Preface

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 <&AEligsop’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 <&AEligsop> 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 from 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 the Appendix to the present volume.  The ingenious teacher will find numerous 
ways in which this duplication of stories may be turned to account.  Comparison 
of the two forms will suggest many exercises to be performed by the pupils 
themselves, in which the longer forms of the fables may be built up from 
the shorter forms, and vice versa.  The teacher who is interested in dramatic 
work will find also that many of the fables will make excellent material for 
dramatic presentation in the classroom.

The Editor