(c) The contemplative imagination.  This is that special phase of the imagination that gives to abstract being consistency and reality.  Through the contemplative imagination the child gains the significance of meaning and discerns the true message of the tale.  When merely external resemblance is caught, when the likeness is forced, and the image created believed in, we have fancy.  The contemplative imagination interprets the past in the tale and relates it to the future.  It shows what is felt by indicating some aspect of what is seen.  Through the exercise of this power the child develops the capacity to see.  This capacity has received a high estimate from Ruskin, who said, “Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, thousands can think for one who can see.”  For language-training the capacity to see gives that ability to image words which results in mental growth.

The labor of the spirit seeking the full message of the fairy tale, often is rewarded with bits of philosophy which are the essence of its personal wisdom.  Even the Woman Suffragists of our day might be amused to find, in The Cat and Mouse in Partnership, this side-light on one of their claims.  The Mouse said she did not know what to think of the curious names, Top-off, Half-Out, and All-Out, which the Cat had chosen.  To which the Cat replied, “That is because you always stay at home.  You sit here in your soft gray coat and long tail, and these foolish whims get into your head.  It is always the way when one does not go out in the daytime.”  Sometimes the philosophy of the tale is expressed not at all directly.  This is the case in Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Suit, a gem in story-telling art—­more suited to the second grade—­where the purpose of the story is veiled, and the satire or humor is conveyed through a very telling word or two.—­“’I will send my old, honest minister to the weavers,’ thought the Emperor.  And the old, honest minister went to the room where the two swindlers sat working at empty looms.  ‘Heaven preserve me!’ thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide.  ’Why, I cannot see anything!’—­Buthe did not say so.”  The entire tale is a concrete representation of one point; and the concreteness is so explicit that at the close of the story its philosophy easily forms itself into the implied message of worldly wisdom:  People are afraid to speak truth concerning much through cowardice or through fear of acting otherwise than all the world.  The philosophy underlying The Steadfast Tin Soldier is even finer as a bit of truth than the perfect art of the literary story:  That what happens in life does not matter so much as the way you take it.  The Tin Soldier always remained steadfast, no matter what happened.  Kipling’s Elephant’s Child is more charming than ever when looked at from the standpoint of its philosophy.  It might be interpreted as an allegory answering the question, “How should one get experience?” a theme