ke, in
circumstances other than our own, and yet not too strange, seems to be a
necessary part of our education, and we interpret it in the light of our
own personal conduct. Out of this, as well as out of our direct
experience, we build our ideal. When one realises how an ideal may
colour the whole outlook of a person, one begins to realise what
literature means to a child. The early ideal is crude; it may be Jack
the Giant-Killer, or an engine-driver, Cinderella, or the step-cleaner;
this may grow into Hiawatha or Robinson Crusoe, for boys, and a fairy
tale Princess or one of the "Little Women" for girls. In every hero a
child half-unconsciously sees himself, and the ideal stimulates all that
hidden life which is probably the most important part of his growth. As
indirect experiences grow, or in other words as he hears or reads more
stories, his ideal widens, and his knowledge of the problems of life is
enlarged. This is the raw material of morality, for out of his answers
to these problems he builds up standards of conduct and of judgement. He
projects himself into his own ideal, and he projects himself into the
experiences of other people: he lives in both: this is imagination of
the highest kind, it is often called sympathy, but the term is too
limited, it is rather imaginative understanding.

There is another side of life grasped by means of this new world of
experience, and that is, the spiritual side that lies between conduct
and ideals; children have always accepted the supernatural quite readily
and it is not to be wondered at, for all the world is new and therefore
supernatural to them. Magic is done daily in children's eyes, and there
is no line between what is understandable and what is not, until adults
try to interpret it for them.

They are curious about birth and death and all origins: thunder is
terrifying, the sea is enthralling, the wind is mysterious, the sky is
immense, and all suggest a power beyond: in this the children are
reproducing the race experience as expressed in myths, when power was
embodied in a god or goddess. Therefore the fairy world or the giant
world, or the wood full of dwarfs and witches' houses, is as real to
them, and as acceptable, as any part of life. It is their recognition of
a world of spirits which later on mingles itself with the spiritual life
of religion. That life is behind all matter, is the main truth they
hold, and while it is difficult here to disentangle morali