Part 12 (1/2)

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY EMILIE POULSON

CHAPTER VII QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS

The following questions have been put to me so often by teachers, in ht be useful to give in my book some of the attempts I have made to answer theratitude to the teachers who have asked these questions at the close of my lectures It has enabled me to formulate my views on the subject and to clear up, by s which I had ranted It has also constantly modifiedtoo dog with other people's methods

QUESTION I: _Why do I consider it necessary to spend so , which takes in, after all, such a restricted portion of literature?_

Just in the sah so h draeneral literature The region of storyland is the legitie for children They crave draood story-tellers, children do not have their dramatic needs satisfied What is the result? We either take therown-up people, or we have children's theaters where the pieces, char as they may be, are of necessity deprived of the essential elements which constitute a drama--or they are shriveled up to suit the capacity of the child Therefore, it would see, to keep them to the siination keener at that period, they have the delight of the inner vision and they do not need, as we do, the artificial stie

QUESTION II: _What is to be done if a child asks you: ”Is the story true?”_

I hope I shall be considered Utopian in my ideas if a say that it is quite easy, even with s of truth is a relative matter which depends on the eyes of the seer If ere not afraid to tell our children that all through life there are grown-up people who do not see things that others see, their own difficulties would be helped

In his ”Iet down into the recesses of a child's mind, one would have to beco that child in the terrow in a civilized community, and the result of this is that the developination is rarely free or coe level, the rationalistic education of parents and schoolmasters at once endeavors to curb it It is restrained in its flight by an antagonistic pohich treats it as a kind of incipient madness”

It is quite easy to show children that if one keeps things where they belong, they are true with regard to each other, but that if one drags these things out of the shadowy atmosphere of the ”make-believe,” and forces theear

To take a concrete example: The arrival of the coach made from a pumpkin and driven by s, and I have never heard one child raise any question of the difficulty of traveling in such a coach or of the uncertainty of est to the child that this di the cars of Broadway, or a confusion at once into his rasped this, the children will lose the idea that fairy stories are just for theo on to see that it is the child-like mind of the poet and seer that continues to appreciate these things; that it is the dull, heavy person whose eyes so soon become dim and unable to see any more the visions which were once his own

In his essay on ”Poetry and Life” (Glasgow, 1889), Professor Bradley says:

”It is the effect of poetry, not only by expressing e life into the dead nificant”

This applies to children as well as to adults Therepoem or dramatic narration, a sudden flash of the possibilities of life which he had not hitherto realized in the even course of school experience

”Poetry,” says Professor Bradley, ”is a way of representing truth; but there is in it, as its detractors have always insisted, a certain untruth or illusion We need not deny this, so long as we remember that the illusion is conscious, that no one wishes to deceive, and that no one is deceived But it would be better to say that poetry is false to literal fact for the sake of obtaining a higher truth

First, in order to represent the connection between a nificant, poetry, instead of linking theether by a chain which touches one by one the intermediate objects that connect them, leaps from one to the other It thus falls at once into conflict with coe bears as much on the question of the truth e to take some of these tales and try to discover where they are false to actual fact for the sake of a higher truth

Let us take, for instance, the Story of Cinderella: The coach and puic part of the story, are false to actual facts as we her truth that _Cinderella_ could escape frohtness outside? In this sense we all travel in pumpkin coaches

Take the Story of Psyche, in any one of the ic transformation of the lover is false to actual fact; but is it not a higher truth that we are often transfore can overcome most difficulties?

Take the Story of the Three Bears It is not in accordance with established fact that bears should extend hospitality to children who invade their territory Is it not true in a higher sense that fearlessness often lessens or averts danger?

Take the Story of Jack and the Bean Stalk The rapid growth of the bean stalk and the encounter with the giant are false to literal fact; but is it not a higher truth that the spirit of courage and high adventure leads us straight out of the commonplace and often sordid facts of life?

Now, all these considerations are too subtle for the child, and, if offered in explanation, would destroy the exciteood for those of us who are presenting such stories: they provide not only an arguinative people as to the futility, if not i these primitive tales, but clear up our own doubt and justify us in the use of them, if we need such justification

Forpart of the history of prinore them from an evolutionary point of viehich constitutes their chief importance; and it is only from the point of view of expediency that I mention the potential truths they contain