“Nothing has done more to vulgarise the Fairy than its introduction on the stage. The charm of the Fairy Tale is its divorce from human experience; the charm of the stage is its realisation in miniature of Human Life. If a frog is heard to speak, if a dog is changed before our eyes into a prince by having cold water dashed over it, the charm of the Fairy Tale has fled, and, in its place, we have the perplexing pleasure of leger de main. Since the real life of a Fairy is in the imagination, a wrong is committed when it is dragged from its shadowy hiding-place and made to turn into ashes under the calcium light of the understanding.”[46]
I am bound to confess that the teachers have a case when they plead for this re-producing of the story, and there are three arguments they use whose validity I admit, but which have nevertheless not converted me, because the loss, to my mind, would exceed the gain.
The first argument they put forward is that the reproduction of the story enables the child to enlarge and improve his vocabulary. Now I greatly sympathise with this point of view, only, as I regard the story-hour as a very precious and special one, which I think may have a lasting effect on the character of a child, I do not think it important that, during this hour, a child should be called upon to improve his vocabulary at the expense of the dramatic whole, and at the expense of the literary form in which the story has been presented. It would be like using the Bible for parsing or paraphrase or pronunciation. So far, I believe, the line has been drawn here, though there are blasphemers who have laid impious hands on Milton or Shakespeare for this purpose.
There are surely other lessons (as I have already said in dealing with the reproduction of the story quite apart from the dramatisation), lessons more utilitarian in character, which can be used for this purpose: the facts of history (I mean the mere facts as compared with the deep truths) and those of geography, above all, the grammar lessons are those in which the vocabulary can be enlarged and improved. But I am anxious to keep the story-hour apart as dedicated to something higher than these excellent but utilitarian considerations.
The second argument used by the teachers is the joy felt by the children in being allowed to dramatise the stories. This, too, appeals very strongly to me, but there is a means of satisfying their desire and yet protecting the dramatic whole, and that is occasionally to allow children to act out their own dramatic inventions; this, to my mind, has great educational significance: it is original and creative work and, apart from the joy of the immediate performance, there is the interesting process of comparison which can be presented to the children, showing them the difference between their elementary attempts and the finished product of the experienced artist, which they can be led to recognise by their own powers of observation if the teachers are not in too great a hurry to point it out themselves.
Here is a short original story (quoted by the French psychologist, Queyrat, in his “Jeux de l'enfance”) written by a child of five:
“One day I went to sea in a life-boat—all at once I saw an enormous whale, and I jumped out of the boat to catch him, but he was so big that I climbed on his back and rode astride, and all the little fishes laughed to see.”
Here is a complete and exciting drama, making a wonderful picture and teeming with adventure. We could scarcely offer anything to so small a child for reproduction that would be a greater stimulus to the imagination.
Here is another, offered by Loti, but the age of the child is not given:
“Once upon a time, a little girl out in the Colonies cut open a huge melon, and out popped a green beast and stung her, and the little child died.”