A Study of Fairy Tales / Kready, Laura F.

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Title: A Study of Fairy Tales

Author: Laura F. Kready

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[Date last updated: August 21, 2006]

Language: English

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A STUDY OF FAIRY TALES

by

LAURA F. KREADY, B.S.

With an Introduction by Henry Suzzallo, Ph.D.
President of the University of Washington, Seattle







TO THE CHILDREN WHO, BECAUSE OF IT, MAY RECEIVE ANY GOOD.




PREFACE


One of the problems of present-day education is to secure for the
entire school system, from the kindergarten to the university, a
curriculum which shall have a proved and permanent value. In this
curriculum literature has established itself as a subject of
unquestioned worth. But children's literature, as that distinct
portion of the subject literature written especially for children or
especially suited to them, is only beginning to take shape and form.
It seems necessary at this time to work upon the content of children's
literature to see what is worthy of a permanent place in the child's
English, and to dwell upon its possibilities. A consideration of this
subject has convinced me of three points:

     (1) that literature in the kindergarten and elementary
     school should be taught as a distinct subject, accessory
     neither to reading nor to any other subject of the
     curriculum, though intimately related to them;

     (2) that it takes training in the subject to teach
     literature to little children;

     (3) that the field of children's literature is largely
     untilled, inviting laborers, embracing literature which
     should be selected from past ages down to the present.

A single _motif_ of this children's literature, _Fairy Tales_, is here
presented, with the aim of organizing this small portion of the
curriculum for the child of five, six, or seven years, in the
kindergarten and the first grade. The purpose has been to show this
unit of literature in its varied connection with those subjects which
bear an essential relation to it. This presentation incidentally may
serve as an example of one method of giving to teachers a course in
literature by showing what training may be given in a single _motif,
Fairy Tales_. Incidentally also it may set forth a few theories of
education, not isolated from practice, but united to the everyday
problems where the teacher will recognize them with greatest
impression. In the selection of the subject no undue prominence is
hereby advocated for fairy tales. We know fairy tales about which we
could agree with Maria Edgeworth when she said: "Even if children do
prefer fairy tales, is this a reason why their minds should be filled
with fantastic visions instead of useful knowledge?" However, there is
no danger that fairy tales will occupy more than a fair share of the
child's interest, much as he enjoys a tale; for the little child's
main interest is centered in the actual things of everyday life and
his direct contact with them. Yet there is a part of him untouched by
these practical activities of his real and immediate life; and it is
this which gives to literature its unique function, to minister to the
spirit. Fairy tales, in contributing in their small way to this high
service, while they occupy a position of no undue prominence,
nevertheless hold a place of no mean value in education.

In the study of fairy tales, as of any portion of the curriculum or as
in any presentation of subject-matter, three main elements must unite
to form one combined whole: the child, the subject, and the teaching
of the subject. In behalf of the child I want to show how fairy tales
contain his interests and how they are means for the expression of his
instincts and for his development in purpose, in initiative, in
judgment, in organization of ideas, and in the creative return
possible to him. In behalf of the subject I want to show what fairy
tales must possess as classics, as literature and composition, and as
short-stories; to trace their history, to classify the types, and to
supply the sources of material. In behalf of the teaching of fairy
tales I want to describe the telling of the tale: the preparation it
involves, the art required in its presentation, and the creative
return to be expected from the child.

In the consideration of the subject the main purpose has been to
relate fairy tales to the large subjects, literature and composition.
From the past those tales have come down to us which inherently
possessed the qualities of true classics. In modern times so few
children's tales have survived because they have been written mainly
from the point of view of the subject and of the child without regard
to the standards of literary criticism. In the school the teaching of
literature in the kindergarten and elementary grades has been
conducted largely also from the point of view of the child and of the
subject without regard to the arts of literature and composition. In
bookshops counters are filled with many books that lack literary value
or artistic merit. The object in this book has been to preserve the
point of view of the child and of the subject and yet at the same time
relate the tale to the standards of literature and of composition. The
object has been to get the teacher, every time she selects or tells a
tale, to apply practically the great underlying principles of
literature, of composition, and of the short-story, as well as those
of child-psychology and of pedagogy.

This relating of the tale to literary standards will give to the
teacher a greater respect for the material she is handling and a
consequent further understanding of its possibilities. It will reveal
what there is in the tale to teach and also how to teach it. In
teaching literature as also other art subject-matter in the
kindergarten and first grade, the problem is to hold fast to the
principles of the art and yet select, or let the child choose,
material adapted to his simplicity. As the little child uses analysis
but slightly, his best method of possessing a piece of literature is
to do something with it.

The fairy tale is also related to life standards, for it presents to
the child a criticism of life. By bringing forward in high light the
character of the fairy, the fairy tale furnishes a unique contribution
to life. Through its repeated impression of the idea of fairyhood it
may implant in the child a desire which may fructify into that pure,
generous, disinterested kindness and love of the grown-up, which aims
to play fairy to another, with sincere altruism to make appear before
his eyes his heart's desire, or in a twinkling to cause what hitherto
seemed impossible. Fairy tales thus are harbingers of that helpfulness
which would make a new earth, and as such afford a contribution to the
religion of life.

In stressing the history of fairy tales the purpose has been to
present fairy tales as an evolution. The kindergarten and first-grade
teacher must therefore look to find her material anywhere in the whole
field and intimately related with the whole. Special attention has
been placed upon the English fairy tale as the tale of our language.
As we claim an American literature since the days of Washington
Irving, the gradual growth of the American fairy tale has been
included, for which we gratefully acknowledge the courtesy of the
Librarian of the United States Bureau of Education and the
Bibliographer of the Library of Congress. A particular treatment of
some North American Indian folk-tales would also be desirable. But a
study of these tales reveals but one unimportant _pourquois_ tale, of
sufficient simplicity. This study of the natural history of the fairy
tale as an art form is not necessary for the child. But for the
teacher it reveals the nature of fairy tales and their meaning. It is
an aid to that scholarly command of subject-matter which is the first
essential for expertness in teaching. Only when we view the American
fairy tale of to-day in the light of its past history can we obtain a
correct standard by which to judge of its excellence or of its worth.

In the classification of fairy tales the purpose has been to organize
the entire field so that any tale may be studied through the type
which emphasizes its distinguishing features. The source material
endeavors to furnish a comprehensive treatment of fairy tales for the
kindergarten and elementary school.

In the preparation of this book the author takes pleasure in
expressing an appreciation of the criticism and helpful suggestions
given by the Editor, Dr. Henry Suzzallo, under whose counsel,
cooperation, and incentive the work grew. The author wishes also to
make a general acknowledgment for the use of many books which of
necessity would be consulted in organizing and standardizing any unit
of literature. Special acknowledgment should be made for the use of
_Grimm's Household Tales_, edited by Margaret Hunt, containing
valuable notes and an introduction by Andrew Lang of _English Fairy
Tales_, _More English Fairy Tales_, _Indian Fairy Tales_, and _Reynard
the Fox_, and their scholarly introductions and notes, by Joseph
Jacobs; of _Norse Tales_ and its full introduction, by Sir George W.
Dasent; of _Tales of the Punjab_ and its Appendix, by Mrs. F.A. Steel;
of the _Uncle Remus Books_, by J.C. Harris; of _Fairy Tales_, by Hans
C. Andersen; of _Fairy Mythology_ and _Tales and Popular Fictions_, by
Thomas Keightley; of _Principles of Literary Criticism_, by Professor
C.T. Winchester, for its standards of literature; of _English
Composition_, by Professor Barrett Wendell, for its standards of
composition; of Professor John Dewey's classification of the child's
instincts; and of the _Kindergarten Review_, containing many articles
of current practice illustrating standards emphasized here.

Recognition is gratefully given for the use of various collections of
fairy tales and for the use of any particular fairy tale that has been
presented in outline, descriptive narrative, criticism, or
dramatization. Among collections special mention should be made of
_The Fairy Library_, by Kate D. Wiggin and Nora A. Smith; the _Fairy
Books_, by Clifton Johnson; and the _Fairy Books_, by Andrew Lang.
Among tales, particular mention should be made for the use, in
adaptation, made of _Oeyvind and Marit_, given in Whittier's _Child
Life in Prose_; of _The Foolish Timid Rabbit_, given in _The Jataka
Tales_, by Ellen C. Babbit; of _The Sheep and the Pig_, in Miss
Bailey's _For the Children's Hour_; of _Drakesbill_, in _The Fairy
Ring_, by Wiggin and Smith; of _The Magpie's Nest_, in _English Fairy
Tales_, by Joseph Jacobs; of _How the Evergreen Trees Lose their
Leaves_, in _The Book of Nature Myths_, by Miss Holbrook; of _The
Good-Natured Bear_, described by Thackeray in "On Some Illustrated
Christmas Books"; and of _The Hop-About-Man_, by Agnes Herbertson,
given in _The Story-Teller's Book_, by Alice O'Grady (Moulton) and
Frances Throop.

The author wishes also to express thanks to the many teachers and
children whose work has in any way contributed to _A Study of Fairy
Tales_.

LAURA F. KREADY
LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA
August, 1916




CONTENTS



     CHAPTER                                  PAGE

     INTRODUCTION BY HENRY SUZZALLO             xv

  I. THE WORTH OF FAIRY TALES                    1

 II. PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION FOR FAIRY TALES    13

III. THE TELLING OF FAIRY TALES                 90

 IV. THE HISTORY OF FAIRY TALES                158

  V. CLASSES OF FAIRY TALES                    204

 VI. SOURCES OF MATERIAL FOR FAIRY TALES       245

     APPENDIX                                  265

     OUTLINE                                   291

     INDEX                                     305





INTRODUCTION


The fairy tale has a place in the training of children which common
sense and a sympathetic attitude toward childhood will not deny. Some
rigid philosophers, who see no more of life than is to be found in
logical science, condemn the imaginative tale. They regard the
teaching of myths and stories as the telling of pleasant lies, which,
if harmless, are wasteful. What the child acquires through them, he
must sooner or later forget or unlearn.

Such arguments carry conviction until one perceives that their authors
are measuring the worth of all teaching in terms of strictly
intellectual products. Life is more than precise information; it is
impulse and action. The fairy tale is a literary rather than a
scientific achievement. Its realities are matters of feeling, in which
thought is a mere skeleton to support the adventure. It matters little
that the facts alleged in the story never were and never can be. The
values and ideals which enlist the child's sympathy are morally
worthy, affording a practice to those fundamental prejudices toward
right and wrong which are the earliest acquisitions of a young soul.
The other characteristics of the tale--the rhythmic, the grotesque,
the weird, and the droll--are mere recreation, the abundant
playfulness which children require to rest them from the dangers and
terrors which fascinate them.

The fairy tale, like every other literary production, must be judged
by the fitness of its emotional effects. Fairyland is the stage-world
of childhood, a realm of vicarious living, more elemental and more
fancy-free than the perfected dramas of sophisticated adults whose
ingrained acceptance of binding realities demands sterner stuff. The
tales are classics of a particular kind; they are children's classics,
artful adaptations of life and form which grip the imaginations of
little folks.

The diet of babes cannot be determined by the needs of grown-ups. A
spiritual malnutrition which starves would soon set in if adult wisdom
were imposed on children for their sustenance. The truth is amply
illustrated by those pathetic objects of our acquaintance, the men and
women who have never been boys and girls.

To cast out the fairy tale is to rob human beings of their childhood,
that transition period in which breadth and richness are given to
human life so that it may be full and plastic enough to permit the
creation of those exacting efficiencies which increasing knowledge and
responsibility compel. We cannot omit the adventures of fairyland from
our educational program. They are too well adapted to the restless,
active, and unrestrained life of childhood. They take the objects
which little boys and girls know vividly and personify them so that
instinctive hopes and fears may play and be disciplined.

While the fairy tales have no immediate purpose other than to amuse,
they leave a substantial by-product which has a moral significance. In
every reaction which the child has for distress or humor in the tale,
he deposits another layer of vicarious experience which sets his
character more firmly in the mould of right or wrong attitude. Every
sympathy, every aversion helps to set the impulsive currents of his
life, and to give direction to his personality.

Because of the important aesthetic and ethical bearings of this form
of literary experience, the fairy stories must be rightly chosen and
artfully told. In no other way can their full worth in education be
realized. They are tools which require discrimination and skill. Out
of the wisdom of one who knows both tales and children, and who holds
a thoughtful grasp on educational purpose, we offer this volume of
unusually helpful counsel.--HENRY SUZZALLO.





CHAPTER I




THE WORTH OF FAIRY TALES

     In olde dayes of the kyng Arthour,
     Of which that Britouns speken gret honour,
     Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie;
     The elf-queen, with hir joly compaignye,
     Daunced ful oft in many a grene mede.--CHAUCER.


