Читать книгу A Study of Fairy Tales - Laura Fry Kready - Страница 13

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Now that the value of fairy tales in education has been made clear, let us consider some of those principles of selection which should guide the teacher, the mother, the father, and the librarian, in choosing the tale for the little child.

Fairy tales must contain what interests children. It is a well-known principle that selective interest precedes voluntary attention; therefore interest is fundamental. All that is accomplished of permanent good is a by-product of the enjoyment of the tale. The tale will go home only as it brings joy, and it will bring joy when it secures the child's interest. Now interest is the condition which requires least mental effort. And fairy tales for little children must follow that great law of composition pointed out by Herbert Spencer, which makes all language consider the audience and the economy of the hearer's attention. The first step, then, is to study the interests of the child. We do not wish to give him just what he likes, but we want to give him a chance to choose from among those things which he ought to have and, as good and wise guardians, see that we offer what is in harmony with his interests. Any observation of the child's interest will show that he loves the things he finds in his fairy tales. He enjoys—

A sense of life. This is the biggest thing in the fairy tales, and the basis for their universal appeal. The little child who is just entering life can no more escape its attraction than can the aged veteran about to leave the pathway. The little pig, Whitie, who with his briskly curling tail goes eagerly down the road to secure, from the man who carried a load of straw, a bit with which to build his easily destructible house; Red Riding Hood taking a pot of jam to her sick grandmother; Henny Penny starting out on a walk, to meet with the surprise of a nut falling on her head—the biggest charm of all this is that it is life.

The familiar. The child, limited in experience, loves to come in touch with the things he knows about. It soothes his tenderness, allays his fears, makes him feel at home in the world—and he hates to feel strange—it calms his timidity, and satisfies his heart. The home and the people who live in it; the food, the clothing, and shelter of everyday life; the garden, the plant in it, or the live ant or toad; the friendly dog and cat, the road or street near by, the brook, the hill, the sky—these are a part of his world, and he feels them his own even in a story. The presents which the Rabbit went to town to buy for the little Rabbits, in How Brother Rabbit Frightens his Neighbors; the distinct names, Miss Janey and Billy Malone, given to the animals of In Some Lady's Garden, just as a child would name her dolls; and the new shoes of the Dog which the Rabbit managed to get in Why Mr. Dog Runs after Brother Rabbit—these all bring up in the child's experience delightful familiar associations. The tale which takes a familiar experience, gives it more meaning, and organizes it, such as The Little Red Hen, broadens, deepens, and enriches the child's present life.

The surprise. While he loves the familiar, nothing more quickly brings a smile than the surprise. Perhaps the most essential of the fairy traits is the combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The desire for the unknown, that curiosity which brings upon itself surprise, is the charm of childhood as well as the divine fire of the scientist. The naughty little Elephant who asked "a new, fine question he had never asked before," and who went to answer his own question of "what the crocodile has for dinner," met with many surprises which were spankings; and as a result, he returned home with a trunk and experience. He is a very good example of how delightful to the child this surprise can be. The essence of the fairy tale is natural life in a spiritual world, the usual child in the unusual environment, or the unusual child in the natural environment. This combination of the usual and unusual is the chief charm of Alice in Wonderland, where a natural child wanders through a changing environment that is unusual. For an idle moment enjoy the task of seeing how many ideas it contains which are the familiar ideas of children, and how they all have been "made different." All children love a tea-party, but what child would not be caught by having a tea-party with a Mad Hatter, a March Hare, and a sleepy Dormouse, with nothing to eat and no tea! Red Riding Hood was a dear little girl who set out to take a basket to her grandmother. But in the wood, after she had been gathering a nosegay and chasing butterflies, "just as I might do," any child might say, she met a wolf! And what child's ears would not rise with curiosity? "Now something's going to happen!" The Three Bears kept house. That was usual enough; but everything was different, and the charm is in giving the child a real surprise at every step. The house was not like an ordinary house; it was in the wood, and more like a play-house than a real one. There was a room, but not much in it; a table, but there was not on it what is on your table—only three bowls. What they contained was usual, but unusually one bowl of porridge was big and hot, one was less big and cold, and one was little and just right. There were usual chairs, unusual in size and very unusual when Goldilocks sat in them. Upstairs the bedroom was usual, but the beds were unusual when Goldilocks lay upon them. The Bears themselves were usual, but their talk and action was a delightful mixture of the surprising and the comical. Perhaps this love of surprise accounts for the perfect leap of interest with which a child will follow the Cock in The Bremen Town Musicians, as he saw from the top of the tree on which he perched, a light, afar off through the wood. Certainly the theme of a light in the distance has a charm for children as it must have had for man long ago.

