A Study of Fairy Tales | Page 5

from his
pristine, inexperienced self-activity, to become that final, matured,
self-expressed, self-sufficient, social development--the educated man.
Joy is the mission of art and fairy tales are art products. As such Pater
would say, "For Art comes to you, proposing to give nothing but the
highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those
moments' sake. Not the fruit of experience, but experience, is the end."
Such quality came from the art of the fairy tale into the walk of a little
girl, for whom even the much-tabooed topic of the weather took on a
new, fresh charm. In answer to a remark concerning the day she replied,
"Yes, it's not too hot, and not too cold, but just right." All art, being a
product of the creative imagination, has the power to stimulate the
creative faculties. "For Art, like Genius," says Professor Woodberry,
"is common to all men, it is the stamp of the soul in them." All are
creatures of imitation and combination; and the little child, in handling
an art product, puts his thought through the artist's mould and gains a
touch of the artist's joy.
Fairy tales satisfy the play spirit of childhood. Folk-tales are the
product of a people in a primitive stage when all the world is a
wonder-sphere. Most of our popular tales date from days when the
primitive Aryan took his evening meal of yava and fermented mead,
and the dusky Sudra roamed the Punjab. "All these fancies are
pervaded with that purity by which children seem to us so wonderful,"
said William Grimm. "They have the same blue-white, immaculate
bright eyes." Little children are in this same wonder-stage. They
believe that the world about throbs with life and is peopled with all
manner of beautiful, powerful folk. All children are poets, and fairy
tales are the poetic recording of the facts of life. In this day of

commercial enterprise, if we would fit children for life we must see to
it that we do not blight the poets in them. In this day of emphasis on
vocational training we must remember there is a part of life unfed,
unnurtured, and unexercised by industrial education. Moreover,
whatever will be accomplished in life will be the achievement of a free
and vigorous life of the imagination. Before it was realized, everything
new had existed in some trained imagination, fertile with ideas. The
tale feeds the imagination, for the soul of it is a bit of play. It suits the
child because in it he is not bound by the law of cause and effect, nor
by the necessary relations of actual life. He is entirely in sympathy with
a world where events follow as one may choose. He likes the
mastership of the universe. And fairyland--where there is no time;
where troubles fade; where youth abides; where things come out all
right--is a pleasant place.
Furthermore, fairy tales are play forms. "Play," Bichter says, "is the
first creative utterance of man." "It is the highest form in which the
native activity of childhood expresses itself," says Miss Blow. Fairy
tales offer to the little child an opportunity for the exercise of that
self-active inner impulse which seeks expression in two kinds of play,
the symbolic activity of free play and the concrete presentation of types.
The play, The Light Bird, and the tale, The Bremen Town Musicians,
both offer an opportunity for the child to express that pursuit of a light
afar off, a theme which appeals to childhood. The fairy tale, because it
presents an organized form of human experience, helps to organize the
mind and gives to play the values of human life. By contributing so
largely to the play spirit, fairy tales contribute to that joy of activity, of
achievement, of coöperation, and of judgment, which is the joy of all
work. This habit of kindergarten play, with its joy and freedom and
initiative, is the highest goal to be attained in the method of university
work.
Fairy tales give the child a power of accurate observation. The habit of
re-experiencing, of visualization, which they exercise, increases the
ability to see, and is the contribution literature offers to nature study. In
childhood acquaintance with the natural objects of everyday life is the
central interest; and in its turn it furnishes those elements of experience

upon which imagination builds. For this reason it is rather remarkable
that the story, which is omitted from the Montessori system of
education, is perhaps the most valuable means of effecting that
sense-training, freedom, self-initiated play, repose, poise, and power of
reflection, which are foundation stones of its structure.
Fairy tales strengthen the power of emotion, develop the power of
imagination, train the memory, and exercise the reason. As emotion
and imagination are considered in Chapter