I. TWO PUBLIC TRIBUTES


Only a few years ago, in the gardens of the Tuileries, in Paris, a
statue was erected in memory of Charles Perrault, to be placed there
among the sculptures of the never-to-be-forgotten fairy tales he had
created,--_Red Riding Hood_, _Sleeping Beauty_, _Puss-in-Boots_,
_Hop-o'-my-Thumb_, _Bluebeard_, and the rest,--so that the children
who roamed the gardens, and in their play gathered about the statues
of their beloved fairy friends, might have with them also a reminder
of the giver of all this joy, their friend Perrault. Two hundred years
before, Perrault truly had been their friend, not only in making for
them fairy tales, but in successfully pleading in their behalf when he
said, "I am persuaded that the gardens of the King were made so great
and spacious that all the children may walk in them."

Only in December, 1913, in Berlin, was completed the _Maerchen
Brunnen_, or "Fairy-Tale Fountain," at the entrance to Friedrichshain
Park, in which the idea of the architect, Stadt-Baurat Ludwig
Hoffmann, wholly in harmony with the social spirit of the times, was
to erect an artistic monument to give joy to multitudes of children.
This fairy entrance to the park is a decorative lay-out, a central
ground surrounded by a high, thick lodge of beeches. Toward this
central ground--which has been transformed into a joyous fairy
world--many hedge walks lead; while in the sidewalks, to warn naughty
children, are concealed fantastic figures. There is the huge
_Menschen-fresser_, who grasps a tender infant in each Titan hand and
bears on his head a huge basket of children too young to have known
much wrong. A humorous touch, giving distinct charm to the whole
creation, pervades all. From lions' heads and vases, distributed at
regular intervals in the semicircular arcade in the background, water
gushes forth; while in the central basin, nine small water
animals--seven frogs and two larger animals--appear spouting great
jets of water. Clustered about the central fountain are the nine fairy
characters of Professor Ignatius Taschner, among whom are Red Riding
Hood, Hansel and Grethel each riding a duck, Puss-in-Boots,
Cinderella, and Lucky Hans; and looking down upon them from the
surrounding balustrade are the animal figures by Joseph Rauch. In
these simple natural classic groups, fancy with what pleasure the
children may look to find the friendly beasts and the favorite tales
they love!

Such is the tribute to fairy tales rendered by two great nations who
have recognized fairy tales as the joyous right of children. Any
education which claims to relate itself to present child life can
hardly afford to omit what is acknowledged as part of the child's
everyday life; nor can it afford to omit to hand on to the child those
fairy tales which are a portion of his literary heritage.



II. THE VALUE OF FAIRY TALES IN EDUCATION


In considering fairy tales for the little child, the first question
which presents itself is, "Why are fairy stories suited to the little
child, and what is their value for him?"

Fairy tales bring joy into child life. The mission of joy has not been
fully preached, but we know that joy works toward physical health,
mental brightness, and moral virtue. In the education of the future,
happiness together with freedom will be recognized as the largest
beneficent powers that will permit the individual of four, from his
pristine, inexperienced self-activity, to become that final, matured,
self-expressed, self-sufficient, social development--the educated man.
Joy is the mission of art and fairy tales are art products. As such
Pater would say, "For Art comes to you, proposing to give nothing but
the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those
moments' sake. Not the fruit of experience, but experience, is the
end." Such quality came from the art of the fairy tale into the walk
of a little girl, for whom even the much-tabooed topic of the weather
took on a new, fresh charm. In answer to a remark concerning the day
she replied, "Yes, it's not too hot, and not too cold, but just
right." All art, being a product of the creative imagination, has the
power to stimulate the creative faculties. "For Art, like Genius,"
says Professor Woodberry, "is common to all men, it is the stamp of
the soul in them." All are creatures of imitation and combination; and
the little child, in handling an art product, puts his thought through
the artist's mould and gains a touch of the artist's joy.

Fairy tales satisfy the play spirit of childhood. Folk-tales are the
product of a people in a primitive stage when all the world is a
wonder-sphere. Most of our popular tales date from days when the
primitive Aryan took his evening meal of yava and fermented mead, and
the dusky Sudra roamed the Punjab. "All these fancies are pervaded
with that purity by which children seem to us so wonderful," said
William Grimm. "They have the same blue-white, immaculate bright
eyes." Little children are in this same wonder-stage. They believe
that the world about throbs with life and is peopled with all manner
of beautiful, powerful folk. All children are poets, and fairy tales
are the poetic recording of the facts of life. In this day of
commercial enterprise, if we would fit children for life we must see
to it that we do not blight the poets in them. In this day of emphasis
on vocational training we must remember there is a part of life unfed,
unnurtured, and unexercised by industrial education. Moreover,
whatever will be accomplished in life will be the achievement of a
free and vigorous life of the imagination. Before it was realized,
everything new had existed in some trained imagination, fertile with
ideas. The tale feeds the imagination, for the soul of it is a bit of
play. It suits the child because in it he is not bound by the law of
cause and effect, nor by the necessary relations of actual life. He is
entirely in sympathy with a world where events follow as one may
choose. He likes the mastership of the universe. And fairyland--where
there is no time; where troubles fade; where youth abides; where
things come out all right--is a pleasant place.

Furthermore, fairy tales are play forms. "Play," Bichter says, "is the
first creative utterance of man." "It is the highest form in which the
native activity of childhood expresses itself," says Miss Blow. Fairy
tales offer to the little child an opportunity for the exercise of
that self-active inner impulse which seeks expression in two kinds of
play, the symbolic activity of free play and the concrete presentation
of types. The play, _The Light Bird_, and the tale, _The Bremen_ _Town
Musicians_, both offer an opportunity for the child to express that
pursuit of a light afar off, a theme which appeals to childhood. The
fairy tale, because it presents an organized form of human experience,
helps to organize the mind and gives to play the values of human life.
By contributing so largely to the play spirit, fairy tales contribute
to that joy of activity, of achievement, of cooeperation, and of
judgment, which is the joy of all work. This habit of kindergarten
play, with its joy and freedom and initiative, is the highest goal to
be attained in the method of university work.

Fairy tales give the child a power of accurate observation. The habit
of re-experiencing, of visualization, which they exercise, increases
the ability to see, and is the contribution literature offers to
nature study. In childhood acquaintance with the natural objects of
everyday life is the central interest; and in its turn it furnishes
those elements of experience upon which imagination builds. For this
reason it is rather remarkable that the story, which is omitted from
the Montessori system of education, is perhaps the most valuable means
of effecting that sense-training, freedom, self-initiated play,
repose, poise, and power of reflection, which are foundation stones of
its structure.

Fairy tales strengthen the power of emotion, develop the power of
imagination, train the memory, and exercise the reason. As emotion and
imagination are considered in Chapter 11, in the section, "The Fairy
Tale as Literature," and the training of the memory and the exercise
of the reason in connection with the treatment of various other topics
later on, these subjects will be passed by for the present. Every day
the formation of habits of mind during the process of education is
being looked upon with a higher estimate. The formation of habits of
mind through the use of fairy tales will become evident during
following chapters.

Fairy tales extend and intensify the child's social relations. They
appeal to the child by presenting aspects of family life. Through them
he realizes his relations to his own parents: their care, their
guardianship, and their love. Through this he realizes different
situations and social relations, and gains clear, simple notions of
right and wrong. His sympathies are active for kindness and fairness,
especially for the defenseless, and he feels deeply the calamity of
the poor or the suffering and hardship of the ill-treated. He is in
sympathy with that poetic justice which desires immediate punishment
of wrong, unfairness, injustice, cruelty, or deceit. Through fairy
tales he gains a many-sided view of life. Through his dramas, with a
power of sympathy which has seemed universal, Shakespeare has given
the adult world many types of character and conduct that are noble.
But fairy tales place in the hands of childhood all that the thousands
and thousands of the universe for ages have found excellent in
character and conduct. They hold up for imitation all those cardinal
virtues of love and self-sacrifice,--which is the ultimate criterion
of character,--of courage, loyalty, kindness, gentleness, fairness,
pity, endurance, bravery, industry, perseverance, and thrift. Thus
fairy tales build up concepts of family life and of ethical standards,
broaden a child's social sense of duty, and teach him to reflect.
Besides developing his feelings and judgments, they also enlarge his
world of experience.

In the school, the fairy tale as one form of the story is one part of
the largest means to unify the entire work or play of the child. In
proportion as the work of art, nature-study, game, occupation, etc.,
is fine, it will deal with some part of the child's everyday life. The
good tale parallels life. It is a record of a portion of the race
reaction to its environment; and being a permanent record of
literature, it records experience which is universal and presents
situations most human. It is therefore material best suited to furnish
the child with real problems. As little children have their thoughts
and observations directed mainly toward people and centered about the
home, the fairy tale rests secure as the intellectual counterpart to
those thoughts. As self-expression and self-activity are the great
natural instincts of the child, in giving opportunity to make a crown
for a princess, mould a clay bowl, decorate a tree, play a game, paint
the wood, cut paper animals, sing a lullaby, or trip a dance, the tale
affords many problems exercising all the child's accomplishments in
the variety of his work. This does not make the story the central
interest, for actual contact with nature is the child's chief
interest. But it makes the story, because it is an organized
experience marked by the values of human life, the unity of the
child's return or reaction to his environment. The tale thus may bring
about that "living union of thought and expression which dispels the
isolation of studies and makes the child live in varied, concrete,
active relation to a common world."

In the home fairy tales employ leisure hours in a way that builds
character. Critical moments of decision will come into the lives of
all when no amount of reason will be a sufficient guide. Mothers who
cannot follow their sons to college, and fathers who cannot choose for
their daughters, can help their children best to fortify their spirits
for such crises by feeding them with good literature. This, when they
are yet little, will begin the rearing of a fortress of ideals which
will support true feeling and lead constantly to noble action. Then,
too, in the home, the illustration of his tale may give the child much
pleasure. For this is the day of fairy-tale art; and the child's
satisfaction in the illustration of the well-known tale is limitless.
It will increase as he grows older, as he understands art better, and
as he becomes familiar with the wealth of beautiful editions which are
at his command.

And finally, though not of least moment, fairy tales afford a vital
basis for language training and thereby take on a new importance in
the child's English. Through the fairy tale he learns the names of
things and the meanings of words. One English fairy tale, _The Master
of all Masters_, is a ludicrous example of the tale built on this very
theme of names and meanings. Especially in the case of foreign
children, in a tale of repetition, such as _The Cat and the Mouse_,
_Teeny Tiny_, or _The Old Woman and Her Pig_, will the repetitive
passages be an aid to verbal expression. The child learns to follow
the sequence of a story and gains a sense of order. He catches the
note of definiteness from the tale, which thereby clarifies his
thinking. He gains the habit of reasoning to consequences, which is
one form of a perception of that universal law which rules the world,
and which is one of the biggest things he will ever come upon in life.
Never can he meet any critical situation where this habit of reasoning
to consequences will not be his surest guide in a decision. Thus fairy
tales, by their direct influence upon habits of thinking, effect
language training.

Fairy tales contribute to language training also by providing another
form of that basic content which is furnished for reading. In the
future the child will spend more time in the kindergarten and early
first grade in acquiring this content, so that having enjoyed the real
literature, when he reads later on he will be eager to satisfy his own
desires. Then reading will take purpose for him and be accomplished
almost without drill and practically with no effort. The reading book
will gradually disappear as a portion of his literary heritage. In the
kindergarten the child will learn the play forms, and in the first
grade the real beginnings, of phonics and of the form of words in the
applied science of spelling. In music he will learn the beginnings of
the use of the voice. This will leave him free, when he begins reading
later, to give attention to the thought reality back of the symbols.
When the elements combining to produce good oral reading are cared for
in the kindergarten and in the first grade, in the subjects of which
they properly form a part, the child, when beginning to read, no
longer will be needlessly diverted, his literature will contribute to
his reading without interference, and his growth in language will
become an improved, steady accomplishment.



REFERENCES


     Allison, Samuel; and Perdue, Avis: _The Story in Primary
       Instruction_. Flanagan.

     Blow, Susan; Hill, Patty; and Harrison, Elizabeth: _The
       Kindergarten_. Houghton.

     Blow, Susan: _Symbolic Education_. Appleton.

     Chamberlain, Alexander: "Folk-Lore in the Schools," _Pedagogical
       Seminary_, vol. vii, pp. 347-56.

     Chubb, Percival: "Value and Place of Fairy Stories," _National
       Education Association Report_, 1905.

     Dewey, John: _The School and the Child_. Blackie & Sons.

     _Ibid.: The School and Society_. University of Chicago Press.

