That the children might be most nobly born, and reared in an
environment calculated to allow the richest, freest growth, they
had deliberately remodeled and improved the whole state.
I do not mean in the least that they stopped at that, any more
than a child stops at childhood. The most impressive part of their
whole culture beyond this perfect system of child-rearing was
the range of interests and associations open to them all, for life.
But in the field of literature I was most struck, at first, by the
child-motive.
They had the same gradation of simple repetitive verse and story
that we are familiar with, and the most exquisite, imaginative tales;
but where, with us, these are the dribbled remnants of ancient folk
myths and primitive lullabies, theirs were the exquisite work of great
artists; not only simple and unfailing in appeal to the child-mind,
but TRUE, true to the living world about them.
To sit in one of their nurseries for a day was to change one's
views forever as to babyhood.
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