ly
observable in the way children explain the unknown. It seems fairly
clear, on the other hand, that fairy stories were told by the folk as
matter of entertainment. They did not believe that pigs actually talked,
that a princess could sleep a hundred years, that a bean-stalk could
grow as fast and as far as Jack's did, or that toads and diamonds could
actually come out of one's mouth. It may be, as some theorists insist,
that remains of myth survive in some of these fairy stories. On the
whole, however, the folk believed these tales only in the sense in which
we believe in a fine story such as "The Vision of Sir Launfal" or "Enoch
Arden." They express the pleasing imaginings and longings of the human
spirit, its ideals of character and conduct, its sense of the wonder and
mystery of the universe. The fairy tale, in general, is nearer the
surface of life; the myth was concerned with the most fundamental
problems of the _whence_ and the _why_ of things.

Such distinctions, however, belong to the realm of scientific
scholarship. The teacher is concerned with myths simply as splendid
stories that have come down to us from a time when human beings seemed
to feel themselves bound into a unity with nature and all mysterious
powers around them; stories that through constant repetition were
rounded and perfected, and finally, through use by the poets, have
reached us in a fairly systematic form. The so-called "poetic mythology"
is the one of special value for our purposes. It comes to us through
Ovid in the South, and does not distinguish between the gods of Greece
and Rome. It comes through the Eddas of the North. It is this poetic
mythology that furnishes the basis of allusion in literature and in art,
and which is retold for us in the various versions for modern readers.
If we hold fast to this correct idea that as teachers in elementary
schools our interest in myths is exactly like our interest in other folk
products, an interest in them as stories tested by the ages, an interest
in them as presenting familiar and suggestive types of character and
conduct, an interest in them as stimulating our sense of wonder and
mystery, we shall not be disturbed by the violent discussions that
sometimes rage over the advisability of using myths with children.

_Values of myth._ To make the above proposition as clear as possible,
let us first tabulate briefly the values of myth, borrowing a suggestion
from Jeremiah Curtin:

1.