literature.

Before children are enabled by their experience to discriminate between
the imaginary and the actual world, they make no distinction between the
story of real life and the fairy tale. During this early period a story
relating the most ordinary events of every-day life is accepted in the
same spirit, and may provoke as much or as little wonder, as the story
dealing with the most marvelous happenings of the supernatural world.
For to the child at this stage of development it is no more wonderful
that trees and animals should converse in the language of men than that
a little boy should do so. Until children learn that, as a matter of
fact, plants and animals do not participate in all of the human
activities, they regard as perfectly natural stories in which such
participation is taken for granted. On the other hand a realistic story
representing some of the most universal aspects of human existence may
provoke surprise as the child discovers that his own experiences are
common to many other lives and homes. This was evidenced by the remark
of a small boy who, at the end of a story relating the necessary
sequence of activities common to the countless thousands of heroic
mothers, washing and ironing the family linen, waggishly shook his
finger at the narrator, and with a beaming smile, said: "Now you know
that it is _my_ Ma and Tootsie you are telling about!" John had not
discovered the fact that the story which reflected the daily service of
his beloved mother reflected equally well the service of thousands of
other mothers. He saw only the personal experience in the common reality
and recognized it with joy. When through similar stories of daily life a
child learns to know that his experiences constitute the common lot, his
first feeling of surprise gives place to a greater joy, and sympathy is
born.