Sense impression. Good things to eat, beautiful flowers, jewels, the beauties of sight, color, and sound, of odor and of taste, all gratify a child's craving for sense impression. This, in its height, is the charm of the Arabian Nights. But in a lesser degree it appears in all fairy tales. Cinderella's beautiful gowns at the ball and the fine supper stimulate the sense of color, beauty, and taste. The sugar-panes and gingerbread roof of the Witch's House, in Hansel and Grethel, stir the child's kindred taste for sweets and cookies. The Gingerbread Boy, with his chocolate jacket, his cinnamon buttons, currant eyes, rose-sugar mouth, orange-candy cap, and gingerbread shoes, makes the same strong sense appeal. There is a natural attraction for the child in the beautiful interior of Sleeping Beauty's Castle, in the lovely perfume of roses in the Beast's Rose-Garden, in the dance and song of the Elves, and in the dance of the Goat and her seven Kids about the well.

The beautiful. Closely related to this love of the material is the sense of the beautiful. "Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing," says Santayana. Pleasures of the eye and ear, of the imagination and memory, are those most easily objectified, and form the groundwork on which all higher beauty rests. The green of the spring, the odor of Red Riding Hood's flowers, the splendor of the Prince's ball in Cinderella—these when perceived distinctly are intelligible, and when perceived delightfully are beautiful. Language is a kind of music, too; the mode of speaking, the sound of letters, the inflection of the voice—all are elements of beauty. But this material beauty is tied up in close association with things "eye hath not seen nor ear heard," the moral beauty of the good and the message of the true. The industry of the little Elves reflects the worth of honest effort of the two aged peasants, and the dance of the Goat and seven Kids reflects the triumph of mother wit and the sharpness of love. The good, the true, and the beautiful are inseparably linked in the tale, just as they forever grow together in the life of the child. The tales differ largely in the element of beauty they present. Among those conspicuous for beauty may be mentioned Andersen's Thumbelina; the Indian How the Sun, the Moon, and West Wind Went Out to Dinner; the Japanese Mezumi, the Beautiful; and the English Robin's Christmas Song. Little Two-Eyes stands out as one containing a large element of beauty, and Oeyvind and Marit represents in an ideal way the possible union of the good, the true, and the beautiful. This union of the good, the true, and the beautiful has been expressed by an old Persian legend: "In the midst of the light is the beautiful, in the midst of the beautiful is the good, in the midst of the good is God, the Eternal One."

Wonder, mystery, magic. The spirit of wonder, like a will-o'-the-wisp, leads on through a fairy tale, enticing the child who follows, knowing that something will happen, and wondering what. When magic comes in he is gratified because some one becomes master of the universe—Cinderella, when she plants the hazel bough, and later goes to the wishing-tree; the fairy godmother, when with her wand she transforms a pumpkin to a gilded coach and six mice to beautiful gray horses; Little Two-Eyes, when she says—

Little kid, bleat,

I wish to eat!

and immediately her little table set with food so marvelously appears; or Hop-o'-my-Thumb when he steps into his Seven-League Boots and goes like the wind.