     "Fairy Tales," _Public Libraries_, 1906, vol. 11, pp. 175-78.

     Palmer, Luella: "Standard for Kindergarten Training,"
       _Kindergarten Review_, June, 1914.

     Welsh, Charles: _Right Reading for Children_. Heath.




CHAPTER II



PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION FOR FAIRY TALES

     All our troubles come from doing that in which we have no
     interest.--EPICTETUS.

     That is useful for every man which is conformable to his own
     constitution and nature.--MARCUS AURELIUS.

     Genuine interest means that a person has identified himself
     with, or found himself in, a certain course of activity. It
     is obtained not by thinking about it and consciously aiming
     at it, but by considering and aiming at the conditions that
     lie back of it, and compel it.--JOHN DEWEY.



I. THE INTERESTS OF CHILDREN


Now that the value of fairy tales in education has been made clear,
let us consider some of those principles of selection which should
guide the teacher, the mother, the father, and the librarian, in
choosing the tale for the little child.

Fairy tales must contain what interests children. It is a well-known
principle that selective interest precedes voluntary attention;
therefore interest is fundamental. All that is accomplished of
permanent good is a by-product of the enjoyment of the tale. The tale
will go home only as it brings joy, and it will bring joy when it
secures the child's interest. Now interest is the condition which
requires least mental effort. And fairy tales for little children must
follow that great law of composition pointed out by Herbert Spencer,
which makes all language consider the audience and the economy of the
hearer's attention. The first step, then, is to study the interests of
the child. We do not wish to give him just what he likes, but we want
to give him a chance to choose from among those things which he ought
to have and, as good and wise guardians, see that we offer what is in
harmony with his interests. Any observation of the child's interest
will show that he loves the things he finds in his fairy tales. He
enjoys--

     _A sense of life_. This is the biggest thing in the fairy
     tales, and the basis for their universal appeal. The little
     child who is just entering life can no more escape its
     attraction than can the aged veteran about to leave the
     pathway. The little pig, Whitie, who with his briskly
     curling tail goes eagerly down the road to secure, from the
     man who carried a load of straw, a bit with which to build
     his easily destructible house; Red Riding Hood taking a pot
     of jam to her sick grandmother; Henny Penny starting out on
     a walk, to meet with the surprise of a nut falling on her
     head--the biggest charm of all this is that it is life.

     _The familiar_. The child, limited in experience, loves to
     come in touch with the things he knows about. It soothes his
     tenderness, allays his fears, makes him feel at home in the
     world,--and he hates to feel strange,--it calms his
     timidity, and satisfies his heart. The home and the people
     who live in it; the food, the clothing, and shelter of
     everyday life; the garden, the plant in it, or the live ant
     or toad; the friendly dog and cat, the road or street near
     by, the brook, the hill, the sky--these are a part of his
     world, and he feels them his own even in a story. The
     presents which the Rabbit went to town to buy for the little
     Rabbits, in _How Brother Rabbit Frightens his Neighbors_;
     the distinct names, Miss Janey and Billy Malone, given to
     the animals of _In Some Lady's Garden_, just as a child
     would name her dolls; and the new shoes of the Dog which the
     Rabbit managed to get in _Why Mr. Dog Runs after Brother
     Rabbit_--these all bring up in the child's experience
     delightful familiar associations. The tale which takes a
     familiar experience, gives it more meaning, and organizes
     it, such as _The Little Red Hen_, broadens, deepens, and
     enriches the child's present life.

     _The surprise_. While he loves the familiar, nothing more
     quickly brings a smile than the surprise. Perhaps the most
     essential of the fairy traits is the combination of the
     familiar and the unfamiliar. The desire for the unknown,
     that curiosity which brings upon itself surprise, is the
     charm of childhood as well as the divine fire of the
     scientist. The naughty little Elephant who asked "a new,
     fine question he had never asked before," and who went to
     answer his own question of "what the crocodile has for
     dinner," met with many surprises which were spankings; and
     as a result, he returned home with a trunk and experience.
     He is a very good example of how delightful to the child
     this surprise can be. The essence of the fairy tale is
     natural life in a spiritual world, the usual child in the
     unusual environment, or the unusual child in the natural
     environment. This combination of the usual and unusual is
     the chief charm of _Alice in Wonderland_, where a natural
     child wanders through a changing environment that is
     unusual. For an idle moment enjoy the task of seeing how
     many ideas it contains which are the familiar ideas of
     children, and how they all have been "made different." All
     children love a tea-party, but what child would not be
     caught by having a tea-party with a Mad Hatter, a March
     Hare, and a sleepy Dormouse, with nothing to eat and no tea!
     Red Riding Hood was a dear little girl who set out to take a
     basket to her grandmother. But in the wood, after she had
     been gathering a nosegay and chasing butterflies, "just as I
     might do," any child might say, she met a wolf! And what
     child's ears would not rise with curiosity? "Now something's
     going to happen!" The Three Bears kept house. That was usual
     enough; but everything was different, and the charm is in
     giving the child a real surprise at every step. The house
     was not like an ordinary house; it was in the wood, and more
     like a play-house than a real one. There was a room, but not
     much in it; a table, but there was not on it what is on your
     table--only three bowls. What they contained was usual, but
     unusually one bowl of porridge was big and hot, one was less
     big and cold, and one was little and just right. There were
     usual chairs, unusual in size and very unusual when
     Goldilocks sat in them. Upstairs the bedroom was usual, but
     the beds were unusual when Goldilocks lay upon them. The
     Bears themselves were usual, but their talk and action was a
     delightful mixture of the surprising and the comical.
     Perhaps this love of surprise accounts for the perfect leap
     of interest with which a child will follow the Cock in _The
     Bremen Town Musicians_, as he saw from the top of the tree
     on which he perched, a light, afar off through the wood.
     Certainly the theme of a light in the distance has a charm
     for children as it must have had for man long ago.

     _Sense impression_. Good things to eat, beautiful flowers,
     jewels, the beauties of sight, color, and sound, of odor and
     of taste, all gratify a child's craving for sense
     impression. This, in its height, is the charm of the
     _Arabian Nights_. But in a lesser degree it appears in all
     fairy tales. Cinderella's beautiful gowns at the ball and
     the fine supper stimulate the sense of color, beauty, and
     taste. The sugar-panes and gingerbread roof of the Witch's
     House, in _Hansel and Grethel_, stir the child's kindred
     taste for sweets and cookies. The Gingerbread Boy, with his
     chocolate jacket, his cinnamon buttons, currant eyes,
     rose-sugar mouth, orange-candy cap, and gingerbread shoes,
     makes the same strong sense appeal. There is a natural
     attraction for the child in the beautiful interior of
     Sleeping Beauty's Castle, in the lovely perfume of roses in
     the Beast's Rose-Garden, in the dance and song of the Elves,
     and in the dance of the Goat and her seven Kids about the
     well.

     _The beautiful_. Closely related to this love of the
     material is the sense of the beautiful. "Beauty is pleasure
     regarded as the quality of a thing," says Santayana.
     Pleasures of the eye and ear, of the imagination and memory,
     are those most easily objectified, and form the groundwork
     on which all higher beauty rests. The green of the spring,
     the odor of Red Riding Hood's flowers, the splendor of the
     Prince's ball in _Cinderella_--these when perceived
     distinctly are intelligible, and when perceived delightfully
     are beautiful. Language is a kind of music, too; the mode of
     speaking, the sound of letters, the inflection of the
     voice--all are elements of beauty. But this material beauty
     is tied up in close association with things "eye hath not
     seen nor ear heard," the moral beauty of the good and the
     message of the true. The industry of the little Elves
     reflects the worth of honest effort of the two aged
     peasants, and the dance of the Goat and seven Kids reflects
     the triumph of mother wit and the sharpness of love. The
     good, the true, and the beautiful are inseparably linked in
     the tale, just as they forever grow together in the life of
     the child. The tales differ largely in the element of beauty
     they present. Among those conspicuous for beauty may be
     mentioned Andersen's _Thumbelina_; the Indian _How the Sun,
     the Moon, and West Wind Went Out to Dinner_; the Japanese
     _Mezumi, the Beautiful_; and the English _Robin's Christmas
     Song. Little Two-Eyes_ stands out as one containing a large
     element of beauty, and _Oeyvind and Marit_ represents in an
     ideal way the possible union of the good, the true, and the
     beautiful. This union of the good, the true, and the
     beautiful has been expressed by an old Persian legend: "In
     the midst of the light is the beautiful, in the midst of the
     beautiful is the good, in the midst of the good is God, the
     Eternal One."

     _Wonder, mystery, magic_. The spirit of wonder, like a
     will-o'-the-wisp, leads on through a fairy tale, enticing
     the child who follows, knowing that something will happen,
     and wondering what. When magic comes in he is gratified
     because some one becomes master of the universe--Cinderella,
     when she plants the hazel bough, and later goes to the
     wishing-tree; the fairy godmother, when with her wand she
     transforms a pumpkin to a gilded coach and six mice to
     beautiful gray horses; Little Two-Eyes, when she says,--

          Little kid, bleat,
          I wish to eat!

     and immediately her little table set with food so
     marvelously appears; or Hop-o'-my-Thumb when he steps into
     his Seven-League Boots and goes like the wind.

     _Adventure_. This is a form of curiosity. In the old tale,
     as the wood was the place outside the usual habitation,
     naturally it was the place where things happened. Often
     there was a house in the wood, like the one "amidst the
     forest darkly green," where Snow White lived with the
     Dwarfs. This adventure the little child loves for its own
     sake. Later, when he is about eleven or twelve, he loves it
     for its motive. This love of adventure is part of the charm
     of _Red Riding Hood_, of the _Three Bears_, of the _Three
     Pigs_, or of any good tale you might mention.

     _Success_. The child likes the fairy tale to tell him of
     some one who succeeds. He admires the little pig Speckle who
     outwitted the Wolf in getting to the field of turnips first,
     or in going to the apple tree at Merry-Garden, or to the
     fair at Shanklin; who built his house of brick which would
     defy assault; and whose cleverness ended the Wolf's life.
     This observation of success teaches the child to admire
     masterliness, to get the motto, _Age quod agis_, stamped
     into his child life from the beginning. It influences
     character to follow such conduct as that of the Little Red
     Hen, who took a grain of wheat,--her little mite,--who
     planted it, reaped it, made it into bread, and then ate it;
     who, in spite of the Goose and the Duck, secured to herself
     the reward of her labors.

     _Action_. Akin to his love of running, skipping, and
     jumping, to his enjoyment in making things go and in seeing
     others make things go, is the child's desire for action in
     his fairy tales; and this is just another way of saying he
     wants his fairy tales to parallel life. Action is the
     special charm of the Gingerbread Boy, who opened the oven
     door and so marvelously ran along, outrunning an old Man, an
     old Woman, a little Boy, two Well-Diggers, two
     Ditch-Diggers, a Bear, and a Wolf, until he met the Fox
     waiting by the corner of the fence. _Dame Wiggins of Lee and
     Her Seven Wonderful Cats_--a humorous tale written by Mrs.
     Sharp, a lady of ninety, edited by John Ruskin, who added
     the third, fourth, eighth, and ninth stanzas, and
     illustrated by Kate Greenaway--has this pleasing trait of
     action to a unique degree. So also has _The Cock, the Mouse,
     and the Little Red Hen_, a modern tale by Felicite Lefevre.
     This very popular tale among children is a retelling of two
     old tales combined, _The Little Red Hen_ and the Irish
     _Little Rid Hin_.

     _Humor_. The child loves a joke, and the tale that is
     humorous is his special delight. Humor is the source of
     pleasure in _Billy Bobtail_, where the number of animals and
     the noises they make fill the tale with hilarious fun. There
     is most pleasing humor in _Lambikin_. Here the reckless hero
     frolicked about on his little tottery legs. On his way to
     Granny's house, as he met the Jackal, the Vulture, the
     Tiger, and the Wolf, giving a little frisk, he said,--

          To Granny's house I go,
          Where I shall fatter grow,
          Then you can eat me so!

     Later, on returning, when the animals asked, "Have you seen
     Lambikin?" cozily settled within his Drumikin, laughing and
     singing to himself, he called out slyly--

          Lost in the forest, and so are you,
          On, little Drumikin! Tum-pa, turn-too!

     Humor is the charm, too, of Andersen's _Snow Man_. Here the
     child can identify himself with the Dog and thereby join in
     the sport which the Dog makes at the Snow Man's expense,
     just as if he himself were enlightening the Snow Man about
     the Sun, the Moon, and the Stove. There is most delightful
     humor in _The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership_, where the
     Cat has the face to play upon the credulity of the poor
     housekeeper Mouse, who always "stayed at home and did not go
     out into the daytime." Returning home from his ventures
     abroad he named the first kitten Top-Off, the second one
     Half-Out, and the third one All-Out; while instead of having
     attended the christening of each, as he pretended, he
     secretly had been visiting the jar of fat he had placed for
     safe-keeping in the church.

