God of our fathers, known of old—Lord of our far-flung battle line—Beneath whose awful hand we holdDominion over palm and pine—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget, lest we forget!The tumult and the shouting dies—The Captains and the Kings depart—Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,An humble and a contrite heart.Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget, lest we forget!Far-called, our navies melt away—On dune and headland sinks the fire—Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre!Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,Lest we forget, lest we forget!If, drunk with sight of power, we looseWild tongues that have not Thee in awe—Such boasting as the Gentiles use,Or lesser breeds without the Law—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget, lest we forget!For heathen heart that puts her trustIn reeking tube and iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust,And guarding calls not Thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word,Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!—Rudyard Kipling.
—Rudyard Kipling.
I.The Sailing
The king sits in Dunfermline townDrinking the blude-red wine:"O whare will I get a skeely skipperTo sail this new ship o' mine?"O up and spak an eldern knight,Sat at the king's right knee:"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailorThat ever sail'd the sea."Our king has written a braid letter,And seal'd it with his hand,And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,Was walking on the strand."To Noroway, to Noroway,To Noroway o'er the faem;The king's daughter o' Noroway,'Tis thou must bring her hame."The first word that Sir Patrick readSo loud, loud laugh'd he;The neist word that Sir Patrick readThe tear blinded his e'e."O wha is this has done this deedAnd tauld the king o' me,To send us out, at this time o' year,To sail upon the sea?"Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,Our ship must sail the faem;The king's daughter o' Noroway,'Tis we must fetch her hame."They hoysed their sails on Monenday mornWi' a' the speed they may;They hae landed in NorowayUpon a Wodensday.
II.The Return
"Mak ready, mak ready, my merry men a'!Our gude ship sails the morn.""Now ever alack, my master dear,I fear a deadly storm."I saw the new moon late yestreenWi' the auld moon in her arm;And if we gang to sea, master,I fear we'll come to harm."They hadna sail'd a league, a league,A league but barely three,When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,And gurly grew the sea.The ankers brak, and the topmast lap,It was sic a deadly storm:And the waves cam owre the broken shipTill a' her sides were torn."Go fetch a web o' the silken claith,Another o' the twine,And wap them into our ship's side,And let nae the sea come in."They fetch'd a web o' the silken claithAnother o' the twine,And they wapp'd them round that gude ship's side,But still the sea came in.O laith, laith were our gude Scots lordsTo wet their cork-heel'd shoon;But lang or a' the play was play'dThey wat their hats aboon.And mony was the feather bedThat flatter'd on the faem;And mony was the gude lord's sonThat never mair cam hame.O lang, lang may the ladies sit,Wi' their fans into their hand,Before they see Sir Patrick SpensCome sailing to the strand!And lang, lang may the maidens sitWi' their gowd kames in their hair,A-waiting for their ain dear loves!For them they'll see nae mair.Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour,'Tis fifty fathoms deep;And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,Wi' the Scots lords at his feet!—Unknown.
