The Winchester news. [volume] (Winchester, Ky.) 1908-19??, 1908-12-23
Santa CLAUS AID TIE FAIRIES
By Joel Chandler Harris.

y
there is a Christmas feel In the air
mateiialism is more apparent than
ever. 1t is in such cold contrast to
all the suggestions and memories that
linger around this great
Christian celebration that the mind
would turn away from it if that were
possible. But the cold and incompre-
hensible fact is thrust upon us, and
that, too lin the name of morality
Not very long ago, little boy went
running home from school in great
distress. He had been told by his
teacher that Santa Claus was a myth,
fable, an invention, nothing better
than a lie, invented for the express
purpose of deceiving young people
and the inference was that his father
and mother, and all his friends, were
involved in a conspiracy to deceive
him and make him the victim of
fraud. The little fellow was very
much hurt, and it was days before
he could be assured-before he
could be persuaded to resume his in
nocent belief in Santa Claus, and in
the innocent imaginings on which the
beautiful legend depends.
Now, what was at the bottom of
this proceeding but the grossest and
most hideous materialism, the sort
that is manufactured in the cheap
Laboratories Of our pseudo-scient-
lists? Why should those who have
charge of the education of the COM
ing generation be affected by it?
Why should a school-teacher, es-
pecially woman, strive to warp the
tender minds of her pupils by train
ing them up in the ways of material
ism The whole thing is mystery to
the farmer and mystery it will al
ways remain. A hundred explana-
tons will not explain it, nor will a
pretended love for truth make it less
gross. 1t is to be supposed that
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
school-teachers up and down the
land are at this moment engaged In
trying to make the period Of child
hood as commonplace and as dismal
as the youth of apes and gorillas.
They are trying to suppress not only
imagination, but belief itself, and,
along with belief, the possibility of
faith.
'It is a pity that there should be
any grovehng in this bright and
beautiful world, but so it is, and the
grovelers seem to be in the majority.
Greed grows with groveling, and some
men have a positive genius for it.
Witness the millions that they are
piling up to no good end and for no
great purpose. These millions speak
well for their greed-if anything can
speak well greed; and this is the only
tribute that will ever be paid to
them-that they succeeded well In
what they. started out to do. AS
witnesses to their success they can
call the ghosts of ruined men, hungry
women, and starving children, and
there will be no one to dispute their
testimony. Such is materialism in
its commOnest form and In its coars-
est aspect.
Do these people believe in Santa
Claus? Do they believe in Fairies?
Have they any intellectual ideals on
which their minds can repose? Alas
no; they prefer facts to the higher
truths, they have been brought up in
school in which the Imagination
is choked and stifed; they have never
had time to give way to any dreams
save the nightmare of business. If
Santa Claus could give them money
that they hadn't earned-if what
he gave them were clear proft-if
some good Fairy should touch the
lips of their women folk so that
diamonds and pearls should be scat
tered broadcast when they talked
then, and only then, there would be a
most hearty belief in the ideal truths
of youth, and we should have the
greatest campaign in behalf of the
ideal that the world has ever seen.
1t is true that the farmer has come
to the age when he is rather shy
about hanging up his stocking along
with those of the rest of the chill
dren, not because he is afraid he
will find it empty on Christmas morn
ing, but because he would rather see
the children receive what might be
70 HIM