Fairies, like angels, may be God's messengers. A child who had heard of St. Cuthbert as a shepherd boy being carried home from the hillside when hurt, by a man on a white horse, repeated the story in her own words, "and he thought it was a fairy of God's sent to help him." There is, however, nothing the children love more than the Bible story, the story which shows, so simply, humanity struggling as the children struggle, failing as the children fail, and believing and trusting as the children believe, and as we at least strive to do, in the ultimate victory of Right over Wrong, of Good over Evil. But just because the stories are often so beautiful and so inspiring, the teacher should have freedom to deal with them as the spirit moves her. What experience has taught me in this way has already been passed on to younger teachers in _Education by Life_, and there seems little more to add. Wonders chiefly at himself Who can tell him what he is. It is for us to tell the child what he is, that he, too, like all the things he loves, is a manifestation of God. "I am a being alive and conscious upon this earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, and with struggle and suffering became man."[27] [Footnote 27: _The Substance of Faith Allied with Science_, Sir Oliver Lodge (Methuen).] "The colossal remains of shattered mountain chains speak of the greatness of God; and man is encouraged and lifts himself up by them, feeling within himself the same spirit and power."[28] [Footnote 28: _The Education of Man_.] CHAPTER XI RHYTHM Lo with the ancient roots of Man's nature Twines the eternal passion of song. The very existence of lullabies, not to mention their abundance in all countries, the very rockers on the cradles testify to the rhythmic nature of man in infancy. In his _Mother Songs_, Froebel couples rhythm with harmony of all kinds, not only musical harmony but harmony of proportion and colour, and in urging the very early training of "the germs of all this," he gives perhaps the chief reason for training. "If these germs do not develop and take shape as independent formations in each individual, they at least teach how to understand and to recognise those of other people. This is life-gain enough, it makes one's life richer, richer by the lives of others." It is to the genius of M. Jacques Dalcroze that the world of to-day owes some idea of what may be effected by rhythmic training, and M. Dalcroze started his work with the same aim that Froebel set before the mother, that of making the child capable of appreciation, capable of being made "richer by the lives of others." But Froebel prophesied that far more than appreciation would come from proper rhythmic training, and this M. Dalcroze has amply proved.