f a book. This concentration on
the reality brings about the proper relation of reading to literature.
It frees literature from the slavery to reading which it has been made
to serve, yet it makes literature contribute more effectively toward
good reading than it has done in the past.

(2) The instinct of inquiry. No more predominating trait proclaims
itself in the child than the instinct of inquiry. Every grown-up
realizes his habit of asking questions, which trait Kipling has
idealized delightfully in _The Elephant's Child_. We know also that
the folk-tale in its earliest beginnings was the result of primitive
man's curiosity toward the actual physical world about him, its sun
and sky, its mountain and its sea. The folk-tale therefore is the
living embodiment of the child's instinct of inquiry permanently
recorded in the adventures and surprises of the folk-tale characters.
And because the folk-tale is so pervaded with this quest of the ages
in search of truth, and because the child by nature is so deeply
imitative, the folk-tale inherently possesses an educational value to
stir and feed original impulses of investigation and experiment. This
is a value which is above and beyond its more apparent uses.

In the creative reaction to be expected from the child's use of fairy
tales the expression of this instinct of investigation unites with the
instinct of conversation, the instinct of construction, and the
instinct of artistic expression. In fact, it is the essence of
creative reaction in any form, whether in the domain of the Industrial
Shop, the Domestic Science Kitchen, the Household Arts' Sewing-Room,
or the Fine Arts' Studio. To do things and then see what happens, is
both the expression of this instinct and the basis of any creative
return the child makes through his handling of the fairy tale. In the
formation of a little play such as is given on page 149, the instinct
of conversation is expressed in the talk of the Trees to the little
Bird. But this talk of the Trees also expresses _doing things to see
what happens_; each happening to the Bird, each reply of a Tree to the
Bird, influences each successive doing of the Bird. After the Story of
_Medio Pollito_ all the child's efforts of making Little Half-Chick
into a weathervane and of fixing the directions to his upright shaft,
will be expressions of the search for the unknown, of the instinct of
experiment. After the story of _The Little Elves_, the dance of th