A Study of Fairy Tales

A Study of Fairy Tales, by Laura
F. Kready,

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Title: A Study of Fairy Tales
Author: Laura F. Kready
Release Date: October 7, 2004 [eBook #13666] [Date last updated:
August 21, 2006]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY
OF FAIRY TALES***
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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