     _Poetic justice_. Emotional satisfaction and moral
     satisfaction based on emotional instinct appeal to the
     child. He pities the plight of the animals in the _Bremen
     Town Musicians_, and he wants them to find a refuge, a safe
     home. He is glad that the robbers are chased out, his sense
     of right and wrong is satisfied. Poetic justice suits him.
     This is one reason why fairy tales make a more definite
     impression often than life--because in the tale the
     retribution follows the act so swiftly that the child may
     see it, while in life "the mills of the gods grind slowly,"
     and even the adult who looks cannot see them grind. The
     child wants Cinderella to gain the reward for her goodness;
     and he wishes the worthy Shoemaker and his Wife, in the
     _Elves and the Shoemaker_, to get the riches their industry
     deserves.

     _The imaginative_. Fairy tales satisfy the activity of the
     child's imagination and stimulate his fancy. Some beautiful
     spring day, perhaps, after he has enjoyed an excursion to a
     field or meadow or wood, he will want to follow Andersen's
     Thumbelina in her travels. He will follow her as she floats
     on a lily pad, escapes a frog of a husband, rides on a
     butterfly, lives in the house of a field-mouse, escapes a
     mole of a husband, and then rides on the back of a friendly
     swallow to reach the south land and to become queen of the
     flowers. Here there is much play of fancy. But even when the
     episodes are homely and the situations familiar, as in
     _Little Red Hen_, the act of seeing them as distinct images
     and of following them with interest feeds the imagination.
     For while the elements are familiar, the combination is
     unusual; and this nourishes the child's ability to remove
     from the usual situation, which is the essential element in
     all originality. By entering into the life of the characters
     and identifying himself with them, he develops a large
     sympathy and a sense of power, he gains insight into life,
     and a care for the interests of the world. Thus imagination
     grows "in flexibility, in scope, and in sympathy, till the
     life which the individual lives is informed with the life of
     nature and of society," and acquires what Professor John
     Dewey calls Culture.

     _Animals_. Very few of the child's fairy tales contain no
     animals. Southey said of a home: "A house is never perfectly
     furnished for enjoyment unless there is in it a child rising
     three years old and a kitten rising six weeks; kitten is in
     the animal world what a rose-bud is in a garden." In the
     same way it might be said of fairy tales: No tale is quite
     suited to the little child unless in it there is at least
     one animal. Such animal tales are _The Bremen Town
     Musicians, Henny Penny, Ludwig and Marleen_ and _The
     Elephant's Child_. The episode of the hero or heroine and
     the friendly animal, as we find it retained in Two-Eyes and
     her little Goat, was probably a folk-lore convention--since
     dropped--common to the beginning of many of the old tales.
     It indicates how largely the friendly animal entered into
     the old stories.

     _A portrayal of human relations, especially with children_.
     In _Cinderella_ the child is held by the unkind treatment
     inflicted upon Cinderella by her Stepmother and the two
     haughty Sisters. He notes the solicitude of the Mother of
     the Seven Kids in guarding them from the Wolf. In the _Three
     Bears_ he observes a picture of family life. A little child,
     on listening to _The Three Pigs_ for the first time, was
     overwhelmed by one thought and cried out, "And didn't the
     Mother come home any more?" Naturally the child would be
     interested especially in children, for he is like the older
     boy, who, when looking at a picture-book, gleefully
     exclaimed, "That's me!" He likes to put himself in the place
     of others. He can do it most readily if the character is a
     small individual like Red Riding Hood who should obey her
     mother; or like Goldilocks who must not wander in the wood;
     or like Henny Penny who went to take a walk and was accosted
     by, "Where are you going?" In _Brother Rabbit and the Little
     Girl_ the Little Girl takes the keenest enjoyment in putting
     herself in the customary grown-up's place of granting
     permission, while the Rabbit takes the usual child's place
     of mentioning a request with much persuasion. The child is
     interested, too, in the strange people he meets in the fairy
     tales: the clever little elves who lived in the groves and
     danced on the grass; the dwarfs who inhabited the
     earth-rocks and the hills; the trolls who dwelt in the wild
     pine forest or the rocky spurs, who ate men or porridge, and
     who fled at the noise of bells; the fairies who pleased with
     their red caps, green jackets, and sprightly ways; the
     beautiful fairy godmother who waved her wonderful wand; or
     those lovely fairy spirits who appeared at the moment when
     most needed--just as all best friends do--and who could
     grant, in a twinkling, the wish that was most desired.

     _The diminutive_. This pleasure in the diminutive is found
     in the interest in the fairy characters, Baby Bear, Little
     Billy-Goat, Little Pig, the Little Elves, Teeny Tiny,
     Thumbelina, and Tom Thumb, as well as in tiny objects. In
     the _Tale of Tom Thumb_ the child is captivated by the
     miniature chariot drawn by six small mice, the tiny
     butterfly-wing shirt and chicken-skin boots worn by Tom, and
     the small speech produced by him at court, when asked his
     name:--

          My name is Tom Thumb,
          From the Fairies I come;
          When King Arthur shone,
          This court was my home.
          In me he delighted,
          By him I was knighted.
          Did you never hear of
          Sir Thomas Thumb?

     _Doll i' the Grass_ contains a tiny chariot made from a
     silver spoon and drawn by two white mice, and _Little
     Two-Eyes_ gives a magic table. The child takes keen delight
     in the fairy ship which could be folded up and put into a
     pocket, and in the wonderful nut-shell that could bring
     forth beautiful silver and gold dresses. The little wagon of
     Chanticleer and Partlet that took them a trip up to the
     hill, and the tiny mugs and beds, table and plates, of Snow
     White's cottage in the wood--such as these all meet the
     approval of child-nature.

     _Rhythm and repetition_. The child at first loves sound;
     later he loves sound and sense, or meaning. Repetition
     pleases him because he has limited experience and is glad to
     come upon something he has known before. He observes and he
     wants to compare, but it is a job. Repetition saves him a
     task and boldly proclaims, "We are the same." Such is the
     effect of the repetitive expressions which we find in _Teeny
     Tiny_: as, "Now when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her
     teeny-tiny house, she was a teeny-tiny bit tired"; or, in
     _Little Jack Rollaround_, who cried out with such vigorous
     persistence, "Roll me around!" and called to the moon, "I
     want the people to see me!" In _The Little Rabbit Who Wanted
     Red Wings_, one of the pleasantest tales for little
     children, the White Rabbit said to his Mammy, "Oh, Mammy, I
     wish I had a long gray tail like Bushy Tail's; I wish I had
     a back full of bristles like Mr. Porcupine's; I wish I had a
     pair of red rubbers like Miss Puddleduck's." At last, when
     he beheld the tiny red-bird at the Wishing-Pond, he said,
     "Oh, I wish I had a pair of little red wings!" Then, after
     getting his wings, when he came home at night and his Mammy
     no longer knew him, he repeated to Mr. Bushy Tail, Miss
     Puddleduck, and old Mr. Ground Hog, the same petition to
     sleep all night, "Please, kind Mr. Bushy Tail, may I sleep
     in your house all night?" etc. Repetition here aids the
     child in following the characters, the story, and its
     meaning. It is a distinct help to unity and to clearness.

     _The Elephant's Child_ is an example of how the literary
     artist has used this element of repetition, and used it so
     wonderfully that the form is the matter and the tale cannot
     be told without the artist's words. "'Satiable curtiosity,"
     "the banks of the great, grey-green, greasy, Limpopo River,
     all set about with fever-trees," and "'Scuse me," are but a
     few of those expressions for which the child will watch as
     eagerly as one does for a signal light known to be due. The
     repetition of the one word, "curtiosity," throughout the
     tale, simply makes the point of the whole story and makes
     that point delightfully impressive.

     Rhythm and repetition also make a bodily appeal, they appeal
     to the child's motor sense and instinctively get into his
     muscles. This is very evident in _Brother Rabbit's
     Riddle_:--

          De big bird bob en little bird sing;
          De big bee zoon en little bee sting,
          De little man lead en big hoss foller--
          Kin you tell wat 's good fer a head in a holler?

     The song in _Brother Rabbit and the Little Girl_ appeals
     also to the child's sense of sound:--

          De jay-bird hunt de sparrer-nes;
          De bee-martin sail all 'roun';
          De squer'l, he holler from de top er de tree,
          Mr. Mole, he stay in de ground;
          He hide en he stay twel de dark drap down--
          Mr. Mole, he hide in de groun'.

     _The simple and the sincere_. The child's taste for the
     simple and the sincere is one reason for the appeal which
     Andersen's tales make. In using his stories it is to be
     remembered that, although Andersen lacked manliness in being
     sentimental, he preserved the child's point of view and gave
     his thought in the true nursery story's mode of expression.
     Since real sentiment places the emphasis on the object which
     arouses feeling and the sentimental places the emphasis on
     the feeling, sincerity demands that in using Andersen's
     tales, one lessen the sentimental when it occurs by omitting
     to give prominence to the feeling. Andersen's tales reflect
     what is elementary in human nature, childlike fancy, and
     emotion. His speech is characterized by the simplest words
     and conceptions, an avoidance of the abstract, the use of
     direct language, and a naive poetic expression adapted to
     general comprehension. He is not to be equaled in child
     conversations. The world of the fairy tale must be simple
     like the world Andersen has given us. It must be a world of
     genuine people and honest occupations in order to form a
     suitable background for the supernatural. Only fairy tales
     possessing simplicity are suited to the oldest kindergarten
     child of five or six years. To the degree that the child is
     younger than five years, he should be given fewer and fewer
     fairy tales. Those given should be largely realistic stories
     of extreme simplicity.

     _Unity of effect_. The little child likes the short tale,
     for it is a unity he can grasp. If you have ever listened to
     a child of five spontaneously attempting to tell you a long
     tale he has not grasped, and have observed how the units of
     the tale have become confused in the mind that has not held
     the central theme, you then realize how harmful it is to
     give a child too long a story. Unity demands that there be
     no heaping up of sensations, but neat, orderly, essential
     incidents, held together by one central idea. The tale must
     go to the climax directly. It must close according to Uncle
     Remus's idea when he says, "De tale ain't persoon atter em
     no furder don de place whar dey [the characters] make der
     disappear'nce." It will say what it has to say and lose no
     time in saying it; and often it will attempt to say only one
     thing. It will be remarkable as well for what it omits as
     for what it tells. The Norse _Doll i' the Grass_ well
     illustrates this unity. Boots set out to find a wife and
     found a charming little lassie who could spin and weave a
     shirt in one day, though of course the shirt was tiny. He
     took her home and then celebrated his wedding with the
     pleasure of the king. This unity, which is violated in
     Grimm's complicated _Golden Bird_, appears pleasantly in
     _The Little Pine Tree that Wished for New Leaves_. Here one
     feeling dominates the tale, the Pine Tree was no longer
     contented. So she wished, first for gold leaves, next for
     glass leaves, and then for leaves like those of the oaks and
     maples. But the robber who stole her gold leaves, the storm
     that shattered her glass leaves, and the goat that ate her
     broad green leaves, changed her feeling of discontent, until
     she wished at last to have back her slender needles, green
     and fair, and awoke next morning, happy and contented.

Fairy tales for little children must avoid certain elements opposed to
the interests of the very young child. Temperaments vary and one must
be guided by the characteristics of the individual child. But while
the little girl with unusual power of visualization, who weeps on
hearing of Thumbling's travels down the cow's mouth in company with
the hay, may be the exception, she proves the rule: the little child
generally should not have the tale that creates an emotion of horror
or deep feeling of pain. This standard would determine what tales
should not be given to the child of kindergarten age:--

     _The tale of the witch_. The witch is too strange and too
     fearful for the child who has not learned to distinguish the
     true from the imaginative. This would move _Hansel and
     Grethel_ into the second-grade work and _Sleeping Beauty_
     preferably into the work of the first grade. The child soon
     gains sufficient experience so that later the story
     impresses, not the strangeness.

     _The tale of the dragon_. This would eliminate _Siegfried
     and the Dragon_. A dragon is too fearful a beast and
     produces terror in the heart of the child. Tales of heroic
     adventure with the sword are not suited to his strength. He
     has not yet entered the realm of bold adventure where
     Perseus and Theseus and Hercules display their powers. The
     fact that hero-tales abound in delightful literature is not
     adequate reason for crowding the _Rhinegold Legends, Wagner
     Stories_, and _Tales of King Arthur_, into the kindergarten.
     Their beauty and charm do not make it less criminal to
     present to little children such a variety of images as
     knighthood carries with it. These tales are not sufficiently
     simple for the little child, and must produce a mental
     confusion and the crudest of returns.

