Show Russia Removes Fairy Bans Childish Classics Restored Though time tIle Russians Were b hy by N No Means the First to Consider Nursery Literature re Dangerous If It the belief bellet Is widespread that the world orId Is going mad counter evidence is furnished d In a n quarter least llast to be suspected suspected n Russia That country has hOl removed Its Us ban banon banon banon on childrens children's classics and fairy tales Crusoe In Is first on the list of ot nursery favorites to be reprinted by the hundred thousand It may be that this book will not como come from the press Just as Defoe Detoe wrote It tor for It has hns an element clement of piety that Soviet does docs not formally endorse Lynd of ot the News Chron icle London finds It difficult to understand understand un un- how the Russian authorities author ties originally came to believe that reading rending the nursery classics was likely likely likely like like- ly to turn good god Bolshevik children Into wicked reactionaries lie He points out that The Emperors Emperor's New Clothes Cloths Is as os sharp a n satire on the ways my of ot courtiers as ns any Communist could have written Also he argues that the marriage of ot a R poor nan man with a princess or n a poor girl With Ith Witha Itha a king might be used as propaganda for human equality but Id Ideas as were rushing too fast tast In one direction for tor Soviet officials to see It that way He lIe draws upon America for tor support The American Republic has survived survived sur sur- the perils Implicit In fairy tales for tor a n century and a half without ever having bad had to revise the stories so as asto asto asto to make I the b maid beggar marry the president Instead of ot the king and to leave Cinderella living happily ever eTer after as the time wife of ot the mayor of ot New York Mr lIr Lynd does the Russians justice justice justice jus jus- tice In saying Baying that they have not been the tile first people to suspect the presence of ot poison polson In nursery litera litera- ture There have been Puritans of ot otso so stern a cast that they looked on fairy tales ns as frivolous lies which h It was dangerous to put Into the hands of ot children It might also be added that modern radicals have come near nar the Puritan Ideal by condemning fairy tales for another reason that reason that they give false Ideals of life Our early Puritans may have known nothing of ot these stories and andEO so EO did not condemn them but the substitutes they offered are shown In Ina Inn ina a n recent book by Dr A. A S. S Rosenbach Rosen Rosen- Rosenbach bach Early American Childrens Children's ns Books nooks upon which Miss Carolyn Wells offers tills this comment In the New NewYork NewYork NewYork York American To me the book Is of ot absorbing Interest because It convinces me IDe of ot something I have o heretofore refus refused d to believe in the to-the the stern and rockbound rock rock- rockbound bound hearts of ot the tile Pilgrim Fathers I felt the awful tales of ot their strict and rigorous training of ot young oung pee pea pie JIll must be exaggerated It If not positively flosi lively untrue lint Hut Judging as one may and must by the literature gl given given en to youth In n those times It Is evident evi evi- evident dent that the Fathers W were re more cruel to their offspring than the younger generation of today Is to Its parents The first book took for tor children printed In America published In n Boston In 1082 was all The Rule nule of ot the New Crea ture-to ture Bo Be Practiced Every Day flay In All the Particulars of It Which Ate Are Ten Tea The book begins thus Bo no sensible of ot thy Original Corruption dally daily how It Inclines thee to evil and thee to good groan loan under It and bewail ILI It IL ItI I had no reason renson to be surprised at these admonitions for tor at my own Sunday school I recited from an infant Infant In in- fant catechism which I still remember ber her almost word for word One Ono of ot I Its early arly questions was What are you then by nature To which my RUb glib reply for I alwa always 1 knew my lessons was I am an enemy of ot G Ga Gort Gorta a child of ot Satan and an heir of ot hell hell At that dint time I had reached the mil mature lure age of four Literary Literary Di gest gent |