The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7300 p648
22 May 2004

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Looking at fairy tales more
Things to come — facing the future more
Universal language is no longer being taught more
And I quote ... more

Looking at fairy tales

For probably much longer than we realise, parents have told traditional fairy tales to their children. In the field of European lore we have been brought up to wonder at the doings of fabulous princes and princesses, fairy godmothers, wicked uncles and aunts, ogres and monsters and the strange adventures of innocent children who become involved with them.

Fairy tales of French origin have inspired not only our childhood leisure but also works of art and pantomimes, and in general they tend to be less removed from real human situations than many of the tales of Teutonic and Oriental origin. Yet over the past few centuries we have often tried to soften their impact upon immature imaginations.

In 1697 Charles Perrault published his ‘Histoires ou contes du temps passé’. This was followed a year later by another collection by Madame d’Aulnoy. Both authors made a lasting contribution to our culture but, in particular, we owe a great deal to the eight principal tales related by Perrault, including Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard, which have provided fuel for our pantomimes. In the course of adapting them, however, we have toned down the stark ferocity included in some tales, until we neglect some of the morals they pose for our children.

Take ‘La Belle au bois dormant’, for instance. This has become idyllic in modern times. The adventurous prince breaks through a thicket to find his princess, kiss her awake and take her to the home of his parents to live happily ever after. As the Tennysonian version has it: “Across the hills and far away / Beyond their utmost purple rim, / And deep into the dying day / The happy princess followed him.” Nothing could be more satisfactory, and we usually choose to leave it there. But, if we read Perrault’s 1697 text, we find that, after the couple have taken up residence with the prince’s parents and had two children, the princess’s mother-in-law turns out to be really an ogress, who tries repeatedly to eat her grandchildren. Such a situation is common in our fairy tale repertoire, but by and large we contrive to shield our children from completing the picture.

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Things to come — facing the future

A rather grim situation facing the civilised world is presented in the 30 April issue of Science by Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, who is a special adviser to Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations.

Sachs reports that a gathering of scientists and public policy experts this year expressed serious concern over global-scale interactions between a growing human population and the state of terrestrial processes. In the past century the earth’s human population has increased four-fold and economic activity per person has risen roughly 4.5-fold. There have been repercussions on the survival of plant and animal species, biodiversity and ecosystems. Climate has changed, ground water has become depleted, soil nutrients have been lost and new emergent diseases are threatening health and life. At the same time the efforts of society to mitigate serious consequences have been inadequate.

These changes are likely to intensify in coming decades and, although matters might have settled down by 2100, there will be a long period when pressures may become intolerable. Global society is both fearful and hopeful. With rising populations, depletion of terrestrial resources and increasing environmental stress, different populations will clash in competition. Rich nations, particularly the US, are allocating enormous resources to military organisations. But they spend little on science and technology designed to meet the global challenge. The environmental needs of the world’s poorest people are ignored, leading to further tensions.

The public needs to understand the position. Political leaders seem unwilling to perceive anything but the application of force. Scientists must come to the rescue and play a more prominent role in public leadership and information. People call for data and solutions that are factual and not political spin.

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Universal language is no longer being taught

In a book published in 1923, entitled ‘Music, health and character’, Dr Agnes Savill argued: “Music is a universal language which can be understood and enjoyed by the poorest and the most uncultured of the population.” She went on to remark: “If only one could persuade the unmusical that the door, once opened, leads to untold and indescribable joys, they would surely take some trouble to discover a method of entry.”

Dr Savill describes her own initiation into the intoxicating land of music while she was still studying medicine. At 18 she claimed to be bored and tired by music, and she records that she was persuaded to attend a recital by Paderewski but took with her an anatomy book which she perused throughout. Her schooldays had convinced her that music meant practising scales and tuneless classics on cold winter nights or early mornings and, as a student, she found too many other demands on her time. When she eventually acquired a player-piano, after prompting by a friend, she discovered that Chopin études, nocturnes and preludes were addictive. From that day forward she was lavish in her advocacy of music and (as Congreve had put it) its “charms to soothe a savage breast”.

There are close parallels between the psychological effects of poetry and those of music, and not long since they were accepted without criticism as legitimate and desirable subjects for study in schools. Today there is a lamentable tendency to play down their educational and civilising potential in favour of other more recent studies. No account is taken of the role of music and literature in shaping a balanced and all-embracing attitude towards the society in which we are attempting to live a happy and peaceful existence. Schools no longer engage in the musical activities that used to bring students closer together intellectually. They are too busy doing other things with electronic contraptions. In the long run we stand to suffer from the narrowing of outlook that results.

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And I quote ...

Useless wit
“Overmuch quickness of wit, either given by nature or sharpened by study, doth not commonly bring forth either greatest learning, best manners, or happiest life at the end.”
— Roger Ascham: ‘The schoolmaster’ (1570).

Vive l’artiste!
“It is the artist who, more than other men, is able to create something out of nothing. A whole artistic work is immeasurably more than the sum of its parts.”
— Dorothy L. Sayers: ‘The mind of the maker’ (1941).

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