—Unknown.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And all the air a solemn stillness holds,Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'rThe moping owl does to the moon complainOf such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r,Molest her ancient solitary reign.Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,Each in his narrow cell forever laid,The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,Or busy housewife ply her evening care:No children run to lisp their sire's return,Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:How jocund did they drive their team afield!How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smileThe short and simple annals of the poor.The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,Await alike th' inevitable hour:The paths of glory lead but to the grave.Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the faultIf Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vaultThe pealing anthem swells the note of praise.Can storied urn or animated bustBack to its mansion call the fleeting breath?Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?Perhaps in this neglected spot is laidSome heart once pregnant with celestial fire;Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.But Knowledge to their eyes her ample pageRich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,And froze the genial current of the soul.Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air.Some village Hampden that with dauntless breastThe little tyrant of his fields withstood,Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,The threats of pain and ruin to despise,To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,And read their history in a nation's eyes—Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed aloneTheir growing virtues, but their crimes confined;Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne,And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,To quench the blushes of ingenuous shameOr heap the shrine of Luxury and PrideWith incense kindled at the Muse's flame.Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strifeTheir sober wishes never learn'd to stray;Along the cool, sequester'd vale of lifeThey kept the noiseless tenor of their way.Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protectSome frail memorial still erected nigh,With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,The place of fame and elegy supply:And many a holy text around she strews,That teach the rustic moralist to die.For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?On some fond breast the parting soul relies,Some pious drops the closing eye requires;E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;If chance, by lonely contemplation led,Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate—Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawnBrushing with hasty steps the dews awayTo meet the sun upon the upland lawn."There at the foot of yonder nodding beechThat wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,His listless length at noontide would he stretch,And pore upon the brook that babbles by."Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love."One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;Another came; nor yet beside the rill,Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:"The next with dirges due in sad arraySlow through the church-way path we saw him borne.Approach and read (for thou canst read) the layGraved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:"
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of EarthA Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown.Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend.No farther seek his merits to disclose,Or draw his frailties from their dread abode(There they alike in trembling hope repose),The bosom of his Father and his God.—Thomas Gray.
—Thomas Gray.
Bless the Lord, O my soul:And all that is within me, bless his holy name.Bless the Lord, O my soul,And forget not all his benefits:Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;Who healeth all thy diseases;Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies;Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.The Lord executeth righteousnessAnd judgment for all that are oppressed.He made known his ways unto Moses,His acts unto the children of Israel.The Lord is merciful and gracious,Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.He will not always chide:Neither will he keep his anger forever.He hath not dealt with us after our sins;Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.For as the heaven is high above the earth,So great is his mercy toward them that fear him.As far as the east is from the west,So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.Like as a father pitieth his children,So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.For he knoweth our frame;He remembereth that we are dust.As for man, his days are as grass:As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;And the place thereof shall know it no more.But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,And his righteousness unto children's children;To such as keep his covenant,And to those that remember his commandments to do them.The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens;And his kingdom ruleth over all.Bless the Lord, ye his angels,That excel in strength,That do his commandments,Hearkening unto the voice of his word.Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts;Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.Bless the Lord, all his worksIn all places of his dominion:Bless the Lord, O my soul.—King David.
—King David.
Inaddition to what the student has mastered by heart he needs to own and keep within arm's reach a good anthology. He should first own "A Children's Treasury of English Song," and about the time he is ready to leave the elementary school the greatest of all collections of verse, "The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language," must fall into his hands. The next best collection is doubtless "The Oxford Book of English Verse," by A. T. Quiller-Couch. For ballad literature "The Oxford Book of English Ballads" by the last-named editor and "The Ballad Book" by Allingham are both good. It is to be hoped that if he has a taste for verse of the ballad form, the boy may some day wander back to Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry." An occasional boy who cares little for great poetry may have a bent toward songs of war and daring. Though this tendency is to be deplored if it comes late in the boy's school life, it is best to satisfy it. A fairly good but not altogether judiciously selected anthology for this purpose is Henley's "Lyra Heroica." From this reading of poetry in anthologies the boy might go to the carefully edited and selected volumes of the great poets in the Golden Treasury Series. The step to choice complete editions is then easy.
