper and practicable aim, but it is not a primary one. Others,
to which at best this is but secondary, should have first place and
receive greatest attention.
What is a story, essentially? Is it a text-book of science, an appendix to
the geography, an introduction to the primer of history? Of course it is
not. A story is essentially and primarily a work of art, and its chief
function must be sought in the line of the uses of art. Just as the drama
is capable of secondary uses, yet fails abjectly to realise its purpose
when those are substituted for its real significance as a work of art, so
does the story lend itself to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and
most strongly to be recognised in its real significance as a work of art.
Since the drama deals with life in all its parts, it can exemplify
sociological theory, it can illustrate economic principle, it can even
picture politics; but the drama which does these things only, has no
breath of its real life in its being, and dies when the wind of popular
tendency veers from its direction.
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