Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Why? Because a belief in the miraculous, a well-developed imagination, and a sense of childlike wonder are all key components for a healthy and innovative person and a healthy and innovative culture.
It is a serious problem in our modern culture that we no longer believe in either magic or miracles. Yes, those are connected. The 11-year-old child who believes in fairies is more likely to be the 26-year-old who believes in the parting of the Red Sea. I am not saying that magic is part of religion or faith, but that a belief in the mystical, miraculous, and inexplicable helps form an excellent young mind — or any mind. Santa Claus is merely St. Nicholas in a different suit; if your first grader scoffs at the existence of Santa Claus, it will not be long before he doubts the existence of St. Nicholas.
I’m not the only one with that opinion. The late, great GK Chesterton wholeheartedly believed that a sense of wonder and a credulity about fairytales were connected to faith. Much of his “Orthodoxy,” for instance, is taken up with discussing the ethics and impact of fairyland. Part of modernity’s problem, he argued, was our warped rejection of fairyland and its philosophy.
Indeed, fairytales are very important for teaching good morals. A child must learn that only the man who fights the dragon is the hero, that only the girl who works hard no matter what her stepmother does will marry the prince, that only the children who don’t defy their parents can avoid the witch in the forest. I remember precious little of the dull lectures of Aristotle, but I know that only the poor soldier who was charitable to a hideous old beggar woman was able to solve the riddle of the twelve dancing princesses. Goodness, truth, beauty— they are all clearly defined in the old fairytales. The stories are memorable because they capture both the intellect and the imagination.
Jesus certainly believed in the importance of fiction for educating people and conveying points, because He personally told parables. He also worked many miracles. Thus individuals who sneer at fairytales and miracles alike are getting dangerously close to sneering at Christ.
Not to mention a well-developed imagination is normal and healthy. It contributes to a person’s wholeness and happiness. Why are the Disney Parks still so wildly popular? Because there it is acceptable and good to dance with fairies, dress like princesses and knights, challenge dragons, and generally live in a world of magic. Of course, we are not supposed to live in that Magic Kingdom all the time, but we should take the imaginative joy from such an experience and have it with us always in our lives.
Why are Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings so popular? Young people are starving for mysticism and magic. They turn not to religion but to fairytales. If they had been taught from an early age the proper balance between fairytales and religion, they would not be unhealthily obsessed with magic to the point of using it as a replacement for religion. The medieval peasant and the Revolutionary shopkeeper spun tales of sprites and witches, avoided haunted graveyards, and went to church on Sunday. The modern teen mocks Santa Claus, despises Jesus, and spends thousands on Hogwarts paraphernalia.
The need for romance and miracles must and will be satisfied some way — that is what the cynics and skeptics don’t understand. If you crush a healthy imagination, it will burst forth in an unhealthy way. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are very good in their proper place, but without a childhood of fairytales and a mystical religion they will become obsessions.
The cynicism has been a problem ever since the Protestant Revolt condemned and misrepresented the mysticism of Catholicism; but there are of course Protestants who knew that the fairies and the myths were vital to the imagination of both individuals and cultures. Our Founding Fathers, both Catholics and Protestants, knew this. They wanted Americans to read the Roman and Greek classics full of gods and magic; they wanted us to understand that God’s miraculous intervention was vital in the creation of the United States.
American artists sculpted Washington as a mythical Roman figure and sketched Jesus handing Thomas Jefferson the Declaration of Independence not because they thought Washington was a deity or Jefferson had the Declaration chucked to him from Heaven. They knew that a society HAS to have its myths and mysticism. Romans had Aeneas, England had King Arthur, Americans had our Founders. All those men really did do heroic deeds, and for all we know weird and wonderful events occurred around them too. The point is that self-righteous cynicism about all these men undermines not just the men themselves, but whole national identities.
Tell your children fairytales. Read fantasy novels. Expect to find a dwarf in every cave and a nymph in every stream. If you do, you will find that the world becomes bigger, better, and more wonderful. You will again recapture the marvelous excitement and joy of the toddler who shouts in delight at the sight of Snow White or Cinderella — and learns thereby that she must be a good woman to become a beautiful princess.
