INTRODUCTION



ence, in relations which revealed the inevitable
law of cause and effect, and the ethical and poetic
significance of man's relation to all life.
    As soon as children begin to realize the
distinction between the world of make-believe
and the world of actuality, or, as one small boy
expressed it, "what I can see with my eyes shut,
and what I can see when I open them," they are
fascinated with stories of real life, of "when
Father was a little boy," or "when Mother was a
little girl," or "when you were a tiny baby."
This demand of the child for realistic stories is
the expression of a real want which should be
satisfied with good literature.
    Before children are enabled by their expe-
rience to discriminate between the imaginary
and the actual world, they make no distinction
between the story of real life and the fairy tale.
During this early period a story relating the most
ordinary events of every-day life is accepted in
the same spirit, and may provoke as much or
as little wonder, as the story dealing with the
most marvelous happenings of the supernatural
world. For to the child at this stage of develop-
ment it is no more wonderful that trees and
animals should converse in the language of men
than that a little boy should do so. Until chil-
dren learn that, as a matter of fact, plants and
animals do not participate in all of the human
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