Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities
1913
Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities
1913
Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities is a non-fiction work by E. Nesbit, first published in 1913. This reflective book critiques traditional educational methods, advocating for imaginative play and creativity in children's development. Nesbit emphasizes the importance of understanding a child's inner world and encourages adults to reconnect with their own childhood experiences to better nurture children's curiosity and creativity. The book includes illustrations of constructed 'magic cities,' serving as inspiration for fostering children's imaginative capabilities.
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“Therefore I would plead with all those who have to do with children to resist and to denounce uglification wherever they may meet with it, and to remember that there is knowledge which goes hand in hand with beauty. To show a child beautiful things, and to answer as well all the questions he will ask about them, to charm and thrill his imagination with pictures and statues and models of the wonders of the world, to familiarise the child with beauty, so that he knows ugliness when he meets it, and hates it for the outrage it is to the beauty he has known and loved ever since he was very little”
— E. Nesbit
“But Mr. Gradgrind prefers the lantern unlighted. Material facts are good enough for him. Until it comes to religion. And then, suddenly, the child who has been forbidden to believe in Jack the Giant Killer must believe in Goliath and David. There are no fairies, but you must believe that there are angels. The magic sword and the magic buckler are nonsense, but the child must not have any doubts about the breastplate of righteousness and the sword of the Spirit. What spiritual reaction do you expect when, after denying all the symbolic stories and legends, you suddenly confront your poor little Materialist with the Most Wonderful Story in the world?””
— E. Nesbit
“But there are those who are not as you and I. These say that all the enchanting fairy romances are lies, that nothing is real that cannot be measured or weighed, seen or heard or handled. Such make their idols of stocks and stones, and are blind and deaf to the things of the spirit. These hard-fingered materialists crush the beautiful butterfly wings of imagination, insisting that pork and pews and public-houses are more real than poetry; that a looking-glass is more real than love, a viper than valour. These Gradgrinds give to the children the stones which they call facts, and deny to the little ones the daily bread of dreams.””
— E. Nesbit
“I would have every man and woman in whom the heart of childhood still lives, protest, however feebly and haltingly, yet with all the power of the heart, against machine-made education”
— E. Nesbit
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Nesbit, E.. Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities. Lex, lex-books.com/book/wings-and-the-child-or-the-building-of-magic-cities-d1d79893-a5be-4542-93a6-2f9b1167884e.Nesbit, E. (1913). Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/wings-and-the-child-or-the-building-of-magic-cities-d1d79893-a5be-4542-93a6-2f9b1167884eNesbit, E.. Wings and the Child; Or, The Building of Magic Cities. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/wings-and-the-child-or-the-building-of-magic-cities-d1d79893-a5be-4542-93a6-2f9b1167884e.
