y to a conception of "Use"? Does he not think of the world
largely in terms of active functioning? Has not the typical question of
this age become "What's it for?" Even his early definitions are in terms
of use which has a strong motor implication. "A table is to eat off"; "a
spoon is to eat in"; "a river means where you get drinks out of water,
and catch fish, and throw stones." (Waddle: Introduction to Child
Psychology, p. 170.) It was only consistent with his general conception
of relationships in the world to have a little boy of my acquaintance
examine a very small man sitting beside him in the subway and then turn
to his father with the question, "What is that little man for?"

Stories which are offered to small children must be assessed from this
two-fold point of view. What relationships are they based on? And in
what terms are they told? Fairy stories should not be exempted. We are
inclined to accept them uncritically, feeling that they do not cramp a
child as does reality. We cling to the idea that children need a fairy
world to "cultivate their imaginations." In the folk tales we are
intrigued by the past,--by the sense that these embodiments of human
experience, having survived the ages, should be exempt from modern
analysis. If, however, we do commit the sacrilege of looking at them
alongside of our educational principles, I think we find a few precious
ones that stand the test. For children under six, however, even these
precious few contribute little in content, but much through their
matchless form. On the other hand, we find that many of the human
experiences which these old tales embody are quite unsuitable for
four-and five-year-olds. Cruelty, trickery, economic inequality,--these
are experiences which have shaped and shaken adults and alas! still
continue to do so. But do we wish to build them into a four-year-old's
thinking? Some of these experiences run counter to the trends of
thinking we are trying to establish in other ways; some merely confuse
them. We seem to identify imagination with gullibility or vague
thinking. But surely true imagination is not based on confusion.
Imagination is the basis of art. But confused art is a contradiction
of terms.

Now, the ordinary fairy tale which is the chief story diet of the
four-and five-year-olds, I believe does confuse them; not because it
does not stick to reality (for neither do the children) but because it
does not deal with the things with which th