The New York herald., 1922-04-23
What Are the Great Fairy Stories and Why?

was the means Of Furnishing the
villain!) This quite spoils the legiti-
mate moral suspense OF the waiting
while slowpoke Sister Ann watches
from the tower. suspense perhaps
too acute for delicate little organ
isms anyway. Yes. that curiosity
motif is full OF all sorts OF tricky
back actions. OF all the motifs of
fairy tales. then, only two are per-
fectly safe. The gratitude Of ami
mails, and the reward for virtue and
the punishment for vice by super
natural agencies.
".
But stay, Are these so safe after
all? Gratitude Is quite pointless
without ingratitude. and the punish
ment of ingratitude is so much more
stirring. And to impress upon child
the unfailing connection between
good and bad conduct and good and
bad results is quite capable of turn
ing an adolescent into an atheist
when he looks about a bit Besides,
rewards and punishments are aw-
fully primitive morals, you know; in
these days we have far more ethical
standards OF justice. It would have
immeasurably shocked the late
Horatio Alger and the mother of the
everlasting Elsie Dinsmore to hear
their books. so crammed with clock
work morality. pronounced immoral
by the modern librarian. A dizzy
prospect is opened to the contem-
porary censor. who. at last enIight-
ened by educational psychology,
must condemn tales not only be-
cause they are too immoral to be
moral but because they are too moral
also. Possibly the fairy story may
one day be discovered. by a future
psychology, to resemble the parable
or the prodigal son in that you can't
have the moral without the immoral.
ity. And speaking of the husks that
the swine did eat. reminds one that
desperate moralist Dickens called
desperate moralist Cruikshank "a
whole hog In flower garden" when
ne turned Hop-o-my-thumb into a
temperance tract.
But the matter OF morals is more
complicated than this. There are al
ways children who will take hold of
a tale at the wrong end. Their souls
are just as worth saving as those
who take hold OF the right end
aren't they? There was an abashed
mother who expected her sensitive
little one to glow with grateful Joy
because the bear didn't catch Molly
cottontail after all. Instead. she
wept bitterly over a situation which
she had created by an unexpected
reach OF the imagination. "Oh, think
of those dear little teddy bears hav-
ing to go to bed without any sup
pert" This recalls the other child
who inquired IL God picked Up all
sparrows when they fell; if not, what
was the use Of His knowing about
them? Then there Is the famous
clergyman who frowned upon all of
Shakespeare's plays but Romeo and
Juliet" which teaches the sound les
son that children should obey their
parents. IL he had only taken hold
OF the other end, he would have seen
II taught that parents mustn't cross
their children.
So when you consider that the only
fairy story quite safe is a story
without the slightest point, and that
stories with any point must consult
a highly complicated system where
morals get in each others way and
are often unethical: and that even
when they do so successfully some
body may always pick them up at
the wrong end-the matter OF imagi-
native literature for children becomes
complex. >,
VI.
The kindergarten's morality. men
tality and manners must be protect
Cd. Red Riding Hood" Is a shock
Ing narrative; 'Puss in Boots" glori-
fies lying and trickery: cinderella
and Sleeping Beauty" happily des-