"LET THEM BELIEVE IN FAIRIES"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

"LET THEM BELIEVE IN FAIRIES"

By CAROL BIRD (Copyright)

Irish Playwright Thinks We Our Chi To Grow Too Quickly

CCVTTT E take away the toys ol \/V child ren too early and put * * them on to the dark ways of life too soon." In a poignant phrase, Paul Vincent Carroll, the Glasgow school teacher who has been called the greatest Irish playwright since Sean O'Casey, expressed his 6pinion of the crime wo commit against children when we rob them of fantasy and give them stark reality instead. Mr. Carroll is the author of "Shadow and Substance," a Broadway dramatic hit, and he arrived recently in New York to see his play and pay a month's visit. His own life sounds like a fairy story, which is as it should bo, for he is a stauuch defender of fairy stories. He is 37 years of age, slender, and many people call him "shy." He likes to talk, listen, laugh and nsk questions. This Irish playwright who has "struck gold" in tho middle years of his life, was born on tho outskirts of Dundalk, County Louth, and went to Dublin fourteen years later. Ho des-

erted Dublin for Glasgow when ho was 21, because he knew it would bo easier to find a coaching job there. For the last seventeen years ho has taught in slum schools in the Glasgow district and has lived in a tenement Hat with his wife and three children on tho £7 weekly salary ho earns. Ho is immensely pleased and surprised that his play is bringing him in £2OO a week, above taxes. Hut, in spite of his newly-acquired wealth, he thinks he will continue to teach his 45 boys, who range from 10 to 12 years of age, at least for a while. Mr. Carroll has long been connected with tho Abbey Theatre, of Dublin, which first produced "Shadow and Substance" in 1037, and also i?i 1032 his "Things That Are Caesar's," Imagination Destroyed Since the greater part of his life has been given over to teaching children, wo asked Mr. Carroll about current education. Is it giving little ones all they need for the enjoyment of youth and as a preparation for life?

lt was then that Mr. Carroll, tho Irishman, who probably in his own youth believed in leprechauns and "little people," good fairies, goldenhaired Princesses and brave Princes, and who undoubtedly regales his own three little daughters—who call their daddy "Paul"—with tales which 'prod and stir their imagination, began his indictment of schools thus: "It is tho tendency nowadays to destroy lovely beliefs in children's minds too early—to niako them too precocious. Wo destroy their imagination, their faith in fairies and in fantasy. Now, I think it is a great pity that fantasy, which exists in most children's minds, should be destroyed so early. "Children should bo permitted to retain their fanciful, their whimsical beliefs for a longer stretch of time; tho longer they retain them the more their imagination is nourished. You cannot nourish a strong imagination on the things- of realism. "If you bring the children too close to realism before it is absolutely, necessary, you will find that later you

will meet young people, certain young people, and you will instinctively know, and they will confess to you, that they were never really young simply because they wero introduced to reality too soon.

"Wo have all met the old-young women, the old-young men—those tooserious minded persons who really never have enjoyed a childhood as it should be enjoyed. This premature seriousness, this gravity, was caused by the early destruction of the fantasy that exists in all young minds* They were told there is no Santa Claus, there is no fairy god-mother, no good little Princess —all. that band of lovely creatures they had read about and dreamed about were wiped out for them. "If I had my way with kiddies, I would steep them, when thoy were very young, in fairy lore and I would graduate them from that into folktales. I would steep them first in the folk-tales of their own nation, then in the folk-tales of all nations. That always loads to internationalism in the children's minds and to an understanding of the beauty and loveliness of other countries. 16 makes them broad-minded, sympathetic, and draws them away from the narrow, tlio petty and the insular. Shelter from Cruelty "I believe if you drench children in folk-lore that you nourish and strengthen their imagination tremendously. You lift them above the sordid in life, you shelter them from cruelties and you givo them that amount of fantasy which preserves them from being shocked by the things of life at too early

an age. "The direct route to the thoatro and drama runs right through these things, especially through folk-lore. 1 don't think any person can understand or appreciate the thoatro as a groat moulding forco without a very intimate knowledge of folk-loro, especially when wo consider that folk-lore is so closely hound up with music, native music and native dancing—also with the music and dancing of other nations. The folk-lore of any nation is always bound clqsoly with the music and dancing of that nation. "A thorough immersing in this sort of work preserves the children from the mathematical outlook on life and at the same timo it does not destroy the practical. J mean those things that will make them good citizens. American Schools "From what I have seen of American schools, J. have been delighted at the interest in and the attention to the drama, and the. importance attached to it in the schools. Jn that respect America is far ahead of Great Britain. "When we tako this into account and also the fact that tho Government of,the United States spends an enormous amount of money in the advancement of the drama through tho Federal Theatre projects, thoro can absolutely be no doubt at all but that soino timo in the future America will have the greatest theatre iii the world. That is, she will have if she holds on to tho fact that the theatre should not ho exploited h t v selfish money-getters, but that it should bo regarded at all times as the greatest, tho most powerful moral forco that wo have in any nation."