It may chance that the boy who has once tasted of the honeydew of great poetry and who has left the elementary school to take up the actual affairs of life will go back to the authority of his teacher who first pointed out to him such a pure pleasure for his quiet hours. If this gratifying condition should come about, the teacher might name to him the following poems that are still more rare in their appeal—as he will surely come to know when he has felt the touch of "An Ode on a Grecian Urn." Here are the titles: "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day," Shakespeare; "The Time of Year Thou May'st in Me Behold," Shakespeare; "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," Milton; "The World is too Much with Us," Wordsworth; "Milton, Thou Should'st Be Living at This Hour," Wordsworth; "Tuscan, That Wander'st in the Realms of Gloom," Longfellow; "Rose Aylmer," Landor; "Out of the Night That Covers Me," Henley; "Go Fetch to Me a Pint o' Wine," Burns; "Proud Maisie is in the Woods," Scott; "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways," Wordsworth; "Helen, Thy Beauty is to Me," Poe; "She Walks in Beauty," Byron; "The Lost Leader," Browning; "It Was a Lover and His Lass," Shakespeare; "Callicles beneath Etna," Arnold; "La Belle Dame sans Merci," Keats; "Ode to Evening," Collins; "Ode to a Skylark," Shelley; "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Keats; "Kubla Khan," Coleridge; "Ulysses,"Tennyson; "L'Allegro," Milton. From these the boy may with the coming of manhood be led to heights of such tunes of the masters as Wordsworth's powerful "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Earliest Childhood," and Tennyson's song that is so near to the heart of great things, "In Memoriam."
SOURCES OF STANDARD PROSE FOR CHILDREN
FAIRY TALES, HOUSEHOLD TALES, AND OTHER FANCIFUL STORIES
"In the olde times they were the only revivers of drowsy age at midnight: old and young have with his tales chim'd mattens till the cocks crow in the morning: Batchelors and Maides with his tales have compassed the Christmas fire-block till the Curfew-bell rings, Candle out: the old Shepherd and the young Plow boy after their day's labour have carol'd out a Tale of Tom Thumb to make merry with: and who but little Tom hath made long nights seem short and heavy toyles easie?"—Said in 1611 of the Tales of Tom Thumb.
"In the olde times they were the only revivers of drowsy age at midnight: old and young have with his tales chim'd mattens till the cocks crow in the morning: Batchelors and Maides with his tales have compassed the Christmas fire-block till the Curfew-bell rings, Candle out: the old Shepherd and the young Plow boy after their day's labour have carol'd out a Tale of Tom Thumb to make merry with: and who but little Tom hath made long nights seem short and heavy toyles easie?"
—Said in 1611 of the Tales of Tom Thumb.
Inthat comforting essay, "An Apology for Idlers," Robert Louis Stevenson tells us that it is by no means certain that a man's business is the most important thing that he has to do. And somewhere else he has remarked on a club of men in Brussels who talked about the commercial affairs of Belgium during the day, but who at night came together to discuss the more serious affairs of life. These views are in accord with the Stevenson temperament that looked on life as made up of two worlds: a real workaday one to be unflinchingly faced, no matter what the task that came, and a fanciful one, a play world, that by its appeal to the ideal nature created an atmosphere of joy that made the duties of the real one more tolerable. His own life, so well balanced between work and play, so sane and healthfuland inspiring in its influence on all who knew him or read his books, has shown what a romantic cast of mind can get out of life, though it suffer the handicap of ill health and worldly misfortune. The balance-wheel of his life was a playful imagination that always "hath made long nights seem short and heavy toyles easie."
Stern materialism, cold, calculatingly just, impatient with the dreamer, with no charity for lovable human frailties, has always mocked at the notion of a fanciful place where great and glorious things are going on. She spins no web from the threads of her imagination. The warp and woof of her fabric are drawn from facts; and it comes from the loom all wool, a yard wide, and used to cover the nakedness of real men and women. She has never felt the free abandon of fairy land. Her heart has never leap'd up at beholding a rainbow in the sky, a rainbow with the fabled pot of gold—though she has toiled and sweat many a day for nothing more than a mess of pottage. Whilst pointing the finger of scorn at the magic lamp, the ogre's hen, or the seven-league boots, she plays the fool and pays the fiddler in actual life merely because under it all there lurks a passion for the marvellous, founded on chance. In the business world this manifests itself in the perennial hope of a "bull market" or a "bonanza." Of course, pleasures are largely a question of taste, not a question of right, and it is everybody to his liking,—onemay prefer the counting house to the back-log at the drowsy hour of midnight,—yet may we all be spared the time when fancy and romance cease to dominate men. Without them life would become mediocre, stupid, dull.
