The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-17
THE GONocIASTS.


 From the Washington Herald ''when the breeze of a joyful dawn
 blew free
 Tn the silken sail of infancy. The tide of time how'd back with me,
 The forward flowing tide of time And many a sheeny summer morn Adown the Tigris I was borne By Bagdads shrines of fretted gold, High walled gardens green and gold True Mussulman was I and sworn,
 For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.'
 Tennysons reverie of recollection of the delights of the Arabian Nights" comes instantly to mind as one reads of the action of the board of education at Passaic, N. J. who are trying to banish from the school shelves all the fairy stories-the Arabian Nights" Jack the Giant Killer" Robin Hood" Grimm" and even Hans Ch ristian An derson.
 One can hardly realize that such a move can seriously be contemplated. Rank iconoclasm could hardly farther go. Are we getting so wise, so vir- tuous, that we cannot leave the young. sters any of the illusions that made youth so beautiful? What, in heavens name, can the educational Gradgrinds offer to the souls of children in the place of the delights they take away?
 In the growth of every nation the fairy story and the legend have been a necessity. From "Ung on his glittering icefeld," drawing fairy pictures on walrus bone, to the ancient Egyptians, or our own cave-dwellers. we know how large a part fairy stories played in the growth of civilization. First the story, then the truth So it is with individuals. Material things interest the children, but the fairy stories awaken their imag glnation, stimulate their intelligence, and fill tn heir hearts and minds with loving, tender dreams that cling to them through all the weary years.
 Tell me story, moth eri' Heaven pity the man who has not heard a child of his own say that, wistfully to its mother. The longing for the dear dreams that the fairy stories incite is inborn in the heart of a chi id. Back into the great mystery from which came the soul of the little one, its mind longs to wander among enchanted palaces and by golden streams. The good and beautiful princess is locked in the tower and the noble knight, through dangers perilous, is going to rescue her. and "so they were married and lived happily ever after" In fo afa fau of childhood. which seem so great to the child, take wings to themselves and fly away. lin fairyland there is small room for grief; always the good are rewarded. the evil punished, and the lessons that are absorbed all un- consciously from the fairy tales have an influence that no adult is wise enough to gauge. As Mrs. Browning says:
 Women know
 The way to rear up children (to be
 just).
 They know a simple, merry, tender Of tying sashes. fitting baby shoes. And stringing pretty words that make
 no sense
 And kissing full sense into empty words;
 Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trif1es" It may seem tri1ng thing to de- prlve children of their fairy tales, but it is not. It is robbing tn em of an in- heritance to which they have full right, and child who should arrive at ma turity without knowing of the deeds of Jack the Giant Killer, or of good Haroun Alraschid, would be almost as pitiful spectacle as the South Sea islander who had never heard of God.