Read "Children's Reading" by Arthur Quiller-Couch online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
So I return to Aristotle. Aristotle (I shall in fairness say) does not anticipate Dr. Gummere, to contradict or refute him; he may even be held to support him incidentally. But he sticks to business, and this is what he says (Poetics, C. IV):
Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, and these natural causes. First the instinct to imitate is implanted in man from his childhood, and in this he differs from other animals, being the most imitative of them all. Man gets his first learning through imitation, and all men delight in seeing things imitated. This is clearly shown by experience.