It has been claimed that a nation without fancy and romance never can hold a great place. Material prosperity without a corresponding well-being in the things of the imagination is an unfortunate prosperity. Its pleasures must necessarily be sensual pleasures that grow out of luxury. They carry the man or woman too far away from the land of childhood. Dickens saw this clearly when he said: "What enchanted us in childhood and is captivating a million young fancies now, has at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day's work, and laid their gray heads down to rest. It has greatly helped to keep us in some sense ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender tract not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children sharing their delights." A good thing it is to keep that slender tract free from weeds. And the stronger the man, the more he needs to do it. Only a man who sees things out of their right proportions and who is without a sense of humour would scorn to renew his youth occasionally in the land of romance. If in life the strongest and wisest men are good at a fight, they are still better at a play. And it is no shame iftheir "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" is more thumbed than their Bacon's "Essays." They may be all the wiser for it. In Howard Pyle's delightful rendering of the Robin Hood tales he gives this happy admonition in the introduction: "You who so plod among serious things that you feel it a shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath naught to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap the leaves and go no further than this, for I tell you plainly that if you will go further you will be so scandalized by seeing good, sober folk of real history so frisk and caper in gay colours and motley that you would not know them but for the names tagged to them." And then he sees the secret of making the heart beat young whilst carrying the burdens of grown-up life, and he says, "The land of Fancy is of that pleasant kind that, when you tire of it,—whisk,—you clap the leaves of this book together and 'tis gone, and you are ready for everyday life, with no harm done."
The present age as it gives colouring to educational practices is a matter-of-fact age. Whilst boasting of freedom of thought, it has fallen into a despotism of fact. Like the Old Man of the Sea, this reign of fact has been clutching at the neck of culture and railing at the play of fancy until there is but precious little of the "merrie" life left to look to. Themen who cleared away the forest can be pardoned if they lived their lives largely in the light of stern fact, and so might the sons of these men; but those as many generations removed as the present should be able to drop back to the even tenor of a domestic and school life that recognizes the play of fanciful imagination as an essential part of the business of living at all. No sooner had the founders of our nation succeeded in giving men their long-coveted political freedom than science, cock-sure of being able to solve the riddle of existence, strode upon the scene and smote the favourite creatures of the imagination hip and thigh. It not only played havoc with the fairies of our fathers, but it came perilously near doing the same with their faith. And as a result, a material and utilitarian tone has taken hold of education in most places, and boys must be practical, scientific, and wear old heads on young shoulders. This same tendency had begun in the days of Charles Lamb, for he wrote the following protest to Coleridge: "Knowledge must now come to the child in the shape of knowledge, and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit at his own powers when he has learnt that a horse is an animal and Billy is better than a horse and such like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the child a man while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than withmen. Is there possibility of averting this sore evil? Think of what you would have been now if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history." And what must be said to supplanting the subject of fairy life by the anatomy and physiology of the human body? Is not a boy who knows the happy likeness of Old King Cole or Allan-a-Dale as well educated as he who recognizes the picture of an alcoholic liver? All this educational pother about having boys practical and trained to reason instead of being imaginative and romantic will die of its own accord some day, and then they may once more listen to merrie tales told under the greenwood tree.
The boy who has been nurtured on tales of fancy and who trusts to things to work out for the best of their own accord will generally fall into ways of cheerfulness and contentment. He will play the game of life out with more of heart and courage, and less of doubt and fear. He may be something of an impractical dreamer, but he will be kind and true. He will not aim to understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but will aim to make people happy rather than learned. His early experience of the feelings of pity and terror will refine his emotions as much as it did in the age of Thespias those of the Greek youth. In other words, his early familiarity with fairy tales, whether learned by word of mouthfrom his father, his nurse, or his teacher, will set his face in the right direction. And to keep it so turned he will of necessity have to build up a fairy library. What that library might contain and what he should know as a perfect lesson must now be considered.
