Childhoods Favorites and Fairy Stories | Page 2

and mind; they are exceedingly impressionable; and
the future is always in their hands. The first and most imperative duty
of parents is to give their children the best attainable preparation for life,
no matter at what sacrifice to themselves. There are hosts of fathers and
mothers who recognize this obligation but do not know how to

discharge it; who are eager to give their children the most wholesome
conditions, but do not know how to secure them; who are especially
anxious that their children should start early and start right on that
highway of education which is the open road to honorable success.
There are many homes in which books would find abundant room if the
heads of the families knew what books to buy, or had the means to put
into the hands of the growing child the reading matter it needs in the
successive periods of its growth.
This condition of eagerness to give the best, and of ignorance of how or
where to find the best is the justification for the publication of this set
of books. The attempt has been made in a series of twelve volumes to
bring together in convenient form the fairy stories, myths, and legends
which have fed the children of many generations in the years when the
imagination is awakening and craving stimulus and material to work
upon;--that age of myth-making which is a prelude to the more
scientific uses of the mind and of immense importance in an intensely
practical age;--a group of tales of standard quality and an interest and
value which have placed them among the permanent possessions of
English literature; a careful selection of stories of animal life; a natural
history, familiar in style and thoroughly trustworthy in fact; an account
of those travels and adventures which have opened up the earth and
made its resources available, and which constitute one of the most
heroic chapters in the history of the long struggle of men to possess the
earth and make it a home for the highest kind of civilization; a record
of heroism taken from the annals of the patriots and of those brave men
who, in all ages, ranks of society and occupations, have dared to face
great dangers in the path of duty and science, with special attention to
that everyday heroism in which the age is specially rich and of which
so many good people are grossly ignorant; a survey of scientific
achievement, with reports of recent discoveries in knowledge and
adaptation of knowledge to human need; a group of biographies of the
men and women--mostly Americans--who are the most stimulating
companions for boys and girls; a volume on the Fine Arts dealing with
music, painting, sculpture, architecture, in a way to instruct young
readers and making accessible a large number of those songs which
appeal in the best way to children in schools and homes; a collection of

the best poetry for the youngest and oldest readers, chosen not only for
excellence from the standpoint of art, but deep and abiding human
interest; and a volume devoted to the occupations and resources of the
home, addressed to parents no less than to children, with practical
suggestions about books and reading, games and amusements, exercise
and health, and those kindred topics which have to do with making the
home wholesome and attractive.
These twelve volumes aim, in brief, to make the home the most
inspiring school and the most attractive place for pleasure, and to bring
the best the world has to offer of adventure, heroism, achievement and
beauty within its four walls.
Special attention has been given to the youngest children whose
interests are often neglected because they are thought to be too
immature to receive serious impressions from what is read to them.
Psychology is beginning to make us understand that no greater mistake
can be made in the education of children than underrating the
importance of the years when the soil receives the seed most quickly.
For education of the deepest sort--the planting of those formative ideas
which give final direction and quality to the intellectual life--there is no
period so important as the years between three and six, and none so
fruitful. To put in the seed at that time is, as a rule, to decide the kind of
harvest the child will reap later; whether he shall be a shrewd, keen,
clever, ambitious man, with a hard, mechanical mind, bent on getting
the best of the world; or a generous, fruitful, open-minded man, intent
on living the fullest life in mind and heart. No apology is offered for
giving large space to myths, legends, fairy stories, tales of all sorts, and
to poetry; for in these expressions of the creative mind is to be found
the material on which