Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know

FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW

Edited by

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library

Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for The Parents' Institute, Inc.
Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine"

1905
INTRODUCTION TO

"FAIRIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW"


The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an
interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to
reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with
its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest
form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the
world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.
It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the
law of mental growth; it is the naive activity of the young imagination
of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the
fact.

The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and
its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful play of the
imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which
craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs and redressing
injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue;
crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under
control of man and making their ministers his servants. In the fairy
story, men are not set entirely free from their limitations, but, by the
aid of fairies, genii, giants and demons, they are put in command of
unusual powers and make themselves masters of the forces of nature.

The oldest fairy stories constitute a fascinating introduction to the
book of modern science, curiously predicting its discoveries, its
uncovering of the resources of the earth and air, its growing control of
the tremendous forces which work in earth and air. And it is significant
that the recent progress of science is steadily toward what our
ancestors would have considered fairy land; for in all the imaginings of
the childhood of the race there was nothing more marvellous or more
audaciously improbable than the transmission of the accents and
modulations of familiar voices through long distances, and the power of
communication across leagues of sea without mechanical connections of
any kind.

The faculty which created the fairy tale is the same faculty which,
supplemented by a broader observation and based on more accurate
knowledge, has broadened the range and activities of modern man, made
the world accessible to him, enabled him to live in one place but to
speak and act in places thousands of miles distant, given him command of
colossal forces, and is fast making him rich on a scale which would have
seemed incredible to men of a half-century ago. There is nothing in any
fairy tale more marvellous and inherently improbable than many of the
achievements of scientific observation and invention, and we are only at
the beginning of the wonders that lie within the reach of the human
spirit!....

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