And in the same way can a child really get the beauty of Siegfried? What can he make out of the incestuous love of Siegmund and Sieglinda? And of Siegfried's naïve passion on his first glimpse of a woman? What do we want him to make of it? Is that the way we wish to introduce him to sex? And as for the rest, the allegory of the ring itself, the sword, the dragon's blood, what do little children get from this except the excitement of magic? What _we_ get because of what we have to put into it, is a different matter and should never be confused with the straight question of what children get. Outgrown adult thinking in social matters is no more suitable to children than outgrown thinking on physical facts. We do not teach that the world is flat because grown-ups once believed it was. We are not afraid of a round earth so we tell the truth about it. But we come near to teaching "spontaneous generation" with our endless evasions. We are afraid of a reproducing world, and so we fall back on curious mixtures of sex fables,--on storks and fairy godmothers and leave the mysteries of sex to be interpreted by Achilles and Siegfried and Guinevere! To emasculate these tales is to insult them,--to strip them of their significance and individuality. Is it not wiser to wait until children will not be confused by all their straight vigor and beauty?
There is other folk-lore less gripping in its human intensity. Through this may not children safely gain their needed adventures? And here we come again to the real "Märchen,"--the fairy tales. They take us into a lovely world of unreality where magic and luck hold sway and where the child is safe from human problems and from scientific laws alike. I have already said in talking of the younger children that I feel it unsafe to loose a child in this unsubstantial world before he is fairly well grounded in a sense of reality. Once he has his bearings there is a good deal he will enjoy without confusion. The common defense that the mystery of fairy tales answers to a legitimate need in children, I believe holds good for children of six or seven, or even five, who have had opportunities for rational experiences. We all know how children revel in a secret. They like to live in a world of surprises. To give the children this sense of mystery I do not believe it is at all necessary to turn to vicious tales of giants, of ogres, and Bluebeards, or to the no less vicious pictures of the beautiful princess and the wicked stepmother. Even after rejecting the brutal and sentimental we have a good deal left,--a good deal that is intrinsically amusing as in "The Musicians of Bremen" or "Prudent Hans" or charming as in "Briar Rose." Symbolic or primitive attempts to explain the physical world,--as in the Indian legend of "Tavwots" I have never found held great appeal for the modern six- or seven-year-old scientists. Also the burden of symbolic morality rests on a good many of the traditional tales which usually neither adds nor detracts for the child and satisfies an adult yearning. Allegories like Æsop's "Fables" and "The Lion of Androcles" have a certain right to a hearing because of their historic prestige, apart from any reform they may accomplish in the way of character building. And in our own day many animals have achieved what I believe is a permanent place in child literature. "The Elephant's Child," the wild creatures of the "Jungle Book," "Raggylug" and even the little mole in the "Wind in the Willows,"--these are animals to trust any child with. Yet even in these exquisitely drawn tales, I doubt if children enjoy what we adults wish them to enjoy either in content or in form. And I doubt if we should accept even some of Kipling's matchless tales if the faultless form did not intrigue us and make us oblivious of the content.