p. 7 | Shall We Tell Fairy Stories to the Children?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 9, 1910

Shall We Tell Fairy Stories to the Children?

By Grant Priddy

GRANT PRIDDY

When I speak of “fairy stories,” I wish to include all such stories as “Jack and the Bean-Stalk,” “The Three Bears,” “Little Red Riding-Hood,” etc., as well as those untruths which are sometimes told about “Santa Claus” and the new baby.

A child’s mind is easily impressed, and we can not be too careful in regard to his teaching. When we repeat to him wierd and fanciful stories about fairies, ghosts, and goblins, we are not only filling his mind with that which will be a positive injury, but we are losing a precious opportunity to teach important truth, which will help him to form a righteous character. One is taking upon himself a fearful responsibility when his teaching is such as to give the youthful mind a wrong mold. “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Luke 17:2.

Fairy stories unduly excite the imagination, affect the nerves, and tend to make children timid. I once knew of a little girl who had a serious illness, and had to leave school, because her teacher made it a part of her program to tell the children fairy tales. The nerves of the child gave way, and in her illness she imagined that the room was inhabited by horrible creatures.

The tendency of the fictitious tale is toward skepticism and superstition. When the children become older, they discover the fact that they have been deceived, and they learn to doubt things that are really true. To doubt everything will be found as disastrous as to believe everything. There are many who count themselves Christians, whose religion is really little more than superstition. It consists of a rigid observance of forms, and a dread of transgressing church rules, for fear that ill luck will follow. It appears much like the fruit of the seed planted in childhood, when some waving of a fairy wand, or some absurd incantation, wrought magical success or dire disaster. There is no genuine faith or heart-transformation in such religion.

As the first glass of wine taken by a young man is a step in a downward course, which may lead to degradation, pauperism, and eternal death, so the repetition and belief of the fairy story may prove to be a step that leads far away from God. Not all who drink the first glass become drunkards, but the tendency in that direction is so strong that it is unsafe to touch the deceptive draft. It is true that some whose intellectual diet has not been what it should be afterward become Christians; but these exceptions do not prove that there is no danger.

Ellesmere, Ontario.