     _Giant tales_. This would omit _Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack
     the Giant-Killer_, and _Tom Hickathrift_, moving them up
     into the primary field. A little girl, when eating tongue,
     confidingly asked, "Whose tongue?" and when told, "A cow's,"
     immediately questioned with tenderness, "Don't he feel it?"
     Thereafter she insisted that she didn't like tongue. To a
     child of such sensibilities the cutting off of heads is
     savage and gruesome and should not be given a chance to
     impress so prominently. Life cannot be without its strife
     and struggle, but the little child need not meet everything
     in life at once. This does not mean that absolutely no giant
     tale would be used at this time. The tale of _Mr. Miacca_,
     in which "little Tommy couldn't always be good and one day
     went round the corner," is a giant tale which could be used
     with young children because it is full of delightful humor.
     Because of the simplicity of Tommy's language and his sweet
     childishness it appeals to the child's desire to identify
     himself with the character. Tommy is so clever and inventive
     and his lively surprises so brimful of fun that the final
     effect is entirely pleasing.

     _Some tales of transformation_. The little child is not
     pleased but shocked by the transformation of men into
     animals. A little girl, on looking at an illustration of
     _Little Brother and Sister_, remarked, "If my Sister would
     turn into a fawn I would cry." When the animals are
     terrifying, the transformation contains horror for the
     child. This, together with the length and complexity of the
     story, would move _Beauty and the Beast_ up into the second
     grade where the same transformation becomes an element of
     pleasure. A simple tale of transformation, such as _The
     Little Lamb and the Little Fish_, in which Gretchen becomes
     a lamb and Peterkin a little fish, is interesting but not
     horrible, and could be used. So also could a tale such as
     Grimm's _Fundevogel_, in which the brother and sister escape
     the pursuit of the witch by becoming, one a rosebush and the
     other a rose; later, one a church and the other a steeple;
     and a third time, one a pond and the other a duck. In both
     these tales we have the witch and transformation, but the
     effect contains no horror.

     _The tale of strange animal relations and strange creatures.
     Tom Tit Tot_, which Jacobs considers the most delightful of
     all fairy tales, is brimful of humor for the older child,
     but here the tailed man is not suited to the faith and
     understanding of six years. _Rumpelstiltskin_, its parallel,
     must also be excluded. _The House in the Wood_, and its
     Norse parallel, _The Two Step-Sisters_, are both very
     beautiful, but are more suited to the second grade. In the
     kindergarten it is much better to present the tale which
     emphasizes goodness, rather than the two just mentioned,
     which present the good and the bad and show what happens to
     both. Besides there is a certain elation resulting from the
     superior reward won by the good child which crowds out any
     pity for the erring child. Such elation is a form of
     selfishness and ought not to be emphasized. _Snow White and
     Rose Red_ contains the strange dwarf, but it is a tale so
     full of love and goodness and home life that in spite of its
     length it could be used in the first grade.

     _Unhappy tales_. The very little child pities, and its
     tender heart must be protected from depressing sadness as
     unrelieved as we find it in _The Little Match Girl_. The
     image of suffering impressed on a child, who cannot forget
     the sight of a cripple for days, is too intense to be
     healthful. The sorrow of the poor is one of the elements of
     life that even the very little child meets, and it is
     legitimate that his literature should include tales that
     call for compassion. But in a year or two, when he develops
     less impressionability and more poise, he is better prepared
     to meet such situations, as he must meet them in life.

     _The tale of capture_. This would eliminate _Proserpine_. No
     more beautiful myth exists than this one of the springtime,
     but its beauty and its symbolism do not make it suitable for
     the kindergarten. It is more suited to the elementary child
     of the fourth grade. In fact, very few myths of any sort
     find a legitimate place in the kindergarten, perhaps only a
     few of the simpler _pourquois_ tales. _The Legend of the
     Pied Piper of Hamelin_, which is very beautiful, and appeals
     to little children because of the piping and of the children
     following after, should be omitted from the kindergarten
     because the capture at the close--the disappearance of the
     children in the hill--is tragic in pathos. It is better to
     leave the literature as it is and offer it later when the
     child reaches the second grade. The effect of this tragic
     end has been realized by Josephine Scribner Gates, who (_St.
     Nicholas_, November, 1914) has given to the children, "And
     Piped Those Children Back Again." This is a modern
     completion of _The Pied Piper_. It most happily makes the
     little lame boy who was left in Hamelin when the Piper
     closed the door of the mountain, the means of the
     restoration of the other children to their parents.

     _The very long tale_. This would omit _The Ugly Duckling.
     The Ugly Duckling_ is a most artistic tale and one that is
     very true to life. Its characters are the animals of the
     barn-yard, the hens and ducks familiar to the little child's
     experience. But the theme and emotional interest working out
     at length through varied scenes, make it much better adapted
     to the capacities of a third-grade child. _The White Cat_, a
     feminine counterpart of _Puss-in-Boots_--which gives a most
     charming picture of how a White Cat, a transformed princess,
     helped a youth, and re-transformed became his bride--because
     of its length, is better used in the first grade at the same
     time with _Puss-in-Boots_. The same holds true of _Peter,
     Paul, and Espen_, or its parallel, Laboulaye's _Poucinet_.
     This is a fine tale telling how the youngest of three sons
     succeeded in winning the king's favor and finally the
     princess and half the kingdom. First, Espen had to cut down
     the giant oak that shadowed the palace and dig a well in the
     courtyard of the castle deep enough to furnish water the
     entire year. But after winning in these tests, he is
     required to conquer a great Ogre who dwells in the forest,
     and later to prove himself cleverer in intellect than the
     princess by telling the greater falsehood. It is evident
     that not only the subject-matter but the working out of the
     long plot are much beyond kindergarten children.

     _The complicated or the insincere tale_. This would
     eliminate a tale of complicated structure, such as Grimm's
     _Golden Bird_; and many of the modern fairy tales, which
     will be dealt with later on.

The fairy tales mentioned above are all important tales which the
child should receive at a later time when he is ready for them. They
are mentioned because they all have been suggested for kindergarten
use. The whole field of children's literature is largely unclassified
and ungraded as yet, and such arrangements as we possess show slight
respect for standards. There is abundant material for the youngest,
and much will be gained by omitting to give the very young what they
will enjoy a little later, much better and with freshness. It is true
that a few classics are well-suited to the child at any age, such as
_Alice in Wonderland_, _The Jungle Books_, and _Uncle Remus Tales_. In
regard to this grading of the classics, Lamb in _Mackery End_,
speaking of his sister's education, said, "She was tumbled early, by
accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English
reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will
upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should
be brought up exactly in this fashion." Lamb would have argued: Set
the child free in the library and let him choose for himself, and feed
on great literature, those stories which give general types of
situation and character, which give the simplest pictures of a people
at different epochs. But with all due respect to Lamb it must be said
that Lamb is not living in this scientific day of discovery of the
child's personality and of accurate attention to the child's needs.
Because the _Odyssey_ is a great book and will give much to any child
does not prove at all that the same child would not be better off by
reading it when his interests reach its life. This outlook on the
problem would eliminate the necessity of having the classics rewritten
from a new moral viewpoint, which is becoming a custom now-a-days, and
which is to be frowned upon, for it deprives the literature of much of
its vigor and force.



II. THE FAIRY TALE AS LITERATURE


From the point of view of the child, we have seen that in a subjective
sense, fairy tales must contain the interests of children. In an
objective sense, rather from the point of view of literature, let us
now consider what fairy tales must contain, what are the main
standards which determine the value of fairy tales as literature, and
as such, subject-matter of real worth to the child.

The old tale will not always be perfect literature; often it will be
imperfect, especially in form. Yet the tale should be selected with
the standards of literature guiding in the estimate of its worth and
in the emphasis to be placed upon its content. Such relating of the
tale to literary standards would make it quite impossible later in the
primary grades when teaching the reading of _Three Pigs_, to put the
main stress on a mere external like the expression of the voice. A
study of the story as literature would have centered the attention on
the situation, the characters, and the plot. If the voice is receiving
training in music and in the phonics of spelling, then when the
reading of the tale is undertaken it will be a willing servant to the
mind which is concentrating on the reality, and will express what the
thought compels.

The fairy tale first must be a classic in reality even if it lacks the
crowning touch of perfect form given through the re-treatment of a
literary artist. In _Reynard the Fox_ we have an exact example of the
folk-tale that has been elevated into literature. But this was
possible only because the tales originally possessed the qualities of
a true classic. "A true classic," Sainte-Beuve has said, "is one which
enriches the human mind, has increased its treasure and caused it to
advance a step, which has discovered some moral and unequivocal truth
or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known
and discovered; which is an expression of thought, observation, or
invention, in no matter what form, only provided it be broad and
great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in itself; which
speaks in its own peculiar style which is found to be also that of the
whole world, a style new and old, easily contemporary with all time."
Immediately some of the great fairy tales stand out as answering to
this test--_Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk,
Cinderella, Jack the Giant-Killer_,--which has been said to be the
epitome of the whole life of man--_Beauty and the Beast_, and a crowd
of others. Any fairy tale which answers to the test of a real classic
must, like these, show itself to contain for the child a permanent
enrichment of the mind.

Fairy tales must have certain qualities which belong to all literature
as a fine art, whether it is the literature of knowledge or the
literature of power. Literature is not the book nor is it life; but
literature is the sense of life, whose artist is the author, and the
medium he uses is words, language. It is good art when his sense of
life is truth, and fine art when there is beauty in that truth. The
one essential beauty of literature is in its essence and does not
depend upon any decoration. As words are the medium, literature will
distinguish carefully among them and use them as the painter, for
particular lights and shades. According to Pater literature must have
two qualities, mind and soul. Literature will have mind when it has
that architectural sense of structure which foresees the end in the
beginning and keeps all the parts related in a harmonious unity. It
will have soul when it has that "vagrant sympathy" which makes it come
home to us and which makes it suggest what it does not say. Test the
_Tale of Cinderella_ by this standard. As to mind, it makes one think
of a bridge in which the very keystone of the structure is the
condition that Cinderella return from the ball by the stroke of
twelve. And its "vagrant sympathy" is quite definite enough to reach a
maid of five, who remarked: "If I'd have been Cinderella, I wouldn't
have helped those ugly sisters, would you?"

If the fairy tale stands the test of literature it must have proved
itself, not only a genuine classic according to Sainte-Beuve's
standard, and a tale possessing qualities of mind and soul according
to Pater's _Style_, but it must have shown itself also a work owning
certain features distinguishing it as literature. These particular
literary marks which differentiate the literary tale from the ordinary
prose tale have been pointed out by Professor Winchester in his
_Principles of Literary Criticism_. They apply to the old tale of
primitive peoples just as well as to the modern tale of to-day. As
literature the tale must have:

     (1) a power to appeal to the emotions;

     (2) a power to appeal to the imagination;

     (3) a basis of truth; and

     (4) a form more or less perfect.

(1) A power to appeal to the emotions. This appeal to the emotions is
its unique distinguishing literary trait. Literature appeals, not to
the personal emotions but to the universal ones. For this reason,
through literature the child may come in time to develop a power of
universal sympathy, which is not the least value literature has to
bestow upon him, for this sympathy will become a benediction to all
those with whom he may have to deal. In order that emotion in the
tales may be literary--make a permanent appeal--according to Professor
Winchester's standards, it must have justness given by a deep and
worthy cause; vividness so that it may enlarge and thrill; a certain
steadiness produced by everything in the tale contributing to the main
emotion; a variety resulting from contrasts of character; and a high
quality obtained through its sympathy with life and its relation to
the conduct of life, so that the feeling for the material beauty of
mere sights and sounds is closely related to the deepest suggestions
of moral beauty. The best literary tales will possess emotion having
all five characteristics. Many tales will exhibit one or more of these
traits conspicuously. No tale that is literature will be found which
does not lay claim to some one of these qualities which appeal to the
broadly human emotions.