A sense of fitness rather than a feeling of loyalty to the language points to the English fairy and household tales as the ones with which to begin. If the teacher has a folk-lore curiosity and interest which aid him in giving these fairy tales to the children, that is well and good. But this historic view is by no means so important as it is to know thoroughly the tales themselves and to enter into an appreciation of them with a keen and boyish interest. The present concern is with a limited number of stories that are so wholly good and so very necessary to the child that he should come to know them completely. Then from this beginning the boy can wander at his own sweet will and keep friends with Jacobs, Perrault, Grimm, Andersen, and, last of all and no doubt best of all, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." But from all of these the rude vigour, the dramatic directness, and above all the playful humour of the English tales will first captivate him. They have not quite the grace, simplicity, and elegance of the French tales, nor the more fanciful and romantic touches of the German tales; yet, as Mr. Jacobs has told us, "They have the quality of going home to English children. The English folk-muse wears homespunand plods afoot, albeit with a cheerful smile and a steady gaze."
"English Fairy Tales" and "More English Fairy Tales" should be in the hands of every child. The stories are told in a way that preserves all of their dramatic interest and humour of phrase and situation. This characteristic humour of English folk-fancy, Mr. Jacobs has skilfully caught. He has this to say of his way of telling them: "I am inclined to follow the traditions of my old nurse, who was not bred at Girton and scorned at times the rules of Lindley Murray and the diction of polite society. And I have left vulgarisms in the mouths of vulgar people. Children appreciate the dramatic propriety of this as much as do their elders. Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse would speak when she tells Fairy Tales. I am doubtful of my success in catching the colloquial-romantic tone appropriate for such narratives, but they had to be done or else my object, to give a book of English Fairy Tales which children would listen to, would have been unachieved. This book is to be read aloud and not merely to be taken by the eye." All children should rejoice, that, so long after Puritanism had suppressed these tales in many parts of England, and after its decline they had come to be supplanted by the Mother Goose tales of Perrault, there has come such an excellent retelling of them in the Jacobs books. If there be anything in fairyliterature better than "Tom Tit Tot," I have not found it. It is altogether fitting to have it stand first in such a great collection. And with other such very good tales as "Cap o' Rushes," "The Three Sillies," and "Jack and the Golden Snuff Box," to say nothing of the dramatic telling of "Hop o' My Thumb," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Jack and the Bean Stalk," the pleasure from reading the book at the right age will mayhap never be surpassed. One might regret that the curious and helpful information of the notes had not been reserved for a separate treatise for mature readers, did not the amusing illustration of the court-crier by John D. Batton give the warning that the tales are closed and children must not read any further. After having learned some of the best stories through the ear, the boy must certainly buy and keep these two books.
After the English tales are familiar, the boy might be given the Mother Goose tales as first collected by Charles Perrault in 1696. They had been current orally in France for many years before this, and they undoubtedly had their origin in the oldest folk-lore of the world. It is said Perrault wrote them down as he heard them with the intention of writing them over in verse after the manner of the fables done by La Fontaine. But his little son, to whom they had been told, rewrote them from memory as an exercise, and the lad's version, being so simple and direct, was given to the world in that form by hisfather. They slowly found their way into England and for a while supplanted the native tales. There is surely a universal appeal in such stories as "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Puss in Boots," and "Sleeping Beauty." The best rendering of these to-day is a small volume by Charles Welsh, entitled "The Tales of Mother Goose." It has none of the poetic justice that refuses to have the wolf eat up Little Red Riding Hood. It would be well for some publisher to reprint an edition issued in New York in 1795 under the title of "Tales of Passed Times, by Mother Goose." Some good renderings of particular tales, however, may be found scattered through collections of fairy stories that have appeared.
