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