Adventure. This is a form of curiosity. In the old tale, as the wood was the place outside the usual habitation, naturally it was the place where things happened. Often there was a house in the wood, like the one "amidst the forest darkly green," where Snow White lived with the Dwarfs. This adventure the little child loves for its own sake. Later, when he is about eleven or twelve, he loves it for its motive. This love of adventure is part of the charm of Red Riding Hood, of the Three Bears, of the Three Pigs, or of any good tale you might mention.

Success. The child likes the fairy tale to tell him of some one who succeeds. He admires the little pig Speckle who outwitted the Wolf in getting to the field of turnips first, or in going to the apple tree at Merry-Garden, or to the fair at Shanklin; who built his house of brick which would defy assault; and whose cleverness ended the Wolf's life. This observation of success teaches the child to admire masterliness, to get the motto, Age quod agis, stamped into his child life from the beginning. It influences character to follow such conduct as that of the Little Red Hen, who took a grain of wheat—her little mite—who planted it, reaped it, made it into bread, and then ate it; who, in spite of the Goose and the Duck, secured to herself the reward of her labors.

Action. Akin to his love of running, skipping, and jumping, to his enjoyment in making things go and in seeing others make things go, is the child's desire for action in his fairy tales; and this is just another way of saying he wants his fairy tales to parallel life. Action is the special charm of the Gingerbread Boy, who opened the oven door and so marvelously ran along, outrunning an old Man, an old Woman, a little Boy, two Well-Diggers, two Ditch-Diggers, a Bear, and a Wolf, until he met the Fox waiting by the corner of the fence. Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats—a humorous tale written by Mrs. Sharp, a lady of ninety, edited by John Ruskin, who added the third, fourth, eighth, and ninth stanzas, and illustrated by Kate Greenaway—has this pleasing trait of action to a unique degree. So also has The Cock, the Mouse, and the Little Red Hen, a modern tale by Félicité Lefèvre. This very popular tale among children is a retelling of two old tales combined, The Little Red Hen and the Irish Little Rid Hin.

Humor. The child loves a joke, and the tale that is humorous is his special delight. Humor is the source of pleasure in Billy Bobtail, where the number of animals and the noises they make fill the tale with hilarious fun. There is most pleasing humor in Lambikin. Here the reckless hero frolicked about on his little tottery legs. On his way to Granny's house, as he met the Jackal, the Vulture, the Tiger, and the Wolf, giving a little frisk, he said—

To Granny's house I go,

Where I shall fatter grow,

Then you can eat me so!

Later, on returning, when the animals asked, "Have you seen

Lambikin?" cozily settled within his Drumikin, laughing and

singing to himself, he called out slyly—

Lost in the forest, and so are you,

On, little Drumikin! Tum-pa, turn-too!

Humor is the charm, too, of Andersen's Snow Man. Here the child can identify himself with the Dog and thereby join in the sport which the Dog makes at the Snow Man's expense, just as if he himself were enlightening the Snow Man about the Sun, the Moon, and the Stove. There is most delightful humor in The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership, where the Cat has the face to play upon the credulity of the poor housekeeper Mouse, who always "stayed at home and did not go out into the daytime." Returning home from his ventures abroad he named the first kitten Top-Off, the second one Half-Out, and the third one All-Out; while instead of having attended the christening of each, as he pretended, he secretly had been visiting the jar of fat he had placed for safe-keeping in the church.

Poetic justice. Emotional satisfaction and moral satisfaction based on emotional instinct appeal to the child. He pities the plight of the animals in the Bremen Town Musicians, and he wants them to find a refuge, a safe home. He is glad that the robbers are chased out, his sense of right and wrong is satisfied. Poetic justice suits him. This is one reason why fairy tales make a more definite impression often than life—because in the tale the retribution follows the act so swiftly that the child may see it, while in life "the mills of the gods grind slowly," and even the adult who looks cannot see them grind. The child wants Cinderella to gain the reward for her goodness; and he wishes the worthy Shoemaker and his Wife, in the Elves and the Shoemaker, to get the riches their industry deserves.

