The Case Against Myths, Folk-Lore, and Fairy Stories as Basal Reading for Children GILBERT L. BROWN, NORTHERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL,

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MARQUETTE, MICH.

N examination of the reading material for school children, particularly in the lower grades, reveals that in a large percentage of schools it consists chiefly of myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories. In fact, these kinds of material are almost universally employed at the present time by those who make readers for children. The purpose of this paper, however, is to call into question such material as basal reading for children. I do not mean to imply that stories of this character should never be read by children, but I shall endeavor to show that their value is very limited, and that certain other kinds are more worth while.

Myths and folk-lore will be considered first, since the arguments in favor of them are in part different from those commonly advanced for fairy stories. These kinds of material are supported by a number of theories and assumptions, but their sanction comes largely from the culture epoch theory. This theory means in its extreme form that a child in developing from infancy to adult life passes through the various stages of culture which man (as an adult) has passed through from savagery to the present stage of enlightenment. In other words, it means that a child of today passes through the successive stages of fishing and hunting, herding, agriculture, and, finally, reaches that of industry, or modern life.

In many schools this theory provides the basis for selecting the subject-matter of the child's early reading. If the theory is followed closely, the child is given such stories as "Hiawatha" in the first grade, because he is considered to be in the hunting and fishing stage. These stories are followed by stories of the old

Persians or Hebrews; then come stories of the earlier Greeks and Romans, which represent the agricultural stage of culture. Finally, stories of the later Greeks and Romans and the early and later Christians are taught as proper beginnings in modern life. In most cases, however, the school does not attempt to follow the stages in detail, but the entire early life of the child is considered as representing the whole of primitive life. When this interpretation is accepted, myths and folk-lore are considered the most appropriate subject-matter for the child's reading.

When we turn to examine critically the culture-epoch theory, we find that it has very little support; from a scientific point of view it appears far-fetched and fanciful. In the first place, science teaches that, in so far as can be determined, no change has taken place in the human brain within historic times, that is, within the last six thousand years. It is obvious that if there is anything in the child's nature that would cause him to repeat stages of civilization, it would be found in the nervous system, particularly in the brain; but no such evidence is found. This position is strongly supported by the fact that many primitive folk, such as the American Indian, can be trained in modern culture so as to compete successfully with men who have long been in a high state of civilization. Such cases are concrete evidence that it is environment and accumulated knowledge that have changed within historic times, and not heredity or human nature. Common observation probably provides the strongest argument against the culture-epoch theory, since it is easily discernable that the child simply responds to his environment, whatever that may be. During the recent war, for instance, children of every age preferred the khaki uniform of the American soldier to the feathers of the Indian chief, and the air-gun or target to the bow and arrow. The boy will also choose the automobile in preference to the Indian cart, and he would rather ride in a gasoline launch than in a birch-bark canoe. No, the child of today is like the child of the early Egyptian, Persian and Greek, and not like the adult of those peoples. And the adult of the various periods differed from the adult of today in civilization merely because his educa

tion and environment were different, and not because he possessed a different brain structure.

We are certain, then, that heredity does not prescribe the specific subject-matter of education; it only provides certain tendencies and capacities which may be employed in innumerable ways. Accordingly, the school curricula must be determined by the needs of society at a given time. And, in the interest of economy and social adjustment, the child must not be made to re-live the life of the race; he must begin where the race is when he is born. As Professor Dewey points out, the purpose of education is to produce just this short cut and to prevent the child from repeating the life of the past. The child's problem is to adjust himself tɔ modern society in which he lives, and the only way to prepare him effectively for modern life is to train him in modern life; and this must be done through modern instrumentalities. though the past may aid the mature student in appreciating the existence of certain influences in our civilization, the child can learn to adapt himself to modern life only through a knowledge of present social conditions, not through a knowledge of society of the past. As a socializing influence, the past is insignificant in comparison with the present. Our general plan must be to start with the present and look to the future, and not to begin with the past and look to the present. When we apply this principle to reading, it signifies that the subject-matter must be closely related to the child's own environment-social and natural-and to the activities involved in dealing with it.

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When we turn to examine the case of fairy stories, we find that they are defended upon purely psychological grounds. But the arguments in favor of fairy stories are also employed in support of myths and folk-lore. In the first place, it is maintained that these kinds of material possess peculiar merit in training the imagination. This argument, however, must be subjected to a critical examination.

The position is based upon the belief or doctrine that imagination is a single mental faculty, and that training this faculty with one kind of material trains it equally well in constructing images

from all kinds of material. It assumes, for example, that if a child is taught myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories, he is thereby trained in the construction of images involved in making aeroplanes or automobiles. Although this doctrine was at one time generally accepted, it is no longer regarded as sound.

In the light of present-day psychology, we see that imagination does not consist of a single kind, but of different kinds. We can now distinguish three divisions-the scientific, the literary, and the fanciful. Although we do not claim the ability to draw a definitely fixed line between these divisions, there is seldom any difficulty in correctly classifying an image as one of the three kinds. The three kinds may be distinguished from one another by certain tests. In practical affairs, the test of scientific imagination is application. That is, when an image is constructed and put into concrete form, it will work. But in theoretical knowledge, congruity becomes the test; the various parts fit together to make a complete whole. Such a test is employed in the theories of the origin of the solar system, of the origin of man, and other problems that cannot be demonstrated by practical application. The test of literary imagination is conformity to human experience, or what is considered possible human experience. That is, literary imagination combines images in such a way that the new image is in harmony with human experience. The third kind of imagination, fancy, has as its test, incongruity or lack of conformity to human experience. This kind of imagination is illustrated by myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories, in which the images constructed are not bound by applicability, congruity, or human experience.

The question at once arises as to what extent training a child to construct images in the field of fancy trains him to construct images that must be tested by applicability, congruity, or human experience. Experiments and observation lead us to the conclusion that training in fancy does not aid in constructing images of other kinds, but, on the other hand, it is often a positive hindrance to such construction. In order to construct in harmony with human experience, the child must know human experience; in

order to construct according to scientific principles, he must know the scientific principles, and these he does not get from myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories. This point may be illustrated by the fact that during the recent war, when the government wanted improved guns, "ears" for submarine scouts, and the like, it did not call to its assistance the writers of fanciful stories nor people who were specially trained in them, but people who knew the facts of science and could construct new images which would stand the test of applicability. Furthermore, when pupils form habits of constructing images without reference to congruity or experience, it is certain that working according to scientific principles of human experience becomes more or less distasteful. And we venture the assertion that much of the mental flabbiness found in high schools and colleges is the result of the child's mind being permitted or actually encouraged and trained-to construct images without the necessity of working according to at least a fairly definite principle as a guide.

The place occupied by myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories in children's reading, is in part the result of their providing ready material in story form. But in this respect we seem to have missed the original aim of stories. The story was introduced as a protest against the pages of disconnected sentences which formerly constituted the reading material for younger children. It was maintained, and rightly so, that a child's reading lesson (as well as his history, geography, and other subjects) should consist of complete stories, and not of mere statements of more or less disconnected facts. In this sense the story was a method of teaching, a method to be applied to almost every subject. But now the story has very generally come to mean a thing and not a method. Along with this change in meaning, we find a second one, namely, the tendency to identify "story" with "fanciful story" and to exclude the true story about people and the objects and phenomena of the child's environment. This tendency has been encouraged by the fact that myths, folk-lore, and fairy stories provide ready-made stories which are always available, whereas to prepare good stories about people and nature would require consider