The temptation to say something about the famous "Cruikshank Fairy Book" in which some of these Mother Goose tales appeared cannot be resisted at this point. It is a very noticeable illustration of the inability of a man of talent always to keep to his last. No artist has ever drawn such superior pictures for children as did Cruikshank. Where can anything better be found than Jack's descent on the harp, the Ogre's flight, or the presentation of the boots to the King? Why then did not Cruikshank make a picture book with pictures only? Why did he leave his last to write the stories anew in order that he might take the opportunity to give his own views and convictions on what heconsidered important social and educational questions; or "to introduce a few temperance truths with a fervent hope that some good may result therefrom"? The notion that moralizing makes children good has spoiled many an artistic horn and has never made a good educational spoon.
In Cruikshank's work in illustrating "Household and Fairy Tales" by the brothers Grimm, we have a masterful production from the best period of his genius, and we have it illustrating a superior text, the translation made by Edward Taylor in 1823 and reprinted in 1868 with an introduction by John Ruskin. Thackeray said that they had been the first real, kindly, agreeable, and infinitely amusing and charming illustrations for a child's book in England, and that they united beauty, fun, and fancy. And who was a better judge of this than Thackeray? If it was not too bold to say that "Tom Tit Tot" is the best household fairy story in the language, it could be said with equal truth that Cruikshank's etching of the two elves in "The Elves and the Shoemaker" is the best fairy illustration yet done. These German stories are charming. The contention that the stories are creepy is but the contention of a moralist. It should carry no weight with the teacher who would give the boy artistic notions of beauty, love, and mystery. These notions are always safer than those of cold realism worked out in artificial conduct. SirWalter Scott wrote in this strain to Edward Taylor in 1832: "There is a sort of wild fairy interest in them which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good boy stories which have in late years been composed for them. In the latter case, their minds are, as it were, put into stocks, like their feet at the dancing-school, and the moral always consists in good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success. Truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred histories of Johnny Goodchild. In a word, I think the selfish tendencies will soon enough be acquired in this arithmetical age; and that, to make the higher class of character, our wild fictions—like our own simple music—will have more effect in awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition than the colder and more elaborate compositions of modern authors and composers." It is hoped the pictures of Cruikshank and the translation of Taylor will soon appear in a large and attractive volume.
When the dramatic colloquialism and humour of the English tales, the superior grace, elegance, and beauty of the French tales, and the light, airy fancy of the German tales have been presented to the boy, the Scandinavian tales of Hans Christian Andersen will give him a refinement in fairy life that he has not found before. They do not have, save in a fewsuch cases as "Holger the Dane," the quality of appealing to grown-ups as well as to children—the test of a child's book that is literature, or rather the test of a man yet on good terms with the world. They are somewhat dull, wearisome, and overdone in places and do not stop when the story is ended, as we find in "The Fir Tree"; yet in some way they temper the English and German tales and meet Ruskin's requirement that a child's tale should sometimes be both sweet and sad. In fact, these stories are great favourites with many children, who actually prefer "The Ugly Duckling" to "The Golden Bird." The boy might early start with a few of the individual stories so delightfully illustrated by Helen Stratton, and then when he can afford it buy the excellent edition illustrated by the Danish artist, Hans Tegner, from all of which he will get a new and pleasant touch of fairy life.
There yet remains one book, not always called a fairy book, that must be read before the boy leaves the land of fancy and wonder. It was the favourite volume of Stevenson, and small surprise is it to any one who knows the book and knows of the man. Nor is it less surprising to think that the Oriental scholar, Antoine Galland, who first gave these stories to Europe two hundred years ago, would be called out of bed at night to tell them to an eager crowd under his window, the crowd always begging for just one story more. One might search invain for a companion volume to this most capital of all books, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The tales are on a bigger scale than are the English and German tales. There is a vastness of desert and starry sky in the tent life of the Arab that is unknown in the cottage life of the English peasant. And this is reflected in the tale that is told. Immensity and Oriental mystery have taken the place of colloquial directness and humour, and we have almost pure romance. Their richness and splendour captivate the reader and transport him into a wonderland of powerful magicians and magnificent palaces. The book is elemental in its appeal and will always furnish royal entertainment for man or boy. And the man who is not too completely grown up will keep his Lane's translation within arm's reach against the hours when the dull cares of the world are weighing him down.
