A wonderful story told in most effective
fashion. To realize this value, one needs to
recall only the efforts of Prometheus in
bringing down fire for man and his heroic
endurance of vengeful tyranny as a result. The
work of Hercules in slaying the many-headed
serpent or in cleansing the Augean stables, the
adventures of Theseus culminating in the
labyrinth of the horrible Minotaur, the
beautiful hospitality of Baucis and Philemon,
the equally beautiful sadness of the death of
Balder--all these simply hint the riches of the
myth as story. This story interest is the one
that appeals to all human beings as human
beings and is therefore fundamental.

2. Myth preserves much material of social and
antiquarian interest. It helps us understand
the institutions and customs of primitive
stages in human development, and as such has
great value for scientific students of human
society.

3. Myth preserves evidences of how the mind of
man looked out upon his surroundings and what
it did in the way of interpreting them. It
makes most valuable contributions, therefore,
to the history of the human mind, and must be
taken into account in the science of
anthropology.

It must be evident that the second and third values are only in the
slightest degree within the range of the child in his early years of
school work.

_Objections to myth._ The objections to the use of myths in school may
also be brought under three heads:

1. They come from a plane of ethics much lower
than our own. This is the one strong argument
against all folk material, and it has a
validity that must be frankly recognized. There
are the miscellaneous love affairs of Jupiter,
and certain stories that have elements of
horror and brutality. Such stories we cannot
use, "though an error on that side is better
than effeminancy." Occasional defects cannot
outweigh the great positive ethical worth of
myth. We must simply make intelligent choice.
The situation is not different from what it is
in choosing from modern poetry and story. It
would be poor evidence of our sanity if we
ruled out all poetry because some of it is not