T HE child's fairy-tale is, we think, safe for the present.
During the past week its existence has been gravely imperilled. It appears that at a Wiltshire village with the attractive name of Maiden Bradley (surely there, if anywhere, little girls ought to wear the bluest of stockings) the children in the school have been reading, among other fairy-tales, "The Sleeping Beauty." In a luckless hour, they were dis- covered at this occupation by the Duchess of Somerset. The accounts of the affair do not state whether a bonfire was made on the spot, and all the pernicious literature of Grimm and Hans Andersen consigned to the flames amid wailings ; but at all events, the Duchess lost no time in bringing the momentous question before the next meeting of the Mere Board of Guardians, and, according to the reports, protested, in the name of education, against the notion of children's minds being filled with such nonsense. Instead, she pointed out, they ought to have read to them tales about Julius Caesar and other great men. The Mere Board of Guardians may or may not have agreed with the Duchess; but if the criticisms of the papers suggest any conclusion, it is that adult public opinion is not yet sufficiently ripe for a change in the traditional literature of the nursery. For some time to come, therefore, it may be expected that the intellect of childhood will continue, in the infants' schools of the County Councils, to be satisfied with Cinderella as a substitute for Caesar; possibly even in Maiden Bradley itself it may be
had gone to sleep, and that a wonderful Prince actually did wake up the beautiful Princess, and that the cook boxed the scullion's ears, and the spits began to turn, and the flies went on crawling along the walls, all in the old-fashioned style, and with all the proper details. Until the old story ceases to excite any interest, Julies Caesar may well wait on the bookshelf.
We think we can understand, for all that, the point of view of those who do not consider the fairy-tales that belonged to our grandmothers' nurseries the best collection possible for the children of to-day. We should no more think of substituting for them the history of Julius Caesar than of dressing a child in arms in a frock coat and tall hat; but it would be at least logical to contend that the real story of some of the fairy-tales does not belong to the child's world of thought at all. It may be an excellent thing, for instance, that a child should be im- pressed at an early period of its life with the idea that in the world there are certain cupboards which must not be opened; but the lesson could surely be better enforced than by obtruding on a wondering mind the notion of Bluebeard's wives' heads hanging round a horrible wall. Probably for most children who hear that grisly tale there comes to exist in the tangible furniture of everyday life some cupboard tenanted, like Bluebeard's, with bodyless living things ; it stands in a recess on the stairs, perhaps, and has to be passed after dark with averted face and at a run. Or take, again, Tom Thumb in the ogre's palace, and all the business about the cooking of the supper, and the ogre's children sleeping in bed. There is no need. to explain to a child what an ogre is, of course; the name itself suggests the notion, and the child understands at once, like the sailor who landed on the coast of Madagascar for the first time and saw a large bird and knew it must be a dodo. But when you come to the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum part, how are you to explain to a child exactly what it means when the ogre " smells the blood of an Englishman" ? Or read over once more one of the most delightful of Grimm's tales, of the Princess who went to her work in the fields every day, and every morning called " Falada, Falada, there thou art hanging !" to the head of her favourite horse, nailed up at the gate of the town. There is no one prettier in all the fairy-tales than the bare- footed goose-girl singing to the wind to " Blow Curdken's hat away,' Let him chase o'er field and weld," so that she can let down her shining hair and comb it in the sun. But how does the end of the fairy-tale fit into a child's world of thought ? The pretty goose-girl comes into her own again, of course, and the horse " comes alive," which is all very proper and right; but the "false bride" has a really dreadful time, being condemned to be " put stark naked into a barrel lined with sharp nails, which should be dragged by two white horses up and down the street until she is dead." Very likely that does not mean anything in particular to a child, since nobody ever sees a barrel lined with sharp nails, and in any case the idea that the punishment took place with the aid of two white horses would probably smooth over most of the awful part; but then, if it is not intended to impress with horror, why drag it into the fairy-tale ?
