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The proponents of matter-of-fact and strictly utilitarian education have long since united in condemning the fairy tales that used to delight our own hearts and sometimes would send delicious shivers of apprehension down our spinal columns. Jack never planted the bean (it is said with emphasis) and, if he did, it couldn't possibly produce a stalk long enough to reach to the moon; therefore, the whole story is an untruth and the child's mind should not be perverted with it. Such is the coldly calculated judgment of the ultra-modern educator.
Now comes Madame Montessori who expresses her disapproval of fairy tales clearly and positively (cf. Current Opinion, Jan.). The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon races, she says, adjust their mentalities to fairy tales somewhat differently from the children of the Latin races. The former attribute a mystical and even a religious quality to the fairy tale, whereas the Latin children regard the fairy tale not as symbols of some truth or other, but merely as a form of amusement. This difference arises, according to Madame Montessori, from the circumstances that, among the Latins, mothers do not tell their children fairy tales. Latin children hear such things only from the lips of their nurses or from servants of rustic origin. The teaching of fairy tales as a part of the course is not permitted in the schools of the Latin race.
The Anglo-Saxons would be wise if they followed the Latin practice in this matter, insists Madame Montessori. Listening to fairy tales is not a superficial practice that leaves no mental effect behind. Indeed, the fairy-tale has a profound psychical effect and enters deeply into the mental make-up of the growing child. In its early years, the child is engaged in the tremendous labor of self-organization and self-discipline at a period when its critical faculties are not yef formed. Then the child can not distinguish clearly between the real and the imaginary, between the possible and the impossible. Plunging the infant mind into the supernatural world merely prolongs the period of mental confusion, forcing the child to exist in a two-fold consciousness—in fact, to have two worlds on its hands.
Furthermore, the fairy tale and the legend develop a dread of reality, a terror of the actual and a tendency to introduce into all interpretations of life and events a mystical element, a "wonder" world which turns out to be all falsehood in the child consciousness when contact with reality is complete. The disillusion is too often a tremendous shock. In every' Anglo-Saxon memory, there remains some such tale as that of the little one who, having heard there was no Santa Claus, lost all confidence in its mother. The mother had lied on this subject—the same mother who had always taught the child never to lie. In a word, the upshot of the Montessori propositions is, that the fairy tale is morbid, pathological and deadly.
Here we have it. The terrible charge has been made and the indictment is duly found, the fairy tale is a lie and, therefore, pernicious. However, in the educational system of the English-speaking peoples, cultivation of the imagination from the earliest infancy plays an important part. Indeed, adults in the Anglo-Saxon world would continue in their state of delight at the world of fancy and imagination, often in spite of themselves. This alliance of a practical realism pushed to the extreme with an imagination that tolerates no limit to its exercise does not seem to have injured the prospects of the Anglo-Saxon peoples throughout the world. Naturally, then, the Anglo-Saxons hesitate to take Madame Montessori quite seriously on this subject. There is the additional detail, overlooked by Madame Montessori, that the elements of the Anglo-Saxon world of wonder and romance are borrowed from many sources that are not Anglo-Saxon at all, but continental European, as the work of Shakespeare and other writers shows. To Professor Van Gennep, for instance, who discusses the Montessori criticism, it seems plain that Madame Montessori is in error because she lays stress upon the lack of "reality" in the fairy tale and in much folk lore, and overlooks the tendency of such things as a whole.
It seems to us that certain objectionable features of the fairy tale could easily be eliminated without depriving the child of much that is wholesome and stimulating to the child's mind. If fairy tales were explained to the child, if the dragon were identified with wrong acts, while the prince were shown to be the one observing truth and bravery and idealism, certain fairy tales would have great value. If it were explained to the child that the story of the sleeping princess, who is kissed awake by the prince, formerly had a religious significance, and that, primarily, it refers to the earth asleep in the icy grasp of winter and that is kissed to life by the sun prince, the youthful imagination would not be led into perverted devious meanderings, but would be keenly interested in many directions.
We do not think that it is necessary to follow out the idea. Everyone who is entrusted with the care of children can do that for himself and herself. Primarily, we do not believe that it is foolish or erroneous to stimulate the child's imagination. Indeed, we confess to still maintain a sincere liking for the fairy tales told so attractively by the Brothers Grimm and by Anderson. We also have maintained a cordial fondness for Robinson Crusoe, and, at times, "dip" into De Foe's delightful romance. If there were no fairy tales, if there were not poetry—perhaps, there would be no music, and a great many other beautiful things would be absent too. What a world!
One more thought, fairy tales for the youngsters take the place of novels and other recreational reading for the grownups. Supposing we were to eliminate fairy tales; then, in justice, we would have to eschew all but strictly technical reading. All our delightful authors would have to earn their living by cultivating the soil or making shoes, or other useful things. Under such a scheme of things, Mark Twain could never have made children (from four to eighty years young) happy. Again, we say: What a world!
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