_The imaginative_. Fairy tales satisfy the activity of the
child's imagination and stimulate his fancy. Some beautiful
spring day, perhaps, after he has enjoyed an excursion to a
field or meadow or wood, he will want to follow Andersen's
Thumbelina in her travels. He will follow her as she floats
on a lily pad, escapes a frog of a husband, rides on a
butterfly, lives in the house of a field-mouse, escapes a
mole of a husband, and then rides on the back of a friendly
swallow to reach the south land and to become queen of the
flowers. Here there is much play of fancy. But even when the
episodes are homely and the situations familiar, as in
_Little Red Hen_, the act of seeing them as distinct images
and of following them with interest feeds the imagination.
For while the elements are familiar, the combination is
unusual; and this nourishes the child's ability to remove
from the usual situation, which is the essential element in
all originality. By entering into the life of the characters
and identifying himself with them, he develops a large
sympathy and a sense of power, he gains insight into life,
and a care for the interests of the world. Thus imagination
grows "in flexibility, in scope, and in sympathy, till the
life which the individual lives is informed with the life of
nature and of society," and acquires what Professor John
Dewey calls Culture.

_Animals_. Very few of the child's fairy tales contain no
animals. Southey said of a home: "A house is never perfectly
furnished for enjoyment unless there is in it a child rising
three years old and a kitten rising six weeks; kitten is in