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!

No one can understand the modern world without the aid of the
imagination, and as the frontiers of knowledge are pushed still further
away from the obvious and familiar, there will be an increasing tax on
the imagination. The world of dead matter which our fathers thought they
understood has become a world of subtle forces moving with inconceivable
velocity; nothing is inert, all things are transformed into other and
more elusive shapes precisely as the makers of the fairy tales foresaw
and predicted; the world lives in every atom just as their world lived;
forces lie just outside the range of physical sight, but entirely within
the range of spiritual vision, precisely as the tellers of these old
stories divined; mystery and wonder enfold all things, and not only
evoke the full play of the mind, but flood it with intimations and
suggestions of the presence of more elusive and subtle forces, of finer
and more obedient powers, as the world of fairies, magi and demons
enfolded the ancient earth of daily toil and danger.

In a word, the fairy st