THE CHILD WITHIN.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."] Silt,—Mr. Stephen Simeon who in his letter to the Spectator of January Srd refers to Grimm (the Brothers Grimm, of folk-lore fame) as " the downright and almost coarse German," and informs us that the same " coarse" German " conceived " "the Gretel who, with her brother, stumbles into the witch's ginger- bread cottage in the wood," seems unaware that the Grimm's Mtirchen are neither the inventions of Grimm nor of any other brain, but rather what one can best call " recapitulations of cosmic events," told in picture-form, and suited to the instruc- tion of the human race at its very earliest stage of evolution. It is, indeed, for this very reason that "fairy-tales "- particular ones such as these, which have " grown" from out a dim and prehistoric past, and have not been invented by any brain, however clever, or artistic, are the best and most whole- some form of literature for young children—especially up to the age of eight or nine, for they thus come to assimilate a certain amount of subconscious teaching while the brain is happily left untortured and untroubled. By the way, the word 114firchen hardly finds its equivalent in "fairy-tale "; eine. MAT (and Marchen is but the diminutive of Mdhr) is rather some tale told on hearsay—something coming to us from a distant date and told by word of mouth.—I am, Sir, dm,
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