When it comes to the secrets of fairy tales, children are much smarter than most adults. Children know that princesses are always beautiful and sweet, and that princes are always handsome and charming. They believe in magic. Adults on the other hand, especially those who like to call themselves 'educated', take great pride in revealing to the rest of us that princesses are NOT always beautiful and sweet, and that princes are sometimes great big jerks.

What makes children so much smarter than adults on this subject is that children are more hopeful and more honest. For example children know that wondrous things exist in the world, and that female beauty is just one of them. They know, as we all do deep down, that beauty is a sign of great value. For example, a recent 20/20 episode featured a story in which a reporter showed photos of varyingly attractive people to classrooms of public school children and asked the kids who they thought the smarter, friendlier, more athletic people were. Without fail the children picked the more attractive people.

Kids know, without being taught, that beauty represents character and ability, and indeed, all human values. Even so, they tend to grow up and become adults who forget this most basic bit of human knowledge. They learn to resent human beauty and goodness, and they do their best to blur the connection between them. They teach us that beauty is a trickster, an imposter, and an illusion. They take great pleasure in telling us that we have been lied to by children's books, that beauty is not the great thing we have always thought, but is, in reality, superficial, suspicious, shallow, mysterious, sinister, immoral, depraved, dangerous, destructive and deadly - the very opposite to what fairy tales say it is. They seem to take a special joy in telling children this.

These same people have even taken it upon themselves to rewrite classic children's stories to better reflect this 'reality' about beauty. In fact, they have come up with books about frogs that turn into bums when kissed by a beautiful princess, and princesses with no real beauty who get bored with their charming princes.

These stories are less than inspiring. They lack the charisma, the excitement, the irony, the horror, and the romance of real fairy tales. The reason is because real fairy tales have something these 'politically correct' substitutes don't have: respect for human values. These stories are missing those things that make life worth living, things like excitement, future, promise, happiness, bravery, treasure, spirituality, purpose, danger, success, adventure, etc. This is important to notice: beauty in fairy tales is attacked by people who have no concept of values - people who have everything wrong in life - including their views on beauty.

The reason for their errors, the reason they completely miss the realm of values, and the reason they misunderstand the true nature of beauty, is because these adults have never grown up. They have graduated from the finest universities in the world, but they have never graduated from childhood. They can write books on advanced metaphysical gender issues, but they cannot read a simple fairy tale. They have never learned the simplest lesson in the simplest children's book, and that is: beauty is good.

And, strangely enough, they have never learned that children's books are for kids. Instead they think children's books are a perfect place to work out their own personal psychological issues about beauty and morality. Kids don't want - or need - to hear about frogs turning into bums, or princesses who don't want any romance in their lives. They need to hear about the great and wondrous things in life - they need to hear about values.

This is why beauty is so good: it naturally represents character and values. It does so dramatically, symbolically, and aesthetically. Not literally. It is not - and was never meant to be - a replacement for them. By attracting children to the characters who possess it, beauty allows children to learn which qualities of character are good.

Beauty is our first experience with - and introduction to - the realm of morality and values. It is our most fundamental symbol of pure goodness. This is why, in story books, princesses have to be beautiful and princes must be charming.

Everyone but children needs to learn this.