The imaginative. Fairy tales satisfy the activity of the child's imagination and stimulate his fancy. Some beautiful spring day, perhaps, after he has enjoyed an excursion to a field or meadow or wood, he will want to follow Andersen's Thumbelina in her travels. He will follow her as she floats on a lily pad, escapes a frog of a husband, rides on a butterfly, lives in the house of a field-mouse, escapes a mole of a husband, and then rides on the back of a friendly swallow to reach the south land and to become queen of the flowers. Here there is much play of fancy. But even when the episodes are homely and the situations familiar, as in Little Red Hen, the act of seeing them as distinct images and of following them with interest feeds the imagination. For while the elements are familiar, the combination is unusual; and this nourishes the child's ability to remove from the usual situation, which is the essential element in all originality. By entering into the life of the characters and identifying himself with them, he develops a large sympathy and a sense of power, he gains insight into life, and a care for the interests of the world. Thus imagination grows "in flexibility, in scope, and in sympathy, till the life which the individual lives is informed with the life of nature and of society," and acquires what Professor John Dewey calls Culture.

Animals. Very few of the child's fairy tales contain no animals. Southey said of a home: "A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is in it a child rising three years old and a kitten rising six weeks; kitten is in the animal world what a rose-bud is in a garden." In the same way it might be said of fairy tales: No tale is quite suited to the little child unless in it there is at least one animal. Such animal tales are The Bremen Town Musicians, Henny Penny, Ludwig and Marleen and The Elephant's Child. The episode of the hero or heroine and the friendly animal, as we find it retained in Two-Eyes and her little Goat, was probably a folk-lore convention—since dropped—common to the beginning of many of the old tales. It indicates how largely the friendly animal entered into the old stories.

A portrayal of human relations, especially with children. In Cinderella the child is held by the unkind treatment inflicted upon Cinderella by her Stepmother and the two haughty Sisters. He notes the solicitude of the Mother of the Seven Kids in guarding them from the Wolf. In the Three Bears he observes a picture of family life. A little child, on listening to The Three Pigs for the first time, was overwhelmed by one thought and cried out, "And didn't the Mother come home any more?" Naturally the child would be interested especially in children, for he is like the older boy, who, when looking at a picture-book, gleefully exclaimed, "That's me!" He likes to put himself in the place of others. He can do it most readily if the character is a small individual like Red Riding Hood who should obey her mother; or like Goldilocks who must not wander in the wood; or like Henny Penny who went to take a walk and was accosted by, "Where are you going?" In Brother Rabbit and the Little Girl the Little Girl takes the keenest enjoyment in putting herself in the customary grown-up's place of granting permission, while the Rabbit takes the usual child's place of mentioning a request with much persuasion. The child is interested, too, in the strange people he meets in the fairy tales: the clever little elves who lived in the groves and danced on the grass; the dwarfs who inhabited the earth-rocks and the hills; the trolls who dwelt in the wild pine forest or the rocky spurs, who ate men or porridge, and who fled at the noise of bells; the fairies who pleased with their red caps, green jackets, and sprightly ways; the beautiful fairy godmother who waved her wonderful wand; or those lovely fairy spirits who appeared at the moment when most needed—just as all best friends do—and who could grant, in a twinkling, the wish that was most desired.

The diminutive. This pleasure in the diminutive is found in the interest in the fairy characters, Baby Bear, Little Billy-Goat, Little Pig, the Little Elves, Teeny Tiny, Thumbelina, and Tom Thumb, as well as in tiny objects. In the Tale of Tom Thumb the child is captivated by the miniature chariot drawn by six small mice, the tiny butterfly-wing shirt and chicken-skin boots worn by Tom, and the small speech produced by him at court, when asked his name:—

My name is Tom Thumb,

From the Fairies I come;

When King Arthur shone,

This court was my home.

In me he delighted,

By him I was knighted.

Did you never hear of

Sir Thomas Thumb?

