Æsop's Fables: A Version for Young Readers. Aesop

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      THE good fortune which has attended the earlier edition of this book is a proof that there is less occasion now than formerly to plead the cause of fables for use in elementary schools. And yet their value is still too little recognized. The homely wisdom, which the fables represent so aptly, was a more common possession of intelligent people of a generation or two ago than it is at the present time. It had then a better chance of being passed on by natural tradition than is now the case among the less homogeneous parentage of our school children. And there has never been a greater need than now for the kind of seed-sowing for character that is afforded by this means. As in the troubled times in Greece in Æsop’s day, twenty-five centuries ago, moral teaching to be salutary must be largely shorn of didactic implications and veiled with wit and satire. This insures its most vital working wherever its teaching is pertinent. To be whipped, warned, shamed, or encouraged, and so corrected, over the heads of animals as they are represented in the expression of their native traits, is the least offensive way that can fall to a person’s lot. Among several hundred episodes, knowledge of which is acquired in childhood as a part of an educational routine, most conservative estimates would allow for large, substantial results in practical wit and wisdom, to be reaped as later life calls for them.

      It is well recognized by scholars, and should be taught to children, that not all the fables attributed to Æsop are of so early a date. Imitations of his genius all along the centuries have masqueraded under his name. Facts about him appear in the Introduction.

      No occasion has been found to change in this edition the style of presentation so highly approved in the original one; but, as a considerable number of the stories, especially in the earlier pages of the book, are amplified somewhat in language form to accommodate them to the needs of children unfamiliar with the animals portrayed, it has been thought wise to present these in the briefer form in which they are generally known to adult readers. These are to be found in an Appendix to the present volume. The ingenious teacher will find numerous ways in which this duplication of stories may be turned to account. Comparison СКАЧАТЬ