Applying the test of emotion to fairy tales, _Cinderella_ possesses a
just emotion, Cinderella's cause is the cause of goodness and kindness
and love, and deserves a just reward. _The Town Musicians of Bremen_
exhibits vivid emotion, for all four characters are in the same
desperate danger of losing life, all four unite to save it, and to
find a home. Andersen's _Steadfast Tin Soldier_ is a good example of
steadiness of emotion, as it maintains throughout its message of
courage. The Tin Soldier remained steadfast, whether on the table just
escaped from the toy-box, or in the street after a frightful fall from
the window, or spinning in a paper boat that bobbed, or sailing under
the crossing, or lying at full length within the fish that swallowed
him, or at last melting in the full glare of the hearth fire. It is a
very good example, too, of vividness of emotion. _The Little Elves_
illustrates steadiness of emotion, it is pervaded by the one feeling,
that industry deserves reward. The French tale, _Drakesbill_, is
especially delightful and humorous because "Bill Drake" perseveres in
his happy, fresh vivacity, at the end of every rebuff of fortune, and
triumphantly continues his one cry of, "Quack, quack, quack! When
shall I get my money back?" _Lambikin_ leaves the one distinct
impression of light gaiety and happy-heartedness; and _The Foolish,
Timid Rabbit_ preserves steadily the one effect of the credulity of
the animals, made all the more prominent by contrast to the wisdom of
the Lion. Variety of emotion appears in tales such as _Cinderella,
Little Two-Eyes, Sleeping Beauty_, and _Three Pigs_, where the various
characters are drawn distinctly and their contrasting traits produce
varied emotional effects. All the great fairy tales appeal to emotion
of a high moral quality and it is this which is the source of their
universal appeal. It is this high moral quality of the spiritual
truth, which is the center of the tale's unity, holding together all
the parts under one emotional theme. This is the source of the
perennial freshness of the old tale; for while the immortal truth it
presents is old, the personality of the child that meets it is new.
For the child, the tale is new because he discovers in it a bit of
himself he had not known before, and it retains for him a lasting
charm so that he longs to hear it again and again. The beauty of
truth, the reward of goodness, and the duty of fairness, give a high
emotional quality to _Little Two-Eyes_; and _Sleeping Beauty_
illustrates the blighting power of hatred to impose a curse and the
saving power of love to overcome the works of hatred.

Considering folk-tales from the standpoint of emotion, if asked to
suggest what author's work would rank in the same class, one is rather
surprised to find, that for high moral quality, variety, and worthy
cause, the author who comes to mind is none other than Shakespeare.
Perhaps, with all due respect to literature's idol, one might even
venture to question which receives honor by the comparison,
Shakespeare or the folk-tales? It might be rather a pleasant task to
discover who is the Cordelia, the Othello, the Rosalind, and the
Portia of the folk-tales; or who the Beauty, the Bluebeard, the
Cinderella, the Puss-in-Boots, and the Hop-o'-my-Thumb, of
Shakespeare.

The little child is open to emotional appeal, his heart is tender and
he is impressionable. If he feels with the characters in his tales he
develops a power of emotion. In Andersen's _Snow Man_ it is hard to
say which seems more human to him or which makes more of an emotional
appeal, the Snow Man or the Dog. He is sorry for the poor Shoemaker in
_The Little Elves_, glad when he grows rich, delighted for the Elves
when they receive their presents, and satisfied at the happy end.
Since literature depicts life and character in order to awaken noble
emotions, it follows that one must omit to present what awakens
repulsive or degrading emotions. And it is for this reason, as has
been mentioned under the heading "Elements to be avoided," that the
tales of the witch and the dragon must be excluded, not for all time,
but for the earliest years, when they awaken horror.

Through fairy tales we have seen that the emotional power of the child
is strengthened. This has been effected because, in the tale just as
truly as in life, action is presented in real situations; and back of
every action is the motive force of emotion. This cumulative power of
emotion, secured by the child through the handling of tales, will
serve daily a present need. It will be the dynamic force which he will
require for anything he wishes to accomplish in life. It will give the
child the ability to use it in any situation similar to that in which
it was acquired. It will make a difference in his speech; he will not
have to say so much, for what he does say will produce results. This
growing power of emotion will carry over into feelings of relation and
thus lead to judgment of values. This evaluation is the basis of
reasoning and answers to the child's daily call to think from causes
to consequences. This increasing power of emotion develops into the
aesthetic sensibilities and so results in a cultivation of taste and an
understanding of life. Emotion therefore leads to appreciation, which,
when logically developed, becomes expression. Fairy tales, thus, in
conducting emotional capacity through this varied growth and toward
this high development, hold an educational value of no mean order.

(2) The power to appeal to the imagination. Emotion can be aroused by
showing the objects which excite emotion. Imagination is this power to
see and show things in the concrete. Curry says, "Whenever the soul
comes vividly in contact with any fact, truth, etc., whenever it takes
them home to itself with more than common intensity, out of that
meeting of the soul and its object there arises a thrill of joy, a
glow of feeling. It is the faculty that can create ideal presence."
When through imagination we select spontaneously from the elements of
experience and combine into new wholes, we call it creative
imagination.--The creative imagination will be viewed here as it
appears in action in the creative return given by the child to his
fairy tales.--When we emphasize a similarity seen in mere external or
accidental relations or follow suggestions not of an essential nature
in the object, we call it fancy. Ruskin, in his _Modern Painters_,
vol. I, part III, _Of the Imaginative Faculty_, would distinguish
three classes of the imagination:--

(a) _The associative imagination_. This is the power of imagination by
which we call into association other images that tend to produce the
same or allied emotion. When this association has no common ground of
emotion it is fancy. The test for the associative imagination, which
has the power to combine ideas to form a conception, is that if one
part is taken away the rest of the combination goes to pieces. It
requires intense simplicity, harmony, and absolute truth. Andersen's
_Fairy Tales_ are a perfect drill for the associative imagination.
Literature parallels life and what is presented calls up individual
experience. Any child will feel a thrill of kinship with the
experiences given in _The Tin Soldier_--a little boy's birthday, the
opening of the box, the counting of the soldiers, and the setting of
them upon the table. And because here Andersen has transformed this
usual experience with a vivacity and charm, the tale ranks high as a
tale of imagination. _Little Ida's Flowers_ and _Thumbelina_ are tales
of pure fancy. Grimm's _The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean_ and _The
Spindle, the Shuttle, and the Needle_ rank in the same class, as also
do the Norse _The Doll i' the Grass_ and the English _Tom Thumb_.

(b) _The penetrative imagination_. This power of imagination shows the
real character of a thing and describes it by its spiritual effects.
It sees the heart and inner nature of things. Through fancy the child
cannot reach this central viewpoint since fancy deals only with
externals. Through the exercise of this power the child develops
insight, intuition, and a perception of spiritual values, and gains a
love of the ideal truth and a perpetual thirst for it. He develops
genuineness, one of the chief virtues of originality. He will tend not
to have respect for sayings or opinions but will seek the truth, be
governed by its laws, and hold a passion for perfection. This power of
imagination makes of him a continual seeker, "a pilgrim upon earth."
Through the penetrative imagination the child forgets himself and
enters into the things about him, into the doings of Three Pigs or the
adventures of Henny Penny.

(c) _The contemplative imagination_. This is that special phase of the
imagination that gives to abstract being consistency and reality.
Through the contemplative imagination the child gains the significance
of meaning and discerns the true message of the tale. When merely
external resemblance is caught, when the likeness is forced, and the
image created believed in, we have fancy. The contemplative
imagination interprets the past in the tale and relates it to the
future. It shows what is felt by indicating some aspect of what is
seen. Through the exercise of this power the child develops the
capacity to see. This capacity has received a high estimate from
Ruskin, who said, "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think,
thousands can think for one who can see." For language-training the
capacity to see gives that ability to image words which results in
mental growth.

The labor of the spirit seeking the full message of the fairy tale,
often is rewarded with bits of philosophy which are the essence of its
personal wisdom. Even the Woman Suffragists of our day might be amused
to find, in _The Cat and Mouse in Partnership_, this side-light on one
of their claims. The Mouse said she did not know what to think of the
curious names, Top-off, Half-Out, and All-Out, which the Cat had
chosen. To which the Cat replied, "That is because you always stay at
home. You sit here in your soft gray coat and long tail, and these
foolish whims get into your head. It is always the way when one does
not go out in the daytime." Sometimes the philosophy of the tale is
expressed not at all directly. This is the case in Andersen's _The
Emperor's New Suit_, a gem in story-telling art--more suited to the
second grade--where the purpose of the story is veiled, and the satire
or humor is conveyed through a very telling word or two.--"'I will
send my _old, honest_ minister to the weavers,' thought the Emperor.
And the old, honest minister went to the room where the two swindlers
sat working at empty looms. 'Heaven preserve me!' thought the old
minister, opening his eyes wide. 'Why, I cannot see anything!'--But he
did not say so." The entire tale is a concrete representation of one
point; and the concreteness is so explicit that at the close of the
story its philosophy easily forms itself into the implied message of
worldly wisdom: People are afraid to speak truth concerning much
through cowardice or through fear of acting otherwise than all the
world. The philosophy underlying _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_ is even
finer as a bit of truth than the perfect art of the literary story:
That what happens in life does not matter so much as the way you take
it. The Tin Soldier always remained steadfast, no matter what
happened. Kipling's _Elephant's Child_ is more charming than ever when
looked at from the standpoint of its philosophy. It might be
interpreted as an allegory answering the question, "How should one get
experience?" a theme which cannot be said to lack universal appeal.
_The Ugly Duckling_ is full of sayings of philosophy that contribute
to its complete message. The Cat and the Hen to whom the duckling
crept for refuge said, "We and the world," and could not bear a
difference of opinion. "You may believe me," said the Hen, "because I
tell you the truth. That is the way to tell your friends." Their
treatment of the Duckling expressed the philosophy: "If you can't do
what I can you're no good." The Hen said to him, "You have nothing to
do, that's why you have such strange ideas." The Duckling expressed
his philosophy by saying quietly, "You don't understand me."

These bits of philosophy often become compressed into expressions
which to-day we recognize as proverbs. The words of the Mother Duck,
"Into the water he goes if I have to kick him in," became a
Scandinavian proverb. "A little bird told it," a common saying of
to-day, appears in Andersen's _Nightingale_ and in _Thumbelina_. But
this saying is traceable at least to the third story of the fourth
night in Straparola, translated by Keightley, _The Dancing Water, the
Singing Apple, and the Beautiful Green Bird_, in which the bird tells
the King that his three guests are his own children. "Even a cat may
look at a king," is probably traceable to some fairy tale if not to
_Puss-in-Boots_. The philosophy in the fairy tales and the proverbs
that have arisen in them, are subjects which offer to the adult much
pleasure and fruitfulness.

But one must ask, "Does this philosophy appeal to the child? Is it not
adult wisdom foreign to his immaturity?" The old folk-tales are the
products of adult minds; but the adults were grown-ups that looked
upon the world with the eyes of children, and their philosophy often
was the philosophy of childhood. For childhood has its philosophy; but
because it meets with repression on so many sides it usually keeps it
to itself. When given freedom and self-activity and self-expression,
the child's philosophy appears also. And it is the inner truth of the
tale rather than the outer forms of sense and shapes of beauty which,
when suited to the little child, appeals to this child-philosophy and
makes the deepest impression upon him.

In the literary fairy tale there often appears a philosophy which is
didactic and above and beyond the child's knowledge of the world. It
remains a question how much this adult philosophy appeals to him.
Although his tales were written for his grandchildren, so finished a
telling of the tale as we find in Laboulaye, with its delightful hits
of satire, appeals more to the grown-up versed in the ways of the
world. But the sage remarks of worldly wisdom of Uncle Remus could not
fail to impress a little boy: "Go where you will and when you may, and
stay long ez you choosen ter stay, en right dar en den you'll sholy
fin' dat folks what git full er consate en proudness is gwine ter git
it tuck out 'm um."--Uncle Remus treated the little boy as if he was
"pestered with sense, like grown-ups," and surely the little boy
gained much amusement from sayings such as these: "If you know the man
thab would refuse to take care of himself, I'd like mighty well if
you'd point him out."--"Well, well," said Uncle Remus soothingly, "in
deze low groun's er sorrer, you des got to lean back en make
allowances fer all sorts er folks. You got ter low fer dem dat knows
too much same ez dem what knows too little. A heap er sayin's en a
heap er doin's in dis roun' worl' got ter be tuck on trus'."--The
child does not get the full force of the philosophy but he gets what
he can and that much sinks in.

It is through the contemplative imagination that the child realizes
the meaning of particular tales. He learns: that _Cinderella_ means
that goodness brings its own reward; that _Three Pigs_ means that the
wise build with care and caution, with foresight; that _Star Dollars_
means compassion for others and kindness to them; and that _Red Riding
Hood_ means obedience.