Doll i' the Grass contains a tiny chariot made from a silver spoon and drawn by two white mice, and Little Two-Eyes gives a magic table. The child takes keen delight in the fairy ship which could be folded up and put into a pocket, and in the wonderful nut-shell that could bring forth beautiful silver and gold dresses. The little wagon of Chanticleer and Partlet that took them a trip up to the hill, and the tiny mugs and beds, table and plates, of Snow White's cottage in the wood—such as these all meet the approval of child-nature.

Rhythm and repetition. The child at first loves sound; later he loves sound and sense, or meaning. Repetition pleases him because he has limited experience and is glad to come upon something he has known before. He observes and he wants to compare, but it is a job. Repetition saves him a task and boldly proclaims, "We are the same." Such is the effect of the repetitive expressions which we find in Teeny Tiny: as, "Now when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her teeny-tiny house, she was a teeny-tiny bit tired"; or, in Little Jack Rollaround, who cried out with such vigorous persistence, "Roll me around!" and called to the moon, "I want the people to see me!" In The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings, one of the pleasantest tales for little children, the White Rabbit said to his Mammy, "Oh, Mammy, I wish I had a long gray tail like Bushy Tail's; I wish I had a back full of bristles like Mr. Porcupine's; I wish I had a pair of red rubbers like Miss Puddleduck's." At last, when he beheld the tiny red-bird at the Wishing-Pond, he said, "Oh, I wish I had a pair of little red wings!" Then, after getting his wings, when he came home at night and his Mammy no longer knew him, he repeated to Mr. Bushy Tail, Miss Puddleduck, and old Mr. Ground Hog, the same petition to sleep all night, "Please, kind Mr. Bushy Tail, may I sleep in your house all night?" etc. Repetition here aids the child in following the characters, the story, and its meaning. It is a distinct help to unity and to clearness.

The Elephant's Child is an example of how the literary artist has used this element of repetition, and used it so wonderfully that the form is the matter and the tale cannot be told without the artist's words. "'Satiable curtiosity," "the banks of the great, grey-green, greasy, Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees," and "'Scuse me," are but a few of those expressions for which the child will watch as eagerly as one does for a signal light known to be due. The repetition of the one word, "curtiosity," throughout the tale, simply makes the point of the whole story and makes that point delightfully impressive.

Rhythm and repetition also make a bodily appeal, they appeal

to the child's motor sense and instinctively get into his

muscles. This is very evident in Brother Rabbit's Riddle:—

De big bird bob en little bird sing;

De big bee zoon en little bee sting,

De little man lead en big hoss foller—

Kin you tell wat 's good fer a head in a holler?

The song in Brother Rabbit and the Little Girl appeals also to the child's sense of sound:—

De jay-bird hunt de sparrer-nes;

De bee-martin sail all 'roun';

De squer'l, he holler from de top er de tree,

Mr. Mole, he stay in de ground;

He hide en he stay twel de dark drap down—

Mr. Mole, he hide in de groun'.

The simple and the sincere. The child's taste for the simple and the sincere is one reason for the appeal which Andersen's tales make. In using his stories it is to be remembered that, although Andersen lacked manliness in being sentimental, he preserved the child's point of view and gave his thought in the true nursery story's mode of expression. Since real sentiment places the emphasis on the object which arouses feeling and the sentimental places the emphasis on the feeling, sincerity demands that in using Andersen's tales, one lessen the sentimental when it occurs by omitting to give prominence to the feeling. Andersen's tales reflect what is elementary in human nature, childlike fancy, and emotion. His speech is characterized by the simplest words and conceptions, an avoidance of the abstract, the use of direct language, and a naïve poetic expression adapted to general comprehension. He is not to be equaled in child conversations. The world of the fairy tale must be simple like the world Andersen has given us. It must be a world of genuine people and honest occupations in order to form a suitable background for the supernatural. Only fairy tales possessing simplicity are suited to the oldest kindergarten child of five or six years. To the degree that the child is younger than five years, he should be given fewer and fewer fairy tales. Those given should be largely realistic stories of extreme simplicity.

