nurses' expressions, giving a colloquial and romantic tone which often
contains what is archaic and crude. He has displayed freedom with the
text, invented whole incidents, or completed incidents, or changed
them. His object has been to fill children's imaginations with bright
images. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) has given the tale mainly to entertain
children. He has accepted translations from many sources and has given
a straightforward narration. He has collected fairy tales
indefatigably in his rainbow _Fairy Books_, but they are not always to
be recommended for children.

Andersen (1805-75), like Perrault, made his tale for the child as an
audience, and he too has put the tale into literary form. Andersen's
tale is not the old tale, but an original creation, a number of which
are based on old folk-material. Preserving the child's point of view,
Andersen has enriched his language with a mastery of perfection and
literary style. And the "mantle of Andersen" has, so far, fallen on no
one.

To-day it is to be questioned if the child should be given the tale in
nurses' talk. To-day children are best cared for by mothers who feel
ignorant if they cannot tell their children stories, and who, having
an appreciation of their mother English, want their children to hear
stories, not only told by themselves rather than by their servants,
but also told in the best literary form possible. They recognize that
these earliest years, when the child is first learning his language,
are the years for a perfection of form to become indelibly impressed.
The fairy tale, like every piece of literature, is an organism and
"should be put before the youngest child with its head on, and
standing on both feet." The wholesale re-telling of every tale is to
be deplored. And stories which have proved themselves genuine