The power of the contemplative imagination is based on the
indistinctness of the image. It suggests, too, the relation between
cause and effect, which reason afterwards proves; and therefore it is
a direct aid to science. In the tales there are expressed facts of
truth symbolically clothed which science since then has discovered.
And now that folk-lore is being studied seriously to unfold all it
gives of an earlier life, perhaps this new study may reveal some new
truths of science hidden in its depths. The marvels of modern shoe
manufacture were prophesied in _The Little Elves_, and the power of
electricity to hold fast was foretold in _Dummling and his Golden
Goose_. The wonders of modern machinery appeared in the magic axe of
Espen that hit at every stroke; and the miracle of modern canals sees
a counterpart in the spring which Espen brought to the giant's
boiling-pot in the wood. The magic sleep from which there was an
awakening, even after a hundred years, may have typified hypnotism and
its strange power upon man. These are realizations of some of the
wonders of fairyland. But there may be found lurking in its depths
many truths as yet undiscovered by science. Perhaps the dreams of
primitive man may suggest to the present-day scientist new
possibilities.--What primitive man has done in fancy present-day man
can do in reality.

(3) A basis of truth. All fine emotional effects arise from truth. The
tale must hold the mirror and show an image of life. It must select
and combine facts which will suggest emotion but the facts must be a
true expression of human nature. The tale, whether it is realistic in
emphasizing the familiar, the commonplace, and the present, or
romantic in emphasizing the strange, the heroic, and the remote, must
be idealistic to interpret truly the facts of life by high ideals. If
the tale has this basis of truth the child will gain, through his
handling of it, a body of facts. This increases his knowledge and
strengthens his intellect. And it is to be remembered that, for the
child's all-round development, the appeal of literature to the
intellect is a value to be emphasized equally with the appeal to the
emotions and to the imagination. Speaking of the nature of the
intellect in his essay on _Intellect_, Emerson has said: "We do not
determine what we will think. We only open our senses, clear away as
we can all obstruction from the fact, and suffer the intellect to
see." Attention to the intellectual element in literature gives a
power of thought. The consideration of the truth of the fairy tale
aids the child to clear, definite thinking because the experience of
the tale is ordered from a beginning, through a development, to a
climax, and to a conclusion. It assists him to form conclusions
because it presents results of circumstances and consequences of
conduct. Continued attention to the facts, knowledge, and truth
presented in the tales, helps the child to grow a sincerity of spirit.
This leads to that love of actual truth, which is one of the armors of
middle life, against which false opinion falls harmless.

(4) A form, more or less perfect. Form is the union of all the means
which the writer employs to convey his thought and emotion to the
reader. Flaubert has said, "Among all the expressions of the world
there is but _one_, one form, one mode, to express what I want to
say."--"Say what you have to say, what you have a will to say, in the
simplest, the most direct and exact manner possible, with no
surplusage," Walter Pater has spoken. Then the form and the matter
will fit each other so perfectly there will be no unnecessary
adornment.

In regard to form it is to be remembered that feeling is best awakened
incidentally by suggestion. Words are the instruments, the medium of
the writer. Words have two powers: the power to name what they mean,
or denotation; and the power to suggest what they imply, or
connotation. Words have the power of connotation in two ways: They may
mean more than they say or they may produce emotional effect not only
from meaning but also from sound. To make these two suggestive powers
of words work together is the perfect art of Milton. Pope describes
for us the relation of sound to sense in a few lines which themselves
illustrate the point:--

     Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
     And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
     But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
     The hoarse, rough verse, should like the torrent roar.
     When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw.
     The line too labors, and the words move slow:
     Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
     Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main.

When a kindergarten child, the most timid one of a group, on listening
to the telling of _The Bremen Town Musicians_, at the description of
the Donkey and the Dog coming to the Cat, sitting in the road with a
face "dismal as three rainy Sundays," chuckled with humor at the word
"dismal," it was not because she knew the meaning of the word or the
significance of "three rainy Sundays," but because the sounds of the
words and the facial expression of the story-teller conveyed the
emotional effect, which she sensed.

The connection between sound and action appears in _Little Spider's
First Web_: The Fly said, "Then I will _buzz_"; the Bee said, "Then I
will _hum_"; the Cricket said, "Then I will _chirp_"; the Ant said,
"Then I will _run_ to and fro"; the Butterfly said, "Then I will
_fly_"; and the Bird said, "Then I will _sing_." The effect is
produced here because the words selected are concrete ones which
visualize. Repetitive passages in the tales often contribute this
effect of sound upon meaning, as we find in _The Three Billy-Goats
Gruff_: "Trip, trap; trip, trap! went the bridge as the youngest
Billy-Goat Gruff came to cross the bridge." The sound of the words in
this entire tale contributes largely to the meaning. The Troll roared
and said, "Now I'm coming to gobble you up!" Usually the bits of rhyme
interspersed throughout the tales, illustrate this contribution of
sound to meaning; as in the _Three Pigs_:--

     Then I'll huff,
     And I'll puff,
     And I'll blow your house in!

Especially is this the case in tales dignified by the cante-fable
form; such as Grimm's _Cinderella_:--

     Rustle and shake yourself, dear tree,
     And silver and gold throw down to me!

Or in _Little Two-Eyes_:--

     Little kid, bleat,
     I wish to eat!

Or in _The Little Lamb and the Little Fish_:--

     Ah, my brother, in the wood
     A Iamb, now I must search for food!

The suggestive power of words to convey more than they mean, is
produced, not only by the sounds contained in the words themselves,
but also largely by the arrangement of the words and by the
speech-tunes of the voice in speaking them. Kipling's _Elephant's
Child_ is a living example of the suggestive power of words. The "new,
fine question" suggests that the Elephant's Child had a habit of
asking questions which had not been received as if they were fine.
"Wait-a-bit thorn-bush," suggests the Kolokolo Bird sitting alone on
the bush in placid quiet. "And _still_ I want to know what the
crocodile has for dinner" implies that there had been enough spankings
to have killed the curiosity, but contrary to what one would expect,
it was living and active. When Kolokolo Bird said with a _mournful_
cry, "Go to the banks of the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River,"
etc., the implication of _mournful_ is, that there the Elephant's
Child would have a sorry time of it. The expression, "dear families,"
which occurs so often, is full of delightful irony and suggests the
vigorous treatment, anything but dear, which had come to the
Elephant's Child from them.

Perfect form consists in the "ability to convey thought and emotion
with perfect fidelity." The general qualities characteristic of
perfect form, which have been outlined by Professor Winchester, in his
_Principles of Literary Criticism_, are: (1) precision or clearness;
(2) energy or force; (3) delicacy or emotional harmony; and (4)
personality. Precision or clearness demands the precise value and
meaning of words. It requires that words have the power of denotation.
It appeals to the intellect of the reader or listener and demands that
language be neither vague nor ambiguous nor obscure. Energy or force
demands that perfect form have the quality of emotion. It requires
that words have especially the power of connotation. It appeals to the
emotions of the reader or listener and has the power to hold the
attention. It demands of language that sympathy which will imply what
it would suggest. Delicacy or emotional harmony demands that perfect
form please the taste. It requires that an emotional harmony be
secured by a selection and arrangement of the melody of words and of
the emotional associations which, together with the meanings, are tied
up in words. It demands that words have the power of perfect
adaptation to the thought and feeling they express, that words have
both the power of denotation and of connotation. It appeals to the
aesthetic sense of the reader or listener, it gives to form beauty and
charm. Personality is the influence of the author, the charm of
individuality, and suggests the character of the writer.

At the same time that perfect form is characterized by the general
qualities of precision, energy, delicacy, and personality, as
composition consisting of words, sentences, paragraphs, or large
wholes, its elements must be controlled by certain main principles,
which have been presented by Professor Barrett Wendell in _English
Composition_. Perfect form cannot possess the four general qualities
above mentioned unless its elements are controlled by these main
principles. These are: (1) the principle of sincerity; (2) the
principle of unity; (3) the principle of mass; and (4) the principle
of coherence. Sincerity demands of perfect form that it be a just
expression. Unity demands that every composition should group itself
about a central idea. There must be one story, all incidents
subordinated, one main course of action, one main group of characters,
and one tone of feeling to produce an emotional effect. Variety of
action must lead to one definite result and variety of feeling to one
total impression. Unity demands that the tale must have a plan that is
complete, with no irrelevant material, and that there must be a
logical order and a climax. Mass demands that the chief parts of every
composition should readily catch the eye. It maintains a harmonious
proportion of all the parts. Coherence demands of any composition that
the relation of each part to its neighbors should be unmistakable, and
that the order, forms, and connections of the parts preserve this
relation.

When form secures a perfect adaptation of the language to the thought
and feeling expressed, it may be said to possess style, in a broad
sense of the word. In a more detailed sense, when form is
characterized by precision, energy, delicacy, and personality, and at
the same time has the elements of its composition controlled by the
principles of sincerity, unity, mass, and coherence, it is said to
possess style. The fairy tale which is a classic characterized by that
perfect form called style, will possess the general qualities of
precision, energy, delicacy, and personality; and the elements of its
structure, its words, its sentences, its paragraphs, will display a
control of the principles of sincerity, unity, mass, and coherence.

A tale which well illustrates the literary form possible to the
child's tale, which may be said to possess that perfection of form we
call style, and which may be used with the distinct aim to improve the
child's English and perfect his language expression, is the modern
realistic fairy tale, _Oeyvind and Marit_.

_Oeyvind and Marit_ is so entirely realistic as to be excluded here,
but the talking rhymes which the Mother sings to Oeyvind bring in the
fairy element of the talking animals. In the form of this tale, the
perfect fidelity with which the words fit the meaning is
apparent--nothing seems superfluous. When Oeyvind asked Marit who she
was, she replied:--

"I am Marit, mother's little one, father's fiddle, the elf in the
house, granddaughter of Ole Nordistuen of the Heidi farms, four years
old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights, I!"

And Oeyvind replied:--

     "Are you really?"--and drew a long breath which he had not
     dared to do so long as she was speaking.

The story is full of instances illustrating precision, energy, and
delicacy. In fact, almost any passage exemplifies the general
qualities of form and the qualities of composition. The personality of
the writer has given to the tale a poetic and dramatic charm of
simplicity. Note the precision and delicacy displayed in the opening
paragraph:--

     Oeyvind was his name. A low barren cliff overhung the house
     in which he was born; fir and birch looked down on the roof,
     and wild cherry strewed flowers over it. Upon this roof
     there walked about a little goat, which belonged to Oeyvind.
     He was kept there that he might not go astray; and Oeyvind
     carried leaves and grass up to him. One fine day the goat
     leaped down, and away to the cliff; he went straight up and
     came where he never had been before.

Energy is apparent in the following passage:--

     "Is it yours, this goat?" asked the girl again.

     "Yes," he said, and looked up.

     "I have taken such a fancy to the goat. You will not give it
     to me?"

     "No, that I won't."

     She lay kicking her legs and looking down at him, and then
     she said, "But if I give you a butter-cake for the goat, can
     I have him then?"

The justness of expression, the sincerity, is especially impressive
when Oeyvind's Mother came out and sat down by his side when the goat
no longer satisfied him and he wanted to hear stories of what was far
away. There is emotional harmony too, because the words suggest the
free freshness of the mountain air and the landscape which rose round
about the Boy and his Mother.

     So she told him how once everything could talk: "The
     mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river,
     the river to the sea, and the sea to the sky."--But then he
     asked if the sky did not talk to any one: "And the sky
     talked to the clouds, the clouds to the trees, the trees to
     the grass, the grass to the flies, the flies to the animals,
     the animals to the children, the children to the grown-up
     people...." Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the trees, and
     the sky and had never seen them before.

There is delicacy or emotional harmony also in the Mother's song. When
Oeyvind asked, "What does the Cat say?" his Mother sang:--

     At evening softly shines the sun.
     The cat lies lazy on the stone.
     Two small mice,
     Cream, thick and nice,
     Four bits of fish,
     1 stole behind a dish,
     And am so lazy and tired,
     Because so well I have fared.

The unity is maintained through the central interest of the two
Children and the goat.

The tale is characterized by fairly good mass. As the story aims to
portray a natural picture of child life, obviously it could not
maintain a style of too great solidity and force, but rather would
seek one of ease and naturalness. Mass, as shown in _Oeyvind and
Marit_, appears in the following description of Oeyvind's play with
the goat, after he first realized its return:--

     He jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs, and danced with
     it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and he was
     just going in to his mother with it, when he heard someone
     behind him; and looking, saw the girl sitting on the
     greensward by his side. Now he understood it all, and let go
     the goat.

The story of child-friendship is told in distinct little episodes
which naturally connect. That unmistakable relation of the parts which
is essential to coherence, appears in the following outline of the
story:--

     1. A new acquaintance; Oeyvind and Marit meet. The exchange of a
        goat for a cake. The departure of the goat. Marit sings to the
        goat. The return of the goat. Marit accompanies the goat.

