All children learn La Fontaine's fables, but not one of them understands them. It is just as well that they do not understand, for the morality of the fables is so mixed and so unsuitable for their age that it would be more likely to incline them to vice than to virtue. "More paradoxes!" you exclaim. Paradoxes they may be; but let us see if there is not some truth in them.
I maintain that the child does not understand the fables he is taught, for however you try to explain them, the teaching you wish to extract from them demands ideas which he cannot grasp, while the poetical form which makes it easier to remember makes it harder to understand, so that clearness is sacrificed to facility. Without quoting the host of wholly unintelligible and useless fables which are taught to children because they happen to be in the same book as the others, let us keep to those which the author seems to have written specially for children.
In the whole of La Fontaine's works I only know five or six fables conspicuous for child-like simplicity; I will take the first of these as an example, for it is one whose moral is most suitable for all ages, one which children get hold of with the least difficulty, which they have most pleasure in learning, one which for this very reason the author has placed at the beginning of his book. If his object were really to delight and instruct children, this fable is his masterpiece. Let us go through it and examine it briefly.
THE FOX AND THE CROW
A FABLE
"Maitre corbeau, sur un arbre perche" (Mr. Crow perched on a tree).—"Mr.!" what does that word really mean? What does it mean before a proper noun? What is its meaning here? What is a crow? What is "un arbre perche"? We do not say "on a tree perched," but perched on a tree. So we must speak of poetical inversions, we must distinguish between prose and verse.
"Tenait dans son bec un fromage" (Held a cheese in his beak)—What sort of a cheese? Swiss, Brie, or Dutch? If the child has never seen crows, what is the good of talking about them? If he has seen crows will he believe that they can hold a cheese in their beak? Your illustrations should always be taken from nature.
"Maitre renard, par l'odeur alleche" (Mr. Fox, attracted by the smell).—Another Master! But the title suits the fox,—who is master of all the tricks of his trade. You must explain what a fox is, and distinguish between the real fox and the conventional fox of the fables.
"Alleche." The word is obsolete; you will have to explain it. You will say it is only used in verse. Perhaps the child will ask why people talk differently in verse. How will you answer that question?
"Alleche, par l'odeur d'un fromage." The cheese was held in his beak by a crow perched on a tree; it must indeed have smelt strong if the fox, in his thicket or his earth, could smell it. This is the way you train your pupil in that spirit of right judgment, which rejects all but reasonable arguments, and is able to distinguish between truth and falsehood in other tales.
"Lui tient a peu pres ce langage" (Spoke to him after this fashion).—"Ce langage." So foxes talk, do they! They talk like crows! Mind what you are about, oh, wise tutor; weigh your answer before you give it, it is more important than you suspect.
"Eh! Bonjour, Monsieur le Corbeau!" ("Good-day, Mr. Crow!")—Mr.! The child sees this title laughed to scorn before he knows it is a title of honour. Those who say "Monsieur du Corbeau" will find their work cut out for them to explain that "du."
"Que vous etes joli! Que vous me semblez beau!" ("How handsome you are, how beautiful in my eyes!")—Mere padding. The child, finding the same thing repeated twice over in different words, is learning to speak carelessly. If you say this redundance is a device of the author, a part of the fox's scheme to make his praise seem all the greater by his flow of words, that is a valid excuse for me, but not for my pupil.
"Sans mentir, si votre ramage" ("Without lying, if your song").—"Without lying." So people do tell lies sometimes. What will the child think of you if you tell him the fox only says "Sans mentir" because he is lying?
"Se rapporte a votre plumage" ("Answered to your fine feathers").—"Answered!" What does that mean? Try to make the child compare qualities so different as those of song and plumage; you will see how much he understands.
"Vous seriez le phenix des hotes de ces bois!" ("You would be the phoenix of all the inhabitants of this wood!")—The phoenix! What is a phoenix? All of a sudden we are floundering in the lies of antiquity—we are on the edge of mythology.
"The inhabitants of this wood." What figurative language! The flatterer adopts the grand style to add dignity to his speech, to make it more attractive. Will the child understand this cunning? Does he know, how could he possibly know, what is meant by grand style and simple style?
"A ces mots le corbeau ne se sent pas de joie" (At these words, the crow is beside himself with delight).—To realise the full force of this proverbial expression we must have experienced very strong feeling.
"Et, pour montrer sa belle voix" (And, to show his fine voice).—Remember that the child, to understand this line and the whole fable, must know what is meant by the crow's fine voice.
"Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie" (He opens his wide beak and drops his prey).—This is a splendid line; its very sound suggests a picture. I see the great big ugly gaping beak, I hear the cheese crashing through the branches; but this kind of beauty is thrown away upon children.
"Le renard s'en saisit, et dit, 'Mon bon monsieur'" (The fox catches it, and says, "My dear sir").—So kindness is already folly. You certainly waste no time in teaching your children.
"Apprenez que tout flatteur" ("You must learn that every flatterer").—A general maxim. The child can make neither head nor tail of it.
"Vit au depens de celui qui l'ecoute" ("Lives at the expense of the person who listens to his flattery").—No child of ten ever understood that.
"Ce lecon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute" ("No doubt this lesson is well worth a cheese").—This is intelligible and its meaning is very good. Yet there are few children who could compare a cheese and a lesson, few who would not prefer the cheese. You will therefore have to make them understand that this is said in mockery. What subtlety for a child!
"Le corbeau, honteux et confus" (The crow, ashamed and confused).—A nothing pleonasm, and there is no excuse for it this time.
"Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus" (Swore, but rather too late, that he would not be caught in that way again).—"Swore." What master will be such a fool as to try to explain to a child the meaning of an oath?
What a host of details! but much more would be needed for the analysis of all the ideas in this fable and their reduction to the simple and elementary ideas of which each is composed. But who thinks this analysis necessary to make himself intelligible to children? Who of us is philosopher enough to be able to put himself in the child's place? Let us now proceed to the moral.
Should we teach a six-year-old child that there are people who flatter and lie for the sake of gain? One might perhaps teach them that there are people who make fools of little boys and laugh at their foolish vanity behind their backs. But the whole thing is spoilt by the cheese. You are teaching them how to make another drop his cheese rather than how to keep their own. This is my second paradox, and it is not less weighty than the former one.
Watch children learning their fables and you will see that when they have a chance of applying them they almost always use them exactly contrary to the author's meaning; instead of being on their guard against the fault which you would prevent or cure, they are disposed to like the vice by which one takes advantage of another's defects. In the above fable children laugh at the crow, but they all love the fox. In the next fable you expect them to follow the example of the grasshopper. Not so, they will choose the ant. They do not care to abase themselves, they will always choose the principal part—this is the choice of self-love, a very natural choice. But what a dreadful lesson for children! There could be no monster more detestable than a harsh and avaricious child, who realised what he was asked to give