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Show I In Fairv II Where Children I T 1 an Growu-Ups i 'j JLand Should Roam By RAYMOND BLATHWAYT, H- Endllah Author. "irriTrK ?'rCat Pri',,em of io-ilay is, how best can one get hold of I I the child mind? R' PJ 'U cnn tyr mathematics, or geography, or Latin H, IMHbI vcrsc You wnnt to "I'p0"1 to it ()y fnr lllorc sul)tle iuui dcii- I Ctlt 111011119 tlmn ilgcbrn and the twanging cane. , I V I To humanize you must first sympathize. And fairyland nf- H'' I WM I fords a happy hunting-ground, a never-failing point d'appui IMM wherein and whenca one' may first seek io compass thp woii-H. woii-H. VJ dcrful subtleties of tho darling child-minds by which we arc surrounded on all sides, but of which, until it is too late, we B, frequently have so little understanding, and with which so many of. us B' ave 8Ucl1 raro sympathy and correspondence. The truth of the matter is this: the child-mind is the. kingdom of heaven, into which wo cannot enter except as little children ourselves. '. A. MUe g'rl shyly whispered in my car the other day : "Mr. Blathwayt, do you believe in fairies?" N B, "Of courso I do," I seriously replied. "All sensible people believe in f nines I" Bf "Mother," she delightedly and triumphantly Bcreamed across a crowd- B ed, luncheon-table, ".Mr. Blathwayt docs believe in fairies 1" Many people will scarcely credit that a middle-aged man can sit IBoberly down rit thiatimo of-day and writo about children and fairies as I am doing gravely and sincerely, but I make no apology for so doing. 1 Rather do I make an, earnest plea for tho cultivation of tho fairy mind in ' tho modern child. B Tho child who is .not robbed of her childhood the most precious gift B that God has given to every comer into this weary world what a woman she will make in after-life the child with the fairy mind, tho woman of the. fairy life. In fairyland, and in fairyland only, the child cultivates its , most natural faculty, imagination; and what is life without imagination? "You can hear the stars shining and tho day after to-morrow com-Hl com-Hl ( ing," onco said a little girl to Mr. Graham Robertson, and it was for her beautiful mind. and wonderful charm of imagination that ho wrote a BLY masque of Midsummer Eve, and through that masque and by means of HP t similar childlike pageants of fairy-lore ho obtained a glimpse into and B 1 a hold over tho loyely mind of a child which to his life's end he will never B forget, nor ever -wish to regret. B s Better than anyone I know, ho is demonstrating tho only possible BK way to get right inside the child-mind. HH And ho is doing it by way of the trees and the flowers, tho birds and B' tho rippling woodland streams, To put it quite roughly, as he said it to B me the other day : "I am trying to hitch the fairy business on to Nature all the time." |