     2. New interests. The stories of what the animals say, told to
        Oeyvind by his Mother. The first day of school.

     3. An old acquaintance renewed: Oeyvind again meets Marit at
        School.

The Children's love of the goat, the comradeship of Oeyvind and Marit,
of Oeyvind and his Mother, and of Marit and her Grandfather, are
elements which assist in producing coherence. The songs of Marit, and
the songs and stories of Oeyvind's Mother, especially preserve the
relation of parts. In the following paragraphs, which give distinct
pictures, note the coherence secured internally largely by the
succession of verbs denoting action and also by the denotation of the
words.

     When he came in, there sat as many children round a table as
     he had ever seen at church; others were sitting on their
     luncheon-boxes, which were ranged round the walls; some
     stood in small groups round a large printed card; the
     school-master, an old gray-haired man, was sitting on a
     stool by the chimney-corner, filling his pipe. They all
     looked up as Oeyvind and his mother entered, and the
     mill-hum ceased as if the water had suddenly been turned
     off....

     As he was going to find his seat, they all wanted to make
     room for him. He looked round a long time, while they
     whispered and pointed; he turned round on all sides, with
     his cap in his hand and his book under his arm....

     Just as the boy is going to turn round to the school-master,
     he sees close beside him, sitting down by the hearthstone on
     a little red painted tub, Marit, of the many names; she had
     covered her face with both hands, and sat peeping at him
     through her fingers.

The imagination is appealed to continually through the simple concrete
expressions which present an image; as, "He grew hot all over, looked
around about, and called, 'Killy-killy-killy-goat!'"

The emotional element is distinct and pleasing and contributes to the
total impression of admiration for the characters. We admire Oeyvind
for his fondness for the goat and for his pain at losing it; for his
dissatisfaction in keeping it after Marit returned it, though she
wanted it; for his delight in his Mother's stories; and for his
pleasure in Marit's friendship at school. We admire Marit for her
appreciation of the beautiful goat; for her obedience to her
Grandfather; for her sorrow at giving up the goat; for her generosity
in giving the neck-chain with it; and for the childish comradeship she
gave to Oeyvind. We admire the goat for his loyalty to his little
master. We trust the Grandfather who trained Marit to be fair and
courteous; who guarded her from the cliff; and who bought for her
another goat. We have faith in the Mother who had feeling for the
little goat her son bartered for a cake; and who had the wisdom to
sing for her little boy and tell him stories when he was sorrowful and
needed new interests.

Undoubtedly _Oeyvind and Marit_ is a tale which conveys its thought
clearly and makes you feel its feeling, and therefore may be said to
possess style in a broad sense. In a particular sense, because its
form is marked by the four general qualities: precision, energy,
delicacy, and personality; and its elements are controlled by the
principles of composition: sincerity, unity, mass, and coherence, it
therefore may be said to possess style.

An old tale which has a literary form unusual in its approach to the
perfect literary form, is the Norse, _The Three Billy-Goats Gruff_,
told by Dasent in _Tales from the Norse_. Indeed after looking
carefully at this tale one is tempted to say that, for perfection of
style, some of the old folk-tales are not to be equaled. Note the
simple precision shown in the very first paragraph:--

     Once on a time there were three Billy-Goats, who were to go
     up to the hill-side to make themselves fat, and the name of
     all three was "Gruff."

Energy or force appeals to the emotions in the words of the tiny
Billy-Goat Gruff to the Troll:--

     "Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am,"
     said the Billy-Goat; "wait a bit till the second Billy-Goat
     Gruff comes, he's much bigger."

There is emotional harmony displayed in the second paragraph; the
words used fit the ideas:--

     On the way up was a bridge over a burn they had to cross;
     and under the bridge lived a great ugly Troll, with eyes as
     big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.

The quality of personality is best described, perhaps, by saying that
the tale seems to have impersonality. Any charm of the story-tellers
of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an
objective presentment of a reality that concentrates on itself and
keeps personality out of sight. The character of the tellers is shown
however in the qualities of the tale. The charm of the primitive
story-tellers has given the tale inimitable morning-dew freshness.
This seems to result from a fine simplicity, a sprightly
visualization, a quaint picturesqueness, a pleasing terseness, and an
Anglo-Saxon vigor.

Sincerity is displayed in the words of the Troll and of the three
Billy-Goats. Note the sincerity of little Billy-Goat Gruff:--

     "Oh! it is only I, the tiniest Billy-Goat Gruff; and I'm
     going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the
     Billy-Goat, with such a small voice.

The unity in this tale is unusually good. The central idea which
groups all the happenings in the tale is: Three Billy-Goats are
crossing a bridge to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat.
There are four characters, three Goats and the Troll. All that happens
in the tale contributes to the one effect of a bridge going trip,
trap! as a Goat crossed it on his way up the hillside; of a Troll
roaring: "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" of the explanation of
the Billy-Goat; of the answer of the Troll, "Now I'm coming to gobble
you up"; and of the Billy-Goat's final petition. Unity is emphasized
by the repetition in the tale, as the three Billy-Goats successively
cross the bridge and reply to the Troll. The climax is the big
Billy-Goat Gruff's tramp across the bridge.

This tale is characterized by perfect mass, the paragraphs always end
with words that deserve distinction, and the sentences have their
strongest words at the points where the eye would most readily see
them; as, "But just then up came the big Billy-Goat Gruff." The
coherence is fine, and is secured largely by the cumulative plan in a
threefold sense. The relation of the parts is unmistakable. The
similarity and contrast evident in the episodes of the three
Billy-Goats makes this relation very clearly defined. To make doubly
sure the end has been reached the tale concludes:--

     Snip, snap, snout,
     This tale's told out.

Let us examine the folk-tale generally as to its literary form. The
folk-tale originally did not come from the people in literary form.
The tale was first told by some nameless primitive man, who, returning
from some adventure of everyday life, would narrate it to a group of
his comrades. First told to astonish and interest, or to give a
warning of the penalty of breaking Nature's laws, or to teach a moral
lesson, or to raise a laugh, later it became worked up into the
fabulous stories of gods and heroes. These fabulous stories developed
into myth-systems, and these again into household tales. By constant
repetition from one generation to another, incidents likely to happen
in everyday life, which represented universal experiences and
satisfied common needs of childhood, were selected and combined. These
gradually assumed a form of simplicity and literary charm, partly
because, just as a child insists on accuracy, savage people adhered
strictly to form in repeating the tale, and because it is a law of
permanence that what meets the universal need will survive. The great
old folk-tales have acquired in their form a clearness and precision;
for in the process of telling and re-telling through the ages all the
episodes became clearly defined. And as irrelevant details dropped
out, there developed that unity produced by one dominant theme and one
dominant mood. The great old folk-tales, then, naturally acquired a
good classic literary form through social selection and survival. But
many of the tales as we know them have suffered either through
translation or through careless modern retelling. Many of the
folk-tales take on real literary form only through the re-treatment of
a literary artist. Mrs. Steel, who has collected the _Tales of the
Punjab_, tells how the little boys of India who seek to hold their
listening groups will vary the incidents in a tale in different
tellings, proving that the complete tale was not the original unit,
but that single incidents are much more apt to retain their stock
forms than plots. The combination we now have in a given tale was
probably a good form once hit upon and thereafter transmitted.

Jacob (1785-1863) and William (1786-1859) Grimm, both fine scholars,
incapable of any but good work, did not undertake to put the tale into
literary form suited to children. They were interested in preserving
folk-lore records for scientific purposes. And we must distinguish
between the tale as a means of reflecting the ideals of social and
religious life, of displaying all the genius of primitive man for
science to interpret, and the tale as a means of pleasing and
educating the child. The Grimms obtained most of their tales from the
lips of people in Hesse and Hanau, Germany. They were very fortunate
in securing many of the tales they were thirteen years in collecting,
from an old nurse, Frau Vichmannin, the wife of a cowherd, who lived
at Niederzwehrn, near Cassel, who told her story with exactness and
never changed anything in repeating. Grimm himself said, "Our first
care was faithfulness to the truth. We strove to penetrate into the
wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble language,
watching their pure customs, recognizing their ancient freedom and
hearty faith." The Grimms sought the purity of a straightforward
narration. They were against reconstruction to beautify and poetize
the legends. They were not opposed to a free appropriation for modern
and individual purposes. They kept close to the original, adding
nothing of circumstance or trait, but rendering the stories in a style
and language and development of detail which was their own literary
German.

Perrault (1628-1703) had taken the old tales as his son, Charles, a
lad of ten or twelve, told them. The father had told them to the son
as he had gathered them up, intending to put them into verse after the
manner of La Fontaine. The lad loved the stories and re-wrote them
from memory for his father with such charming naivete that the father
chose the son's version in preference to his own, and published it.
But the tales of Perrault, nevertheless, show the embellishment of the
mature master-Academician's touch in subduing the too marvelous tone,
or adding a bit of court manners, or a satirical hit at the vanity and
failings of man.

Dasent (1820-96) has translated the Norse tales from the original
collection of Asbjoernsen and Moe. Comrades from boyhood to manhood,
scholar and naturalist, these two together had taken long walks into
the secluded peasant districts and had secured the tales from the
people of the dales and fells, careful to retain the folk-expressions.
Dasent, with the instinct, taste, and skill of a true scholar, has
preserved these tales of an honest manly race, a race of simple men
and women, free and unsubdued. He has preserved them in their
folk-language and in their true Norse setting. Harris (1848-1908) has
given his tales in the dialect of Uncle Remus. Jacobs (1854-) has
aimed to give the folk-tales in the language of the folk, retaining
nurses' expressions, giving a colloquial and romantic tone which often
contains what is archaic and crude. He has displayed freedom with the
text, invented whole incidents, or completed incidents, or changed
them. His object has been to fill children's imaginations with bright
images. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) has given the tale mainly to entertain
children. He has accepted translations from many sources and has given
a straightforward narration. He has collected fairy tales
indefatigably in his rainbow _Fairy Books_, but they are not always to
be recommended for children.

Andersen (1805-75), like Perrault, made his tale for the child as an
audience, and he too has put the tale into literary form. Andersen's
tale is not the old tale, but an original creation, a number of which
are based on old folk-material. Preserving the child's point of view,
Andersen has enriched his language with a mastery of perfection and
literary style. And the "mantle of Andersen" has, so far, fallen on no
one.

To-day it is to be questioned if the child should be given the tale in
nurses' talk. To-day children are best cared for by mothers who feel
ignorant if they cannot tell their children stories, and who, having
an appreciation of their mother English, want their children to hear
stories, not only told by themselves rather than by their servants,
but also told in the best literary form possible. They recognize that
these earliest years, when the child is first learning his language,
are the years for a perfection of form to become indelibly impressed.
The fairy tale, like every piece of literature, is an organism and
"should be put before the youngest child with its head on, and
standing on both feet." The wholesale re-telling of every tale is to
be deplored. And stories which have proved themselves genuine
classics, which have a right to live, which have been handed down by
tradition, which have been preserved by folk-lore records, and which
have been rescued from oblivion,--in this age of books should have a
literary form, which is part of their message, settled upon them. The
Grimm tales await their literary master.



III. THE FAIRY TALE AS A SHORT-STORY


The fairy tale, then, which in an objective sense, from the standpoint
of literature, has proved itself subject-matter of real worth, must be
a classic, must have the qualities of mind and soul, must possess the
power to appeal to the emotions, a power to appeal to the imagination,
and it must have a basis of truth and a perfection of form. But in
addition to possessing these characteristics, because the fairy tale
is a special literary form,--the short-story,--as literature it must
stand the test of the short-story.

The three main characteristics of the short-story, as given by
Professor Brander Matthews in his _Philosophy of the Short-Story_, are
originality of theme, ingenuity of invention, and brevity, or
compression. A single effect must be conceived, and no more written
than contributes to that effect. The story depends for its power and
charm on (1) characters; (2) plot; and (3) setting. In _The Life and
Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_, by Graham Balfour, Stevenson has
said, concerning the short-story:--

     "There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three ways
     only, of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit
     characters to it, or you may take a character and choose
     incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly--you must
     bear with me while I try to make this clear.... You may take
     a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express
     and realize it. I'll give you an example--_The Merry Men_.
     There I began with the feeling of one of those islands on
     the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the
     story to express the sentiment with which the coast affected
     me."

According to the method by which the story was made, the emphasis will
be on character, plot, or setting. Sometimes you may have a perfect
blending of all three.

(1) Characters. The characters must be unique and original, so that
they catch the eye at once. They dare not be colorless, they must have
striking experiences. The Elephant's Child, Henny Penny, Medio
Pollito, Jack of the Beanstalk, the Three Pigs, the Three Bears, and
Drakesbill--the characters of the fairy tales have no equal in
literature for freshness and vivacity. The very mention of the thought
brings a smile of recognition; and it is for this reason, no doubt,
that leading men in large universities turn aside from their high
scholarly labo