munteres spätzchen) on a neighbouring twig, who, after remarking that a fat spider with the essence of another one inside it was precisely what he desiderated for a morning meal, hopped down and partook of the same. "This," says the moralist, "is the way of the world, and thus does each of us serve the other in the economy of nature."[1]
After this glorification of "the good old rule, the simple plan," under the mask of Cosmic Service, I will ask the reader to turn to the foot of the page and read the old folk-story which impresses the three-fold rule of keeping the high road, holding one's tongue, and thinking twice before acting once.[2] I do not hold up this practical worldly-mindedness as the highest morality that might be inculcated; but I venture to think that for both literary and ethical excellence the folk-story far exceeds the Weltdienst of modern Teutonic sentimentality. Yet the publication of this extraordinary spider story as a model shows how very far teachers are from understanding the conditions under which a moral story can be successful, and how very much they can learn from a study of those ethical folk-stories which it is one object of our Society to preserve.
II.—But, if folk-lore thus affords a valuable training to educators and moralists, the results of educational and psychological inquiries are no less valuable to folk-lore. For, in the last resort, the interpretation of folk-lore involves important questions of psychology. We have two schools of interpretation of the traditions of early man: the one holding that they should be taken literally, the other that they should be taken metaphorically. For instance,
- ↑ Erziehung der Gegenwart, April, 1883, p. 8.
- ↑ The story, as given in Gonzenbach's Siciliänische Märchen (No. 81)—the only version I have at hand—is that of a youth, who leaves his widowed mother, and takes service abroad with a Cardinal. At the end of his service, he pays back all his wages to his master for the three pieces of advice mentioned above. By keeping the high road he escapes the clutches of a band of highwaymen who infest the byways and short cuts. By holding his tongue he escapes being murdered by an eccentric host, who amuses himself by shortening the career of over-curious guests. By thinking twice before acting once he himself escapes the guilt of murder; for as he comes home he sees a strange man standing on the mother's doorstep where he ought not. The son's first thought is to slay the intruder, but, happily deferring the deed till the morning, it is discovered that the two are brothers.
