There is a great difference of opinion concerning the value of fairy stories.  The Gradgrinds will not accept them on any basis whatever, but they are invariably so fascinating to children that it is certain they must serve some good purpose and appeal to some inherent craving in child-nature.  But here comes in the necessity of discrimination.  The true meaning of the word “faerie” is spiritual, but many stories masquerade under that title which have no claim to it.  Some universal spiritual truth underlies the really fine old fairy tale; but there can be no educative influence in the so-called fairy stories which are merely jumbles of impossible incidents, and which not unfrequently present dishonesty, deceit, and cruelty in attractive or amusing guise.

When the fairy tale carries us into an exquisite ideal world, where the fancy may roam at will, creating new images and seeing truth ever in new forms, then it has a pure and lovely influence over children, who are natural poets, and live more in the spirit and less in the body than we.  The fairy tale offers us a broad canvas on which to paint our word-pictures.  There are no restrictions of time or space; the world is ours, and we can roam in it at will; for spirit, there, is ever victorious over matter.

“Once upon a time,” saith the Story-Teller, “there was a beautiful locust tree, that bent its delicate fans and waved its creamy blossoms in the sunshine, and laughed because its flowers were so lovely and fragrant and the world was so fresh and green in its summer dress.”

“It’s queer for a tree to laugh,” said Bright-Eye.

“But queerer if it didn’t laugh, with such lovely blossoms hanging all over it,” replied Fine-Ear.

Everything is real to the happy child.  Life is a sort of fairy garden, where he wanders as in a dream.  “He can make abstraction of whatever does not fit into his fable; and he puts his eyes into his pocket just as we hold our noses in an unsavory lane.”

Stories offer a valuable field for instruction, and for introducing in simple and attractive form much information concerning the laws of plant and flower and animal life.

A story of this kind, however, must be made as well as told by an artist; for in the hands of a bungler it is quite as likely to be a failure as a success.  It must be compounded with the greatest care, and the scientific facts must be generously diluted and mixed in small proportions with other and more attractive elements, or it will be rejected by the mental stomach; or, if received in one ear, will be unceremoniously ushered from the other with an “Avaunt! cold fact!  What have thou and I in common!”

Did you ever tell a story of this kind and watch its effect upon children?  Did you ever note that fatal moment when it began to begin to dawn upon the intelligence of the dullest member of your flock that your narrative was a “whited sepulchre,” and that he was being instructed within an inch of his life?