It is perhaps on some such line of argument that we are asked whether, since the fairy-tales contain so much that is nonsensical and a good deal that is ugly, it would not be best frankly to drop them and take to something really sound and solid,—the Lives of good men, great conquerors, and so on. That is treating the whole business very seriously, and if a serious answer is insisted upon, it is that to a child the suggested "Lives" can mean, and do mean, almost nothing, and are therefore not worth wasting time upon. Grant for the sake of argument that "The Sleeping Beauty" is all nonsense, and take as the strongest antidote possible a good solid Life of one of the greatest generals and greatest men of all time. Explain to the child how Caesar rose from post to post until, though one of the youngest great leaders in the world, he was able to break up Sulla's constitution; how he led his victorious soldiers over Germany and Gaul ; how he dared to cross the Rubicon and with his few devoted legions pit himself against the opposing hordes of Pompey's scattered armies ; how he was badly beaten at Dyrrachium, but smashed his huge enemy at Pharsalia; how his victories were
celebrated with four great triumphs. What does it all mean to the child P How can it mean anything, unless you have previously explained the terms and the names you are using P And how can you do that, unless you first set up for him some standard of comparison ? What is be to understand, with his accustomed nursery life going on round him, of the idea of going out alone into the great world to climb higher and higher away from the ground trodden by ordinary, quiet, easy-going little men, up towards the ideals of some wonder- ful kingdom hardly concerned, hardly comparable with the small businesses of every day, so wide and great are its imagined glories, and floating in so sunlit and clear an air of dream and hope ? You have not taught him "Jack and the Beanstalk." You are asking him to say to himself that "This is wonderful," or "That is amazing," or "What an extraordinary achievement for a single man," before you have attached any significance to the words "wonderful," " amazing," or " extraordinary." Or what notion would be conveyed to a child by the mere narration of the story of Caesar conquering in the end the rich Crassus and the powerful Pompey ; both his rivals' careers ended by death, so that lie, wise, great, and victorious, succeeds where lesser men fail because of their lack of courage, or love of ease, or laziness, or weakness, or folly, or crime ? He can see none of the greater sins or frailties of men in his nursery; the triumph of the conquering soldier is nothing to him but the breaking of impalpable, thwarting things for which he has only the labels tacked on by the story-teller. Above all things, the death of an enemy, the great incident of incidents in all victorious careers,—what can it convey to a wondering mind unused to the easily understood conquests of tailors over giants, of good Princes over bad Princes, and all the rest of the rough-and-ready dealing, in understandable ways and by methods comparable with childish dealings with toys and dolls and tin soldiers, with the great facts of the life that is going on outside the nursery P No one need be accused of treating the subject of fairy- tales with too great gravity who should ask the utilitarian, unable to perceive any benefit in the mere telling of, and listening to, stories of Princesses in dresses of gold as bright as the sun, and Princes condemned to live as cats and birds and bears, a quite serious question. It would be whether, since there are a great many terrible and sometimes ugly things that a child growing up into the life and surroundings of its elders must some day see and hear, it is not best that there should be a gradual introduction to all the unhappinesses, in the bright and happy atmosphere of stories told by the one teller who is infallible in everything she does and says and orders and forbids. If, for the older child, Pompey has some day got to be murdered in Egypt, or Marat stabbed by Charlotte Corday, is there any better way of coming to the knowledge of these dismal businesses than by the easy, glossed-over perishings of wicked uncles and cruel Kings ? If there were, be sure that it would have been discovered in the nursery before now by the children themselves. For it is they, after all, in the kingdom which only they can enter and know, who have thought out and approved for all time the great fairy-tales. Those represent their outlook on life, with all the gilt and gold, sham and true, kindness and cruelty, life and death, painted in the distinetest, strongest colours. They have been offered other introductions, shown other doors, into the garden of life. But they have preferred one wide, bright door; and however many other doors be opened, equally attractive to grown-up persons walking in hobnail boots over practical cement and sanitary gravel, the track of all their light little shoes goes to the brave gate of their own choosing.
ACORNS.
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