of various other topics
later on, these subjects will be passed by for the present. Every day
the formation of habits of mind during the process of education is
being looked upon with a higher estimate. The formation of habits of
mind through the use of fairy tales will become evident during
following chapters.

Fairy tales extend and intensify the child's social relations. They
appeal to the child by presenting aspects of family life. Through them
he realizes his relations to his own parents: their care, their
guardianship, and their love. Through this he realizes different
situations and social relations, and gains clear, simple notions of
right and wrong. His sympathies are active for kindness and fairness,
especially for the defenseless, and he feels deeply the calamity of
the poor or the suffering and hardship of the ill-treated. He is in
sympathy with that poetic justice which desires immediate punishment
of wrong, unfairness, injustice, cruelty, or deceit. Through fairy
tales he gains a many-sided view of life. Through his dramas, with a
power of sympathy which has seemed universal, Shakespeare has given
the adult world many types of character and conduct that are noble.
But fairy tales place in the hands of childhood all that the thousands
and thousands of the universe for ages have found excellent in
character and conduct. They hold up for imitation all those cardinal
virtues of love and self-sacrifice,--which is the ultimate criterion
of character,--of courage, loyalty, kindness, gentleness, fairness,
pity, endurance, bravery, industry, perseverance, and thrift. Thus
fairy tales build up concepts of family life and of ethical standards,
broaden a child's social sense of duty, and teach him to reflect.
Besides developing his feelings and judgments, they also enlarge his
world of experience.

In the school, the fairy tale as one form of the story is one part of
the largest means to unify the entire work or play of the child. In
proportion as the work of art, nature-study, game, occupation, etc.,
is fine, it will deal with some part of the child's everyday life. The
good tale parallels life. It is a record of a portion of the race
reaction to its environment; and being a permanent record of
literature, it records experience which is universal and presents
situations most human. It is therefore material best suited to furnish
the child with real problems. As little children have their thoughts
and observations