Unity of effect. The little child likes the short tale, for it is a unity he can grasp. If you have ever listened to a child of five spontaneously attempting to tell you a long tale he has not grasped, and have observed how the units of the tale have become confused in the mind that has not held the central theme, you then realize how harmful it is to give a child too long a story. Unity demands that there be no heaping up of sensations, but neat, orderly, essential incidents, held together by one central idea. The tale must go to the climax directly. It must close according to Uncle Remus's idea when he says, "De tale ain't persoon atter em no furder don de place whar dey [the characters] make der disappear'nce." It will say what it has to say and lose no time in saying it; and often it will attempt to say only one thing. It will be remarkable as well for what it omits as for what it tells. The Norse Doll i' the Grass well illustrates this unity. Boots set out to find a wife and found a charming little lassie who could spin and weave a shirt in one day, though of course the shirt was tiny. He took her home and then celebrated his wedding with the pleasure of the king. This unity, which is violated in Grimm's complicated Golden Bird, appears pleasantly in The Little Pine Tree that Wished for New Leaves. Here one feeling dominates the tale, the Pine Tree was no longer contented. So she wished, first for gold leaves, next for glass leaves, and then for leaves like those of the oaks and maples. But the robber who stole her gold leaves, the storm that shattered her glass leaves, and the goat that ate her broad green leaves, changed her feeling of discontent, until she wished at last to have back her slender needles, green and fair, and awoke next morning, happy and contented.

Fairy tales for little children must avoid certain elements opposed to the interests of the very young child. Temperaments vary and one must be guided by the characteristics of the individual child. But while the little girl with unusual power of visualization, who weeps on hearing of Thumbling's travels down the cow's mouth in company with the hay, may be the exception, she proves the rule: the little child generally should not have the tale that creates an emotion of horror or deep feeling of pain. This standard would determine what tales should not be given to the child of kindergarten age:—

The tale of the witch. The witch is too strange and too fearful for the child who has not learned to distinguish the true from the imaginative. This would move Hansel and Grethel into the second-grade work and Sleeping Beauty preferably into the work of the first grade. The child soon gains sufficient experience so that later the story impresses, not the strangeness.

The tale of the dragon. This would eliminate Siegfried and the Dragon. A dragon is too fearful a beast and produces terror in the heart of the child. Tales of heroic adventure with the sword are not suited to his strength. He has not yet entered the realm of bold adventure where Perseus and Theseus and Hercules display their powers. The fact that hero-tales abound in delightful literature is not adequate reason for crowding the Rhinegold Legends, Wagner Stories, and Tales of King Arthur, into the kindergarten. Their beauty and charm do not make it less criminal to present to little children such a variety of images as knighthood carries with it. These tales are not sufficiently simple for the little child, and must produce a mental confusion and the crudest of returns.

Giant tales. This would omit Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant-Killer, and Tom Hickathrift, moving them up into the primary field. A little girl, when eating tongue, confidingly asked, "Whose tongue?" and when told, "A cow's," immediately questioned with tenderness, "Don't he feel it?" Thereafter she insisted that she didn't like tongue. To a child of such sensibilities the cutting off of heads is savage and gruesome and should not be given a chance to impress so prominently. Life cannot be without its strife and struggle, but the little child need not meet everything in life at once. This does not mean that absolutely no giant tale would be used at this time. The tale of Mr. Miacca, in which "little Tommy couldn't always be good and one day went round the corner," is a giant tale which could be used with young children because it is full of delightful humor. Because of the simplicity of Tommy's language and his sweet childishness it appeals to the child's desire to identify himself with the character. Tommy is so clever and inventive and his lively surprises so brimful of fun that the final effect is entirely pleasing.

