ROCKING THE CRADLE

A wise man once said, "Let me tell the fairy-tales of my country and I care not who is President. Prime Minister or Chancellor". His wisdom was greater than he probably knew. In the light of history, fairy tales can be discussed with all solemnity as potent forces in molding the child-consciousness of races--and eventually, in shaping the destiny of the world.

There seems little doubt but that this was realized in the earliest days. Greek politicians had no scruples about manufacturing mythology to fit their needs, as Mr. H. I. Brock pointed out recently in the Times,--and the Romulus and Remus fable, invented, or at least encouraged by latter-day Roman rulers, must have had an effect in developing the Roman superiority complex, which like most such complexes, was based on a feeling of uniqueness or "differentness". The growth of national legends and national folk-lore came before the awakening of national consciousness or patriotism in Europe; the results of ingeniously exploited "folk-lore", which may or may not have originated with the folk, can be clearly traced in many instances.

The effect of the fairy tale, as told by Rudyard Kipling or Lady Gregory is obviously to arouse a feeling of intense patriotism of aversion to the rude outsider--of fellowship with one's own countrymen. And the work of Yeats, Lady Gregory perhaps of Lord Dunsany, who, however, created a mythology quite his own--was evident enough in the reawakening Irish nationalism, long dormant; in the Gaelicising of everything, down to postage stamps--even when a German professor had to be imported to assist. The national Bernard Shaw, realizing full well that the difference between the English and the Irish was the difference which must inevitably come from their several environments, might have filled endless pages with beautiful logic without producing a fraction of the effect which the cleverly-pointed fairy tales of the Gaelicists attained by appealing to the sentiment of exclusiveness and the Irish feeling for beauty.

In America, the fairy tale industry lacks material with which to work, although George Washington and his clever retort with reference to falsehoods furnishes a not unsuitable starting point. The folk-lore of parent countries has not as yet been acclimated. But Professor William Lyon Phelps reputed reaction to "Peter Pan" (See Donald Ogden Stewart) illustrates plainly the appeal which these fables retain even for such highly intelligent subjects, Their magnetic, vitalizing influence on the masses cannot be overestimated.