As fairy tales have a common plot in many languages, so has there been a common way of preserving and transmitting them. This has been by oral tradition. They were originally to be given by word of mouth, a method that is yet best fitted to curious children. The teacher must give them through the ear, if they are to be learned and retained. Whenever it is possible in doing this, he must not forget to start with the pleasant beginning, "once upon a time," nor yet to omit the best of all conclusions, "and all went well ever afterwards"—neglecting,of course, to add that truism for grown-ups, "that didn't go ill." In this practice of giving a few choice tales through the ear is the preparation for the time when a boy will eagerly thumb a favourite volume of his own in some quiet nook. But a few of the better tales must first have been mastered so that they can be told with dramatic directness. Here then the same practice must hold that is followed in all reading: do not overread. A few stories are to be well learned and a few books to be owned, but only a few. If the boy once comes to feel his strength from a limited number of good stories, the made-to-order story for the fellow with the curls will never appeal to him. What he knows he will know and be glad to know.
If it be presumption to select a limited list of stories by grades when the world is so full of stories, it must be presumption. There are stories that can have no substitutes until the world has had another accumulated experience of some hundreds of years of fireside lore. The list that follows has been found good for a limited list, yet as complete a one as a child can master. No apology need be offered for the insertion of Ruskin's great story or the two stories of jungle life by Kipling. They are modern, but form a good bridge to modern books that have real merit. A boy who will not read "Red Dog" with an interest on fire had better grow weak on a Rollo book. His taste is surely to be lamented.He will early fall in love and later fall into cynicism.
Here is the list for the first four or five grades to be given in about the order in which they are written: "The Old Woman and Her Pig," "The Three Little Pigs," and "Henny-Penny," all as told by Jacobs in "English Fairy Tales"; "The Three Bears" as told by the poet Southey, where the little old woman continues to play a part; "Little Red Riding Hood" in which the wolf eats her up, "Cinderella; or, the Glass Slipper," and "The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots" from "The Tales of Mother Goose" as told by Charles Welsh; "Tom Tit Tot," "The History of Tom Thumb," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Whittington and His Cat" from "English Fairy Tales"; "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hop o' My Thumb" from "The Children's Book"; "Hansel and Grethel," "The Blue Light," and "The Golden Bird" from Taylor's translation of the Grimm tales; "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Fir Tree" from Andersen; "The Story of Aladdin; or, the Wonderful Lamp," "The History of Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers Killed by One Slave," and "The Story of Sinbad the Sailor" from "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments"; "The King of the Golden River" by John Ruskin; "Kaa's Hunting" and "Red Dog" from "The Jungle Books" of Rudyard Kipling.
When these stories have been well learned throughthe ear, their purpose as literature and as groundwork for narrative speech will have been accomplished. Of course, the teacher must read many stories to his class besides the ones named above; but he is not to require more than a mere listening to the reading from a point of interest only. By and by the boy will fall into the habit of reading aloud to some one else, and this may now be trusted to carry him along. Wise suggestion on the part of the teacher will direct him in getting a few good volumes that he can call his own. A fairy library, not large but well selected, will become a comfort to him in later years when the lamp is getting dim. For the man who finds himself unable to read with pleasure a fairy tale that charmed him in youth proclaims himself a slave either to relentless materialism or to cold and dignified egotism. And if he be not obstinately short-sighted, he cannot help seeing that the man who yet loves a fairy tale is one who also fears God, is clear of head, and is brave of heart.
In the succession of the seasons, the coming of spring puts young blood into old veins much as it dresses the gray of winter in a lively green. The possibilities of the daughter of Ceres while she dwells beneath the earth are likewise to be found between the covers of a fairy library. A man might travel many a long way in search of a better fountain of youth.