Some tales of transformation. The little child is not pleased but shocked by the transformation of men into animals. A little girl, on looking at an illustration of Little Brother and Sister, remarked, "If my Sister would turn into a fawn I would cry." When the animals are terrifying, the transformation contains horror for the child. This, together with the length and complexity of the story, would move Beauty and the Beast up into the second grade where the same transformation becomes an element of pleasure. A simple tale of transformation, such as The Little Lamb and the Little Fish, in which Gretchen becomes a lamb and Peterkin a little fish, is interesting but not horrible, and could be used. So also could a tale such as Grimm's Fundevogel, in which the brother and sister escape the pursuit of the witch by becoming, one a rosebush and the other a rose; later, one a church and the other a steeple; and a third time, one a pond and the other a duck. In both these tales we have the witch and transformation, but the effect contains no horror.

The tale of strange animal relations and strange creatures. Tom Tit Tot, which Jacobs considers the most delightful of all fairy tales, is brimful of humor for the older child, but here the tailed man is not suited to the faith and understanding of six years. Rumpelstiltskin, its parallel, must also be excluded. The House in the Wood, and its Norse parallel, The Two Step-Sisters, are both very beautiful, but are more suited to the second grade. In the kindergarten it is much better to present the tale which emphasizes goodness, rather than the two just mentioned, which present the good and the bad and show what happens to both. Besides there is a certain elation resulting from the superior reward won by the good child which crowds out any pity for the erring child. Such elation is a form of selfishness and ought not to be emphasized. Snow White and Rose Red contains the strange dwarf, but it is a tale so full of love and goodness and home life that in spite of its length it could be used in the first grade.

Unhappy tales. The very little child pities, and its tender heart must be protected from depressing sadness as unrelieved as we find it in The Little Match Girl. The image of suffering impressed on a child, who cannot forget the sight of a cripple for days, is too intense to be healthful. The sorrow of the poor is one of the elements of life that even the very little child meets, and it is legitimate that his literature should include tales that call for compassion. But in a year or two, when he develops less impressionability and more poise, he is better prepared to meet such situations, as he must meet them in life.

The tale of capture. This would eliminate Proserpine. No more beautiful myth exists than this one of the springtime, but its beauty and its symbolism do not make it suitable for the kindergarten. It is more suited to the elementary child of the fourth grade. In fact, very few myths of any sort find a legitimate place in the kindergarten, perhaps only a few of the simpler pourquois tales. The Legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which is very beautiful, and appeals to little children because of the piping and of the children following after, should be omitted from the kindergarten because the capture at the close—the disappearance of the children in the hill—is tragic in pathos. It is better to leave the literature as it is and offer it later when the child reaches the second grade. The effect of this tragic end has been realized by Josephine Scribner Gates, who (St. Nicholas, November, 1914) has given to the children, "And Piped Those Children Back Again." This is a modern completion of The Pied Piper. It most happily makes the little lame boy who was left in Hamelin when the Piper closed the door of the mountain, the means of the restoration of the other children to their parents.

The very long tale. This would omit The Ugly Duckling. The Ugly Duckling is a most artistic tale and one that is very true to life. Its characters are the animals of the barn-yard, the hens and ducks familiar to the little child's experience. But the theme and emotional interest working out at length through varied scenes, make it much better adapted to the capacities of a third-grade child. The White Cat, a feminine counterpart of Puss-in-Boots—which gives a most charming picture of how a White Cat, a transformed princess, helped a youth, and re-transformed became his bride—because of its length, is better used in the first grade at the same time with Puss-in-Boots. The same holds true of Peter, Paul, and Espen, or its parallel, Laboulaye's Poucinet. This is a fine tale telling how the youngest of three sons succeeded in winning the king's favor and finally the princess and half the kingdom. First, Espen had to cut down the giant oak that shadowed the palace and dig a well in the courtyard of the castle deep enough to furnish water the entire year. But after winning in these tests, he is required to conquer a great Ogre who dwells in the forest, and later to prove himself cleverer in intellect than the princess by telling the greater falsehood. It is evident that not only the subject-matter but the working out of the long plot are much beyond kindergarten children.