Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-10
USE OF FAIRY TALES.
Children Need Them as Food for the
Imagination,

Prom the New York Evening Post.
The child's heroes and hero worship
change as he grows older. The adult
can find no single person who seems
wholly heroic. Irreproachable attributes
Of mind. body and soul are not coincident
In one mortal frame. The tantalizing
proximity TO perfection Is blocked by
some inevitable qualification. x. with
the guise Of Apollo and q mind like a
rapier. is q cynic- Y. Of the impehcnable
disposition and the capricious intellect.
II built like firl<in. So the grown up
finds no hawless human idol for venera-
ton; but the child Is luckier. His heroes
are trammeled by no flesh and blood ex-
friends He leaps into the company of
comrades by merely opening the cover of
his book. There stands perfection of
body and soul. Aladdin and Cinderella.
Hood. Jack the Giant Killer. Prince
Charming. not to mention Peter Pan
there are the friends waiting to do deeds
of prowess. BY childish standards the
to pass muster. They talk through their
noses. they wear baggy trousers. they
bob up and down when on horseback.
they kill no dragons. they marry no
princesses. Like every one else, the child
enjoys the realization of ideals. and these
are drawn from the land of beneficent
fairy godmothers. thwarted magicians
magic wands, princes In golden armor,
and princesses who are las kind and
clever as they are beautiful The theor-
lists would take away the children's fairy
tales to substitute something more ra-
tional But the child needs food for his
imagination. and the wholly rational
youngster is q prig.
This matter Of imagination is critical.
The child is by nature q weaver Of con-
ceits and dramas In little His games are
enlivened hE all sorts Of improbabilities,
as Stevenson has mentioned in his
IN any other way. The most common
place things take on the glamour of
strangeness. The cat as she dozes before
the fire seems q creature Of mysterious
potentialities to the Juvenile observer.
even though he has not yet read Of Puss
In Boots and My Lord Marquis of Cara
has. Indeed. it IL hard to say which
comes first; II often seems as II the fairy
tale were. at least. but a thin supplement
70 the childs imaginings.
In short, this fiction gives the child
what he Graves and needs. 1t stirs him
and perhaps influences him almost as
Moreover. he finds therein stern moral
lessons Of kindness and generosity. When
Cinderella forgives her two wicked sisters
he IL profoundly moved. Could he have
Fox's Book Of Martyrs? Or. to turn to
another side. suppose q little boy or girl
reads as follows.
Once upon time there was q prin-
cess who was the prettiest creature In
the world And because she was so beau
tiful. and because her hair was like the
frest gold and waved and rippled nearly
90 the ground. she was called Pretty
Goldilocks . and everybody who saw
her fell in love with her. Now, one of
her neighbors was young king who was
not married He was very ricn and hand
some. and when he heard all that was
said about Pretty Goldilocks. though he
had never seen her. he fell SO deeply in
love with her that The wedding.
which took place at once, was the pref
test that can be imagined. and Prince
Charming and Princess Goldilocks lived
happily ever after
At least. children get from this q saner
and less sophisticated conception of the
immortal passion than Is to be gained
from the dancing school or chit-chat
roundabout or from newspaper vulgar
tiles on the subject. The child who "be-
Heves In fairies" has an actual heritage
He Is rot merely